Packs Across America: Dubois, PA

Good Tuesday evening to you all, here I have another installment of the Packs Across America series.

I did a bit of traveling for work last Friday, and stopped by the local Wal-Mart and picked up a couple packs, namely because I had time to kill, and I wanted to add another installment to this series. Here we go:

City/State:  Dubois, PA (approx 2 hrs NE of Pittsburgh, PA)
Location:   Wal-Mart
Packs:  2 rack packs of 2011 Allen & Ginter

Pack 1:


66. Starlin Castro
73. Brandon Morrow
154. Todd Helton
178. Ben Revere
195. Tommy Hanson
199. Jake Peavy
226. Andre Ethier
274. Stan Lee
298. Peter Gammons
330. C.C. Sabathia (earmarked for a certain Owl)
HH97. Hometown Heroes Brandon Morrow
AP23. Red Wolf

A Brandon Morrow hot pack!! 

 Pack 2:

14. Adrian Beltre
127. James Loney
163. Ian Kennedy
203. Aaron Hill
218. Johan Santana
238. Rudy Ruettiger ( to see a more up to date version of this card, click here)
244. Chone Figgins
252. Omar Infante
262. Manny Pacquiao
304. Madison Bumgarner
HH94. Hometown Heroes C.J. Wilson
96.  Daniel Boulud Mini A&G Back (the back says he's a chef, but I don't see the white hat like Chef Boy-ar-dee, so I'm a little skeptical ....)

Outside of the C.C. Sabathia SP which is headed to the Owl.....all the others are for trade.

The first pack gets an A (subjective grade from a Blue Jays fan...what can I say??)
The second pack gets a B+ (A&G mini, two decent pitchers for an SP and insert)

Thanks for reading, Robert

Packs Across America: Fowler, CO

Good Sunday morning to you all, hope that your Saturday went well, and you are ready for some great football later on today!

A little over a week ago I was involved in a trade with Eric @ Manupatches & Chrome Scratches, and part of the trade was a pack of Allen & Ginter that came my way.   I haven't had much of an opportunity to travel lately, so this pack for me was a way to get another of the Packs Across America posts in:

City/State:  Fowler, CO
Location:   Unknown
Packs:  1 rack pack of 2011 Allen & Ginter

Inserts: 2 

Hometown Heroes HH69 Yovani Gallardo.  
Minis:  49 Javier Vazquez Regular Back

Base cards: 9

22. Michael Bourn
76. Chase Headley
101. Peter Bourjos
108. Roy Oswalt
124. Chad Billingsley
148. Sonya Richards
183. Mike Napoli
215. Andrew McCutchen
253. Mike Minor

Short Prints: 1

345. Zack Greinke

All in all not a bad rack pack.  Got the requisite mini, insert and short print card.    No RC's though, so we'll grade the pack a B.  Thanks again Eric for the trade, much appreciated!

These cards are for trade if needed, so just let me know:

Thanks for reading, Robert

Packs Across America: Dallas, TX

Good Friday evening to you all, if you had today off, you're luckier than I am!!  It doesn't matter, the weekend is upon us already, and I'm ready for some posts, some cards, and lots of reading and sorting.

It's been a while since I've done a Packs Across America post, frankly because I haven't done any traveling in the States over the past couple of months.

Well, today in the mail I received my contest winnings from Brian at Play at the Plate,  I also found 3 packs of cards inside...cool!  A little bit of the new, and a little bit of the past.  It was even better because I resisted buying anything from aisle 21 at Wal-Mart today.  So without further adieu, I present 3 Packs Across America.

City/state: Dallas, TX
     Location:  Unknown
     Packs:  1 pack of 1991 Upper Deck BB, 1 pack of 1992 Topps Stadium Club, 1 pack of 2011 Topps Update.

Pack 1:  1991 Upper Deck BB.  Man, I can remember ripping a TON of these packs in the summer of '91.

78.  Dodgers Checklist  (Ramon Martinez)
153. Terry Steinbach
161. Stan Belinda
255. Tony Gwynn (any HOF card is a good card)

306. Chris Hoiles
408. Darren Daulton
514. Chuck Carr
690. Jim Gott (one time Blue Jay)
711. Junior Felix (Ditto)
729. Mickey Tettleton
754. Tony Fernandez
765. Joe Carter

Kind of wild that two players who were involved in one of the biggest trades in Jays history (in terms of importance anyhow), get pulled in the same pack.












