BBA: 5 Best Pack Pulled Hits

I'm always down for a Blog Bat-Around.  The topic currently trending around the blogosphere is posting your five best pack pulled hits.  It was inspired by Matt over at Diamond Jesters who utilized TCDB to create a list of all of his relics, autographs, and serial numbered cards in his collection.  He then isolated which ones were pulled from packs and voilà he formed his list.

Regretfully... I have yet to inventory my entire collection of anything outside of my Steve Largent PC on TCDB... so my process will be a little more challenging and probably inaccurate (in the sense that I might be forgetting some cards).

For the sake of this BBA, I'm going to follow Matt's guidelines of only counting relics, autographs, and serial numbered cards that I have personally pulled from a pack.  I haven't been opening up a lot of packs or boxes since the pandemic, but thankfully there were a few periods in my life when I did.  All of these hits were from those times.

Let's start things off with a few honorable mentions...

Honorable Mention #1:  Gehrig Bat Card

2004 Topps Clubhouse Collection

Career Legends Relics #CL-LG2 (#'d 158/184)

This card would definitely make my Top 5... but there's an asterisk attached to it.  Technically I wasn't the one who pulled this sweet card from a pack.  That honor goes to Colbey over at Cardboard Connections who hosted a group break and I happened to purchase the New York Yankees.

Honorable Mention #2:  Printing Plates

2020 Topps A&G Framed Black Printing Plate #30 Eloy Jimenz

2009 Topps 206 Printing Plate Mini Piedmont #104 Mark Melancon

2007-08 Topps Signature Printing Plate #TS-DJ Deandre Jordan

2017 Topps Bunt Magenta Printing Plate #132 Carlos Gonzalez

I felt like I should at least recognize the printing plates I've pulled.  There might have been one or two more.  Maybe one day it'll come to me.  Maybe it won't.

Honorable Mention #3:  Golden Babe Ruth of Higo 

2022 Topps Chrome NPB

1958 Gold Refractor #58-20 (#'d 37/50)

I pulled this shiny refractor from a box of cards that SumoMenkoMan sent me last Christmas.  Munetaka Murakami is one of the best hitters in the NPB and he's only 24 years old.  We'll just have to wait and see if he can carry his big numbers over to the MLB in a few years.

Honorable Mention #4:  An Under-Appreciated Relic Card

1996 Press Pass Jersey Card #J3

This was the first jersey card I ever pulled from a pack.... which makes sense when you see the year this card was produced.  Upper Deck gets credit for producing the first memorabilia cards in 1996, but Press Pass wasn't very far behind.

Honorable Mention #5:  Jumbo Jeter

2003 Flair Sweet Swatch Jumbo Jersey #DJ-SSJ

This is one of those questionable pack pulls.  Did I pull it from a pack?  Yeah.  But it was one of those 2003 Flair box topper packs that came in a Fairfield Collector's Cache Box from a decade ago.  Each of those packs contained either a memorabilia card or an autograph.  I actually pulled a Jeff Bagwell autograph too... but I like the Jeter more.

Honorable Mention #6:  Secretariat's Saddle

2012 Panini Golden Age Museum Age Authentic Collection #20

In regards of coolness... this card can be swapped into any of the Top 5 spots.  I've only been to the track a few times in my life, so my knowledge of horse racing is limited.  But I definitely know the name "Secretariat".

Alright... enough of the honorable mentions.  Let's get to my five best pack pulled hits...

#5:  A Fundamental Signature

1999-00 Topps Gallery Autographs #TD

I knew this was a pretty nice hit when I pulled it back in 1999 or the early 2000's.  But years later, I discovered it was a pretty significant one.

Some players don't have a lot of certified pack inserted autographs.  Tim Duncan is one of those guys.  

#4:  One Joe Leads to Another

2008 UD Masterpieces Stroke of Genius

Redemption Card for Joe Montana

Back in 2011, I opened a case of this product and as luck would have it... I pulled a redemption card of one of the greatest quarterbacks of all-time.  Too bad it was expired.

I reached out to someone over at Upper Deck and this card eventually showed up as a consolation prize:

2008 UD Masterpieces Stroke of Genius #SOG50

I didn't hold onto this card for long.  Flipped it on eBay for a nice chunk of change.

