I haven't really bought a lot of cardboard at my LCS lately. For the most part, he sells hobby boxes and rarely packs anything out. On one hand, I understand. It can be hard to move product one pack at a time. On the other hand, with the prices of baseball cards this year (thanks, Judge), many people - myself included - can't afford an entire box.
However, there were a few times that he did pack out a few products. For instance, I was able to buy a few packs of Bowman Chrome. In one of those packs was this:
A base auto of Mitchell White. Or, as I like to call him, "Mr. Squiggly Line."
Okay, I get it. The number of autographs these prospects are asked to sign is astronomical. That's on us, as collectors, for wanting an autograph in every product. However, there has to be some blame placed on the player, right? I mean, this is absolute garbage. It is ridiculous that cards like this make it into products. I could keep going, but I will digress.
Anyway, I went in earlier this week to grab some top loaders and a ball cube when I noticed that the owner was packing out some Bowman's Best and Topps Chrome from this year, so I bought a few packs of each. In my packs of Bowman's Best was this:
I haven't heard much about Adell, other than he was a first round pick of the Angels. It seems he is a "consensus" five-tool prospect. I think I will hang on to it and see how he does.
No autographs came from my Topps Chrome packs, but I did pull a pretty decent rookie card:
A prism refractor of Cody Bellinger. This is a beautiful card. I know Bellinger made a splash this year, but I still wonder if he will be a future star in the game. Just in case, I'm holding on to this one, too.
So, not a bad few packs of cards. Has anyone else had a problem with their LCS not selling packs frequently?
Nice Adell, he's gotten a lot of hobby hype in recent times. Mainly due to rumors (that may or may not be true?) that his BoChro autograph in Bowman Draft is a shortprint.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if penmanship is just not emphasized as much anymore, and we are holding these athletes to a higher standard based on the past? I think I was on the tail end of cursive being emphasized in elementary school, and if I write my full name in cursive today it looks like a grade-schooler wrote it. My signature is a C-squiggle-dot, R-two bumps-line, and I think it looks much better than my full name. It's also much quicker to write.
ReplyDeleteMy LCS doesn't pack out boxes much anymore, and I'm not a frequent enough shopper there to ask the owner to open a new box so I can buy a pack or two. It's one of the many reasons I don't go into my LCS more than once every year or two.
Interesting autos.
ReplyDeleteStill fun to go to a LCS. I haven't been to one in ages!
White had a more legible autograph for early season Bowman releases - between when he signed the early 2017 cards to when he signed the late season 2017 cards - he just said 'F' it.
ReplyDeleteWow, that's one of the worst sigs I've ever seen.
ReplyDeleteI have a hankering to get into baseball/baseball cards - I like how Topps releases an affordable set...at least I think they do! Anyway, yeah baseball, I have no idea where to even begin with following and collecting baseball - I haven’t watched it since ‘92! I know some of the Blue Jays players , maybe like 1 or 2 to be honest - Bautista, is he even a Jay anymore? Oh and Josh Donaldson, to my knowledge he is still a Jay.
ReplyDeleteFrom my experience... the transition from being a pack shop to selling mostly boxes isn't a good thing. The one LCS I would hang out at every now and then once had a great variety of packs. Eventually he had three or four boxes opened and the rest were sealed boxes. He closed his doors within a year. Lol. The good news is it's a very small sample size. The other LCS that's still open in my area has tons of packs available... dating back to the early 80's.
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