766. Pete Schourek
771. Dana Allison  (fun fact:  his card back says "Scouts consider Dana A left-handed Dennis Eckersley in both control and poise"...his control and poise got him a career total of 11 games, with a 7.39 ERA and a 1.909 WHIP.   Imagine where the A's would have been if Eck had those stats)
789. Barry Jones
Hologram:  KC Royals


amazing what you can find in a 20 year old pack!

Pack 2:  1992 Topps Stadium Club

13. Glenn Braggs
70. Robin Ventura (best of luck to him on the South Side this year)
75. Stan Belinda (got him in both the oldie packs....)
79. Bobby Rose
103. Luis Alicea
117. B.J. Surhoff
130. Benny Santiago
136. John Burkett
205. Herm Winningham
240. Juan Gonzalez
248. Walt Weiss
249. Mackey Sasser
258. Bob Tewksbury
275. Greg Harris
282. Lonnie Smith   (VERY IRONIC that I got this card from "Play at the Plate")

Brian Harper gettin' crushed

Pack 3:  '11 Topps Update 8 card pack.

Diamond Anniversary Code Card:   Turned this into a 1975 Ed Brinkman card (Tigers)
KC 129.  George Sisler
35. Eduardo Nunez
143. Craig Kimbrel
164. Hector Noesi
227.  Kosuke Fukudome
255.  Allen Craig
324.  Melvin Mora

the fact that I could find something interesting enough to type out all this gets these 3 packs a grade of  'A'!!

Tomorrow, the other half of the prize package I received....btw, thank you Brian, you sent a great group of packs/cards my way, it really is appreciated.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Words in this post, 502.  total for the month, 13986.

Packs Across America: Tallevast, FL

I have Marck from Troll at the plate! to thank for these two packs of cards, well one pack of cards and one very obscure pack of scratch off cards that I had never seen before I opened his trade envelope earlier this week.

Here we go:

     City/state:  Tallevast, FL
     Location: LCS (?)
     Packs: 1 pack of 2011 Allen & Ginter (Hobby), and 1 pack of MLB Scratch Hit from 1994 (approx).

Pack 1:

5 base cards:

233. Ben Zobrist
157. Corey Hart
99. Placido Polanco
253. Mike Minor
236. B.J. Upton

Sadly, none of these hit my want list, but that happens.

Then we have a Hometown Heroes of Prince Fielder, a code breaker code of the Iron Chef, and a mini World's Mysterious Figures of Fulcanelli. 


Easily a good pack overall with 3 tradeable cards.  An A for sure.










Pack 2:  1994 Scratch Hit (raise your hands if you've seen this before)

This is the wrapper...I've never seen these before...it had me intrigued for sure, so naturally I had to rip it.

And this is the back (on the left), and front of the card.  Similar to a scratch off lottery card, only there are 6 letters under the baseballs,

O=out
W=Walk
S=Single
D=Double
T=triple
HR=Home Run

You keep scratching each inning until you hit the O, then you move on to the next inning.  Play all 9 innings, tally your score, then scratch off one of the visitor's scores at the bottom, and see who wins.  What was interesting is the various team logos on the back of the cards.  I received 7 unique teams, Cardinals, Expos, Reds, Cubs, Rockies, Phillies, and Braves (2x).  For entertainment and educational value alone, this pack gets an A+. 

Packs Across America: Mobile, AL

This is going to be a quickie post, but I received a pack of Bowman Platinum from Sam at the Daily Dimwit blog as a bonus for participating in his 06 Artifacts group break.  So here we go...


     City/State : Mobile, AL
     Location: LCS (?)
     Packs:  1 pack of Bowman Platinum

4 cards in a pack, pretty straight forward...

Trade anyone?

60.  CC Sabathia
BPP 92.  Trey McNutt
85. Jacoby Ellsbury
6. Miguel Cabrera

Kind of cool that I got a red parallel of a Red Sox player, so that in itself is a bonus over packs I get here in town.  Picked up two stars as well in Sabathia and Cabrera, along with what might be the best prospect name in quite a while, Trey McNutt.


Definitely worth an A grade for a single bonus pack.  Thanks again to Sam for the extra bonus.