#3a:  Beautiful Bird

2009-10 Bowman 48 Locker Room

Autographed Relic #LRCAR-LB

There was a short period in my life when I enjoyed buying cases on clearance and opening them.  2009-10 Bowman 48 was one of them.  There are a few cards from that case break that could make this list in regards to monetary value, but I'll keep it to two and let you decide which one makes the cut.

First up is this low numbered, patch auto of Larry Legend.  Even though I grew up hating the Celtics... I was pretty stoked to add this card to my collection.  I don't normally sell cards, but I did end up selling it at a card show a couple of years ago.

Here's the other card I really like from that case...

#3b:  The Baby Faced Assassin

2009-10 Bowman 48 #106

If there was a Mount Rushmore of all-time Bay Area sports legends voted on by fans... I'm pretty confident Steph would be on it.  The guy is very popular around here and his rookie cards sell for crazy money.

I ended up pulling two copies of this card and two of his blue bordered parallels.

It's not one of his most attractive rookie cards, but it's serial numbered and people are willing to pay a lot of money for it.

#2:  The Only Rickey Autograph

2014 Panini Hometown Heroes Scripted Legacy #SLRH

This card has the least monetary value on the list, but it has a ton of sentimental value.

I have accumulated a bunch of Rickey Henderson autographs over the years, but this is the only one I pulled from a pack myself.

#1:  My Sweetest Pull of All-Time

1999 UD Retro Inkredible #WP

As a child of the 70's and 80's, I had the honor of watching Walter Payton play.   Ask football fans from that era and they'll tell you he was special and one of the all-time greats.  Sadly he passed away only a few months after turning forty-six.

I pulled this card from a pack a few months later (shortly after pulling the Duncan auto) and it became the cornerstone of my autograph collection.  One of my buddies is a huge Chicago Bears fan, so I eventually sold this to him when I sold off the bulk of my collection in the early 2000's.  Thankfully he held onto it... and was willing to sell it back to me over a decade later.

Well that's my list of best pack pulled hits.  This was a pretty challenging post to write... and there's a chance I'm leaving some cards off this list.  Even as I'm wrapping up this post, I just remembered a couple of hockey cards I pulled in the mid 90's that are probably worth mentioning.  But it's in the wee hours of the morning and I don't have the time to dig them out and scan them.

So I'll wrap things out with a quick thank you to Matt for kicking off this Blog Bat-Around.  

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

A Hobby Hazzard

1992 was a big year for me in regards to card collecting.  I worked at the card shop located less than a mile from my parent's house and spent most of my hard earned money on building a master set of 1992 Fleer Ultra baseball.

That didn't leave me with a lot of money to spend on other products that year.  Fast forward three decades and I decided to add another master set of 1992 baseball cards.  This time it was Leaf's turn, but I wouldn't be opening up boxes and trading with card shop customers.  Instead... I headed over to eBay and purchased a complete base set as well as a complete set of the (Black) Gold parallels.

Why Leaf?  Honestly... the gray bordered base cards don't do much for me.  However I've really grown to love those black bordered parallels.  They're beautiful.

Unfortunately when my sets arrived... several of the cards were damaged... hence the title of today's post.

If you utilize binders to store cards or you've been in the hobby long enough, then there's a good chance you've seen cards get pinched between the binder rings and the cover of the binder.  Sadly none of the damaged singles were worthy of my Damaged Card PC, so I don't have an example of what the damage looks like.

Just imagine me closing my binder with my 9-pocket page in this position:

If I'm lucky, the page will slide into position onto of the 2nd page.  The seller wasn't as lucky.  As a result, cards in the 1, 4, and 7 slots were damaged on the first few pages.  Not familiar with those slots, I've numbered them on this page for you:

The purchase took place back in 2021... right before the lockdown.  Since then, I've slowly been marking cards off the wantlist.

1992 Leaf Gold #4

1992 Leaf Gold #7

John over at Johnny's Trading Spot got me two cards closer to completing the set... so now my front page is complete:

I'm now down to only needing four cards for my set build:

The Hudler and Hernandez are sitting in my box over at Sportlots.  I'm waiting on a few more packages before requesting shipment.  By the way, the Sandberg wasn't damaged by the binder.  It was just missing.

For those of you who are wondering how to prevent binder pinching... I use these plastic things that hold the sheets down:

Hopefully you don't have to deal with this issue too often.  At least my encounter with "pinching" involved a cheap Junk Wax Era set.  Can you imagine this happening with a vintage set?

