2008 Donruss Threads Baseball

With the recent news of The Donruss / Playoff Company being sued by MLB, I decided I'd post one of the sets involved for my next rip. I opened this pack a couple of weeks before the news broke and honestly, I remember thinking that these photos showed a LOT for unlicenced cards! None the less, I love this set, mostly because I love retired player cards, PLUS I pulled my first auto out of a pack that didn't guarantee one!


I'm not really sure what he signed here but it looks like J.A.M.S., but most likely it's J.A.H.S. which must be his initials of course if he has 4 names.

Here's what I got:

#1 Hank Aaron
#18 Luis Aparicio
#25 Kirk Gibson
#67 Sean O'Sullivan
#79 Jairo Heredia [Signatures Gold #741/999]

What it cost me: $ 3.00
Beckett max worth: $13.55
Insert odds I beat: N/A
Most valuable card: #79 Jairo Heredia [Signatures Gold #741/999] @ $10.00

Repack Blaster: 7th Inning Stretch

Well, on my third night of trying to get 7 good scans out of my scanner, I have succeeded, and now I can blog!

I'm a repack sucker, and I usually give most repacks a chance. These have been staring back at me from the bottom shelf at the local supermarket for a month or two, no other new products lately so I caved. At first after I busted it, I was heavily disappointed, mostly because I didn't think they lived up to the list they put on the side of the box, and for another reason I'll explain later on.

The list says "One sealed box of 20 cards or more!" and this is that. +13! Snap! I'm happy about these because I don't have 'em! I was a little sad Darryl Strawberry wasn't in the set though.The box says "One Beckett graded card!". Nice card, not a common, and this prospect is still in the farms with some promise and a chance! I'm not very knowledgable on grading services but isn't BCCG kind of an unofficial Beckett grading service?

The box says "One superstar card of Pujols, A-Rod, Jeter & more!", "One authentic rookie card!" and "One game-used or autograph card!". The Renteria swatch is nice, but don't go on thinking it's from a Red Sox jersey, it's from a Cardinals jersey! But really, who can tell.
The box says "One rare insert valued at $15 or higher!". Now, at first, I was pissed because I had no idea at first glance that this card was the $15 card. I thought they were trying to pass off the Jeter card for the rare insert! Sure enought though, this one books at a Beckett high value of $15.

The back shows only his 1989 season's stats with 301 K's, and his career stats with 5714 K's! Did you know that out of the 807 games he pitched in, he completed 222 of them?!And then some more confusion which I still haven't figured out. The box says "One major manufacturer sealed pack!" and they gave me 2008 UD Series 2. The pack says 8 cards, but there were only 5. It was sealed. Nowhere on the pack does it say there would be less cards if I got any inserts or anything like that so WTF. And this isn't the first time I've been cheated out of cards in packs from this repack company, but they were always older wax which had obviously been gone through. So I ask you this? Does the Fairfield Company buy up rejected and unsellable packs from the major manufacturers to put them in their repacks? Does anyone really care though...

Origins of Baseball - eBay Purchase

Lately I've been craving reading up on the history of baseball and seeing those old baseball photos from the 19th century. So I found myself on eBay picking up this set of 100 cards illustrating just that. This set is chock full of funny named teams, big mustaches and Hall of Famers I've never heard of!
Can anyone name this park? I don't know either. This card is the last of the set and it doesn't really talk about the picture. It looks like some building named "Washington Heights is perched on top of that cliff back there if that helps.
The Boston Beaneaters (what does that even mean??) was the most successful team of the 1890's taking 5 National League pennants during that decade.
Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1949. He had a record of 239 - 130 and had 6 20 win seasons in a row. His Chicago Cubs won 4 pennants and 2 World Series with Brown leading the team. It says on the back that at age 7 Mordecai accidentally stuck his hand under a corn chopper, slicing his index finger off and badly breaking his thumb and middle finger. His hand was placed in a splint, but he fell on it while chasing a hog around the yard, badly contorting the broken fingers.

1990-91 Clemson Collegiate Collection

This is the second time I've found myself buying packs of these Collegiate Collection cards from 1990, the first ones from UCLA, and these from Clemson. They have some great oddball cards of stars from almost a century of sports history at some of these schools. I mean, I pulled a UCLA Jackie Robinson basketball card last time. So I bought a couple more packs I spotted for 50 cents a piece. Boxes of these packs from lots of different schools are all over eBay usually for less than 10 bucks, I'm tempted to buy one and go for a set.

I love the look on Horace Grant's face here. It's like the photographer asked him to look at the camera.
Here's William "The Refrigerator" Perry posing next to a life size poster of himself. It says all 2,000 posters sold out in 30 hours.
I Just like this one for the pink jacket.

Here's what I got:

#5 Michael Dean Perry
#6 Larry Nance
#7 Steve Fuller
#8 Horace Grant
#146 Balloon Launch
#147 William Perry
#148 Jim Davis
#149 Jim Brennan

What it cost me: $ .50
Beckett max worth: $2.95
Insert odds I beat: none
Most valuable card: #8 Horace Grant @ $1.00

2003 Upper Deck Standing "O" Baseball

This 4 card pack came up with a couple of favorite pulls out of my latest stack of packs. Ever since I first saw this set back last year when I started collecting, I wanted some of those die cuts! For some reason, they always looked bigger to me in pictures, these cards are tiny!

This Hideki rookie card is the most valuable card in the set!


Here's what I got:

#9 Chipper Jones
#17 Kerry Wood
#115 Hideki Matsui [World Premieres]
#S-30 Roy Oswalt [Die Cut]

What it cost me: $ 1.50
Beckett max worth: $12.05
Insert odds I beat: 1:4 [World Premiers SP]
Most valuable card: #115 Hideki Matsui [World Premieres] @ $10.00