May I always rip packs

 

Last week I thought I had a post idea for this week about how I wanted to collect.

I thought it was time to give up on modern cards. I had done my best to ignore a lot of the extras and gimmicks that come with modern cards, sticking primarily with base cards and perfectly happy to do that, sometimes even completing the set.

But even the base cards aren't like they once were -- and I'm not talking about card stock. It's all stuff I've complained about before. The images are samey-same, pitchers pitching, hitters hitting, runners running, celebrating ballplayers celebrating. The photos are cropped so tight that you know Topps or MLB is trying to hide something. When there are backgrounds, sometimes they aren't actual backgrounds, they're stock photos. The sheer amount of City Connect uniforms in sets the last couple of years has to be a concerted marketing effort to get fans to buy them and they also take away from true representation of the team on cards. And, finally, there are more rookie cards inserted into sets than ever before, across every brand, in brands that never included them, or at least didn't emphasize them.

In short, what am I doing? Why am I still buying?

Even though I've cut back drastically in the last 10-15 years, I was thinking of making a post saying that as far as modern cards, I'd buy a pack or two upon release -- of stuff like flagship and Heritage -- and I'd be done.

 

Yet I'd be sad. I think ripping packs is one of the core elements of being a sports card collector. Eliminate that and there's going to be some definition rewriting.

Then yesterday arrived.

I had the day off. It was my Memorial Day off since I didn't get to take it when everyone else does. I embraced the day the way middle-aged people do: hot damn, I get to run some errands.

I headed to Walmart to get items I knew would be there (the only reason I go to Walmart, it's all about in-and-out as fast as possible). I checked the card aisle, which I forgot is extraordinarily sad at this Walmart -- I had been spoiled by the Series 2 blaster I found up north a couple weeks ago.

But that's OK, I had to go to Target, too. (You think Walmart has coconut water?). They had plenty of cards and I stared at all the Series 2 possibilities. I ignored most of them because I didn't want a bunch of dupes and settled on a fat pack of 36 cards.

 

Oh, and, clearly I hadn't come to a conclusion on my idea above of ignoring modern cards.

 

Commence pack opening:

 

 OK, the first nine cards were dupes. I forgot to include "collation" in the rant above. Topps collation has been dreadful for a number of years. There's no way I should be punished after buying ONE blaster with a stream of dupes. I've barely bought any!

 

The next two cards were new. The streak of repeats was broken.

But here's another run of dupes! Six more. I now have four of the Evan Phillips card. June isn't even over. So that's 17 cards and two were new.

But then these were all new. That's better.

And a Dodger card that I needed! 

And these are new, too! Another Dodger need down! The pack has corrected itself! Nice work, pack. I knew you could do it.

And then I closed out the run of base cards with four more needs.

(Yes, I know, you see it. But I was still clueless at this point).

I actually looked up the Drew Smyly card because the photo was interesting and I thought it might be a variation. It wasn't. Then I looked at the Jackson Holliday card and thought "Oh cool, that's a good rookie to pull."

No light bulb. None. Not a hint.

It wasn't until I was entering these cards into TCDB hours later that I realized that something was different. I looked up the Jackson Holliday card and all I saw at card number 697 were a bunch of Holliday variations. "What the heck?" I thought, "Where is the base Jackson Holliday card?"

I didn't know what box to check. But one of the boxes said "Var, Batting" and even though it also said SP and I still didn't think I was looking at an SP, I checked it. And the next thing I knew TCDB said:

"$108.06" for that card, sir.

OK! That's when the light bulb went off and I looked at entire set rather than just the Orioles team and realized that the Holliday card -- all the Holliday cards -- were a variation of the Jordan Diaz card at No. 697.

 

Strangely, Jordan Diaz was the first card in the fat pack. Should I have known something when I pulled the Diaz?

Those are the two card backs with the Holliday featuring the 4428 code down at the bottom right that indicates a variation.

Here is a more realistic look at what my copy of the Hollday variation is selling for:

 

Sixty-five dollars is still nice.

 

And there are still people trying for $100.

This particular variation I think is the more common of the short-prints. The ones where he's displaying a bat in tribute to the 1989 Fleer Bill Ripken F-Face card go for more money.

These are pretty dumb and I'm glad I didn't pull one of these versions because I'd feel obligated to sell it and that is so much work.

But this is also the reason I thought the Holliday card I pulled was a regular old card because so much noise was made about the bat knob cards.

 

 

Oh yeah, I forgot the inserts.

So, anyway, I LOVE it when I pull cards like the Holliday SP. Not only is it a special little thrill that comes around only so often but I get to imagine all the people who opened a ton of product to get this card and all I had to do was buy one fat pack.

Ripping cards is FUN, even with the bad collation, with the dumb City Connects, with the rookies and fake backgrounds. Because among all of that are some cards I like, and if the design is good -- like it is this year -- that helps things a lot.

I do think that I am continuing on the gradual path of pulling away from modern cards that started around 2012 or so. But I hope I always, always, ALWAYS find some time to rip some packs every once in awhile.

Because there is no thrill like that thrill anywhere else in this hobby.