2021 Topps Heritage Rack Pack

Greetings...

Hope everyone is ready for the big weekend.  Scroll down if you want to skip the ramblings and get to the pretty pictures.

It's been two weeks since Target announced they are temporarily stopping the sale of sports and Pokemon cards in their stores.  It seemed like they were getting a handle on it by limiting the sale of the products to certain times of the week.  But then things got worse and there you go.  I haven't read if Wal-Mart did the same, but after recent news, I wouldn't be surprised.  Target is still allowing online sales, but I'm sure it won't be long until you have to deal with the bots buying them all up.

Since I've been kinda sorta documenting retail's decline with my posts, I might as well document the last few retail runs:

Back on April 16th, I was at Target to catch up on some missing training courses.  When I was on my way out, I noticed a fully stocked card aisle, with a sign saying blaster boxes would only be sold after 8AM on Fridays, and that there was a 3 pack limit.  A fellow dad joined me while I was looking at the aisle.  He remarked that he couldn't remember the last time he saw this many packs, and now had to sneak 3 packs into the cart without his wife noticing.

A week later a Target co-worker posted a picture on Facebook of people camped (as in tents were set up) outside the store.  There was nothing major being released that day, so they were there for cards.

By Mother's Day weekend, Target had updated their 3 packs max policy and dropped it to 1 pack per purchase.  I figured this would be it but then you all know the rest.  

On a subsequent trip to Meijer, there was a sign saying all cards were being sold from the customer service counter starting at 6AM on the weekends.

The Target close to work had fully stocked their card aisle when I showed up on May 13th, so I got a rack pack of Heritage.  I decided to see what the aisle looked like the following week.  When I showed up before work, the store still had packs available.  I guess the May 14th announcement meant the vendor would just stop stocking the aisle and just let the inventory run out.  At minimum, the store had several boxes of Opening Day on the shelf so I figured they would have cards for a while.  

I made runs to Target the rest of the week to get a rack pack.  They still had rack packs and Opening Day packs available this past Monday, but by Tuesday, it was all gone, even the opened boxes of Opening Day; I wonder if the vendor took them back.  So, here's the last pack I can buy at retail for the foreseeable future.

Six bucks for 20 cards.  Here's what I got:

#229 - Chris Taylor

#320 - Dylan Moore

#54 - Michael Brantley

#330 - Yuli Gurriel

There are 500 cards in the set; cards 401 to 500 are short prints.  Due to a production error (shocking!), Card 216, Cavan Biggio, wasn't printed by Topps.  They say it will be printed with the High Numbers set, but who knows. 

#318 - Zach Eflin

#282 - Jason Kipnis

#372 - Brandon Crawford

#160 - Jesus Luzardo

Here's the checklist for those who are interested.

#63 - Maikel Franco

#113 - Jose Berrios (Chrome Refractor #484/572) 

#127 - Hanser Alberto

#10 - Miguel Rojas (In Action) 

The Chrome Refractors come 1 in 73 packs.  The back of Rojas is a puzzle piece for Hank Aaron (Puzzle B).

#279 - Jeff Samardzija

#310 - Josh Bell (In Action) Puzzle D

#3 - Raisel Iglesias

#162 - Donovan Solano

The back of Bell is a puzzle piece for Harmon Killebrew (Puzzle D).

#176 - Anthony Rizzo (In Action)

#101 - Kyle Lewis

#250 - Gerrit Cole (In Action) 

#377 - Anthony Santander

The back of Rizzo is a puzzle piece for Ron Santo (Puzzle A).  The back of Cole is a puzzle piece for Hank Aaron (Puzzle B).

I kinda wished the puzzle pieces would all fit on a page together, but I don't know if this was how the original 1972 set was organized.

Here are some backs so you know:

Anyway, that's the pack.  I haven't read too many complaints about the set, other than the short prints.  I apologize for all of those non-pack associated words.  Enjoy the long weekend, and thanks for reading!

2016 Upper Deck Marvel Dossier

Comic cards were all the rage in the 90's, then they disappeared. Upper Deck ended up w/ the Marvel license and started to release new sets in the late 2010's. I didn't pay these much attention, though sadly I wished I did because now most of these sets command big money on the secondary market.

A few months back my older brother, who loves to shop for clearance items, found these packs of 2016 Upper Deck Marvel Dossier in those yellow cardboard clearance bins in the trading card section at Walmart stores. I had seen them as well, but originally thought it was just dog tags since there were other dog tag products (Better Call Saul & Walking Dead) in the same bins...however these packs contain 3 cards in addition to the dog tag. Ever since I figured that out I've been hitting those bins and buying up any packs I can find. At $1.49 it's affordable and it's fun to be ripping Marvel packs again.

The base set consists of just 55 cards and features an assortment of Marvel heroes and villains. I'm not sure if the artwork is lifted from particular comics, but most of the art I've seen is pretty good. The back features some "stats" as well as a bio of the character. Overall, I really like these cards.

This pack yielded one card I needed for the set (Deadpool) and one duplicate, this card of Captain Marvel. Surprisingly I've only pulled a few duplicates so it's been fun building the set. Of all the cards I have thus far, this card of Carol Danvers is one of my favorites.

Each pack also yields one silver foil parallel card. I didn't have this foil version of Spider-Woman so that was a pleasant surprise. It'll be harder to complete this set, but with all the clearance packs I've found I'm off to a good start.

Unlike some other Marvel card/dog tag packs I've opened, these dog tags come in a small zip lock bag, glued to a thick white cardboard card. I like this because it helps keep the trading cards in the pack free of damage. This pack yielded a dog tag of Spider-Man's nemesis, none other than the Green Goblin. According to the checklist over on TCDB, this particular dog tag is labeled as a short print (SP). This was news to me as the packaging doesn't mention any of the tags being SPs, but I'll take it. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the bevy of dog tags I now have, but I'll figure something out. Perhaps I'll put them in a penny sleeve and a top loader? Your thoughts?

2021 Panini Diamond Kings Baseball Hobby Pack

 Wow it's really hard to find card products, well at least retail.  I decided, against my better judgement, to pick up a hobby pack of Diamond Kings on a recent stop in to Don's Sportcards here in Anchorage, Alaska.  I had stopped in to pick up a few supplies.  I hesitated on buying just this one pack, because hobby prices are INSANE!!! This pack was over $10 bucks, so let's savor it since it's been awhile since we've had a pack on here.

Two hits per box, 12 packs per box, and 8 cards per pack.  We have a 1:6 chance of getting one of the hit's.  

Diamond Kings does have a great selection of old timey players, HOFers, retired and current players.  Let's have a look at the base design.

Panini has made Diamond Kings into an artsy fartsy offering with inserts to match.  Seems like a lot of real estate is taken up by the border.  Here's the back

The backs have a small blurb, but no stats, which is kind of disappointing.

 

Here are the rest of the base cards:

This pack had a couple rookies in it.

Cards numbered over 100 are short printed, or at least that's what they say.  I pulled not one, but two SPs in this pack.

 

Sadly I didn't get one of the hits, but did pull this Aficionado of the 2020 AL MVP

Not a great pack, but it's been months since I've opened anything and it was fun.  In year's past Diamond Kings has been a fun rip, but sadly the current state of the hobby really has over valued this product.