Packs Across America: Webster, NY

Good day all, hope that your Wednesday finds you well.  This is the 2nd in a series of posts on packs that I have purchased from different towns/cities across the country.  As you may know, I was away for the long Labor day weekend in upstate NY, and while the women were out shopping, I decided to hit the Target store to buy a few packs:

City/State:  Webster, NY (suburb of Rochester)
Store:         Target
Purchase:    2 packs of Topps Heritage BB and 4 packs of UD Victory Hockey

Pack 1:

9. Juan Uribe
67. Zach Duke
114. Kyle Drabek
178. A. J. Pierzynski
188. Freddy Sanchez
271. Jeremy Jeffress
296. Ian Desmond
357. Brett Anderson
371. Victor Martinez

Pack 2:

58. NL Victory leaders
70. Justin Morneau
124. Brian Duensing
178. A. J. Pierzynski
186. Rick Ankiel
228. Marlon Byrd
263. Rangers Danger
319. Tim Lincecum
336. John Lackey


It's funny, I opened these two packs on Saturday really quickly, and just flipped through the cards and thought to myself "well, the bad luck continues".  Just before I started this post and was ready to declare them a total bust, I  took a closer look at the cards and realized one of them in Pack 1, the A.J. Pierzynski card, had a reddish tint in the background. Hadn't seen one of those before, so I do some research and find out there are blue and green tints as well.  Thus, the scramble begins as this idiot runs through all the Heritage he has bought to see if there are any other tinted cards.  Lo and behold, I do find a blue tint....Ryan Franklin of the Cards. 

I need to start looking a little closer when I bust packs

So, for educational value alone, the packs get a grade of "B"

Now, on to the Victory, which for those of you who don't collect hockey, this is UD's version of Topps Opening Day.  A 99 cent pack that contains no relics/autos, but just something fun to get the hockey season started.  I pulled a couple of rookies, and a couple of MVP parallels, which are seeded 1:2 packs.  Nothing fancy here, just a fun rip to get the hockey season started (training camp starts next Monday the 12th).  Grade of  "C".

All in all, my luck was OK up in western NY, hopefully as I obtain cards from around the country my luck will be better.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Packs Across America: New Castle, PA

Good evening all, this is going to be the first in a series of pack breaks from different towns and cities across the USA.  Naturally, I've decided to start with my current hometown, New Castle, PA which is about an hour north of Pittsburgh.  There are only 2 options that I'm aware of in my town, either the Wal-Mart on the west side of town, or the K-Mart on the east side of town.  This time I used the Wal-Mart to purchase 3 packs:


City/State : New Castle, PA
Location:  Wal Mart
Purchase:  3 Rack Packs of Topps Lineage

I still do have mixed feelings about this set, the inserts are kind of cool, although I think the diamond parallels should have been contained to the Topps base set.  Another aspect of the set that I enjoy is the ability to pull cards of past greats, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig etc.  The rack packs had a price of $4.99 for 14 cards, MUCH better than the hobby packs which are priced at $5 per pack for 8 cards.
On to the packs:

Pack 1:

47. Lance Berkman
50. Lou Gehrig
58. Gordon Beckham
70. Carlos Santana  (haven't heard any of this Santana's music yet)
83. Adam Wainwright
93. Roy Oswalt
114. Dustin Pedroia
120. Ichiro
166. Yovani Gallardo
178. Albert Pujols
179. Jake McGee
187. Justin Verlander
189. Jaime Garcia
123. Andre Ethier (75 mini)

Pack 2:

45. Ryan Howard
57. Willie McCovey
71. Kurt Suzuki
82. Ike Davis
91. Brent Morel RC
99. Honus Wagner
128. Vernon Wells
139. Michael Pineda
147. Ryan Braun
160. Stephen Strasburg
174. Adam Jones
183. Brian McCann

2011 Rookies 3 of 20 Brent Morel
156. Austin Jackson (Diamond parallel)

Pack 3:

54. Alfonso Soriano
62. Adrian Beltre
68. Alexei Ramirez
85. Al Kaline
87. David Ortiz
100. Babe Ruth
157. Wandy Rodriguez
165. Jose Reyes
171. Ryne Sandberg
186. Mel Ott
188. Daniel Hudson
195. Chipper Jones
198. Andruw Jones

Parallels and inserts

I did a little research on the set, and at only 200 cards, it may be something that I end up putting together a set of.  I did fairly well with these 3 packs, no duplicates, and 4 decent inserts/parallels...

Overall Pack Grade:  B

Thanks for reading, Robert