Thank you John for helping me get two steps closer to completing my 1992 Leaf (Black) Gold set build.

Happy Sunday and sayonara!

Overtime

Since I'm writing about set builds... John also hooked me up with two cards that I needed for my 2018 Sport Kings set:

2018 Sport Kings #4

2018 Sport Kings #27

It feels so good to cross names off my list...

Thanks again John!

Flea Market Finds #162: Some Nice Surprises

Clear skies and fresh air have a way of drawing people out of their homes.  That's why the De Anza Flea Market was packed two weekends ago.  Not exactly a fan of large crowds but if it motivates more vendors to set up in the future... it's something I can live with.

Made a total of eight purchases... which is more than usual.  So let's get to it.

Purchase #1:  2019 Topps Clear Travel Packs  $Free

I'll be teaching summer school again for the first time in four years, so I was looking for some cheap packs for a math lesson involving statistics.  I found a vendor with a bunch of these packs which would totally work.

The purchase involved a storage tub filled with over 200 of these, but I ended up selling the bulk to a friend to help cover the cost of the thirty-six packs I kept.

I kind of regret selling the, because when I got home I discovered these weren't your ordinary 2019 Topps cards.  They're an oddball issue that was distributed at ballparks and airports.  I plan on writing another post about this nice surprise in the near future.

Purchase #2:  New VHS Movies  $1

Stumbled upon a lady with a box filled with brand new VHS tapes.  Believe it or not... I still watch movies on my VHS player.  But I won't be opening these.  Pretty much purchased these for nostalgic purposes and because the price was too good to pass up.

Purchase #3:  1992 Impel Star Trek TNG Master Set $5

The husband of the lady with the VHS tapes had a bunch of non-sports sets.  My cardboard addiction was drawn to the shiny holograms.  Back in the 90's, I was one of those collectors drawn to holograms... especially if they were inserts.

Included in the purchase was also the base set, some promo cards, and a foreign language insert set.

Purchase #4:  1989 World Series Program  $5

I wasn't sure if I had a copy of this program or not... so I picked it up.  With the news of the A's leaving for Sacramento next year... I guess I was feeling extra nostalgic.

Tucked between two pages was a white envelope containing a nice surprise:

You're looking at a 1989 phantom World Series ticket.  The Oakland A's swept the San Francisco Giants that year... so there wasn't a need for a Game 5.  

Purchase #5:  Early 90's Rap Packs  $16 

Discovered this set during the hobby boom... when people were grading anything and everything.  I'm a fan of late 80's and early 90's rap... so the idea of pulling cards of NWA, Naughty by Nature, and Too Short appeals to me.

The vendor had twenty packs left in this box for a buck each.  I bought one to see if they were "bricked" and they weren't.  So I offered up $15 for the remaining 19 packs and he accepted.

Purchase #6:  NSYNC Dolls  $15

Not all of my flea market finds are for me.  My friend is a huge fan of Justin Timberlake, so I asked her if she wanted it and she did.  Made a special trip to the car to drop this off, because I didn't want to be seen carrying it around the remainder of my time there.

Purchase #7:  Steve Carlton Bat Relic $3

2003 SP Legendary Cuts Historic Lumber #B-SC (#'d 005/350)

Ran into a guy who had some monster boxes sitting on his table containing mostly football and basketball cards.  He was one of those guys who looks up singles on eBay and gives you a price.  He couldn't find any listings for this card, so he told me he'd sell it for $10.  I politely passed, so he asked what I was willing to pay.  Three dollars later, the card was in my pocket.

Purchase #8:  Another Toyota Supra  $6.50

2024 Hot Wheels Gran Turismo

There's a regular vendor that specializes in diecast cars.  I'm always searching for MK5 Supras I don't own.  Sometimes he has some, most of the time he doesn't.  This time he did.

It's from the Gran Turismo series that was released about a month ago.  I'm pretty sure these are only a couple of bucks in the store, but like blasters... I never see these at my local Target.

Well that wraps ups another trip to the De Anza Flea Market.  I was pretty happy with the haul.  I'll be heading out to the Branham High School Flea Market on Saturday.  Looks like the weather will be nice again, so hopefully I'll find a few more nice surprises this weekend.

Happy Thursday and sayonara!