I stuck it to the flippers!

 Today, I used up the 2nd to last of my vacation days. Would've loved to have spent it with my wife and son traveling somewhere, but life just got crazy, and the responsibilities with both of our jobs didn't allow for it to work out. Here's hoping for 2021. I basically have today and tomorrow to myself, and I thought it the perfect time to grab my mask and head to my LCS. There have been 3 monster boxes I have been wanting to go through, and they didn't disappoint. 

While I haven't been able to find a steady supply of cards in retail places, the first monster box had a good amount of 2020 Topps Series 1, 2, and a tad of Update and Chrome. I was hoping to find some Randy Arozarena cards and some Tigers to finish up the 2020 set. 

While I'm not much of a flipper, I think they would be proud of me, as all of the following cards were found in a 50 cent box. I never thought Raines should've been in the Hall of Fame, but a rookie of him for 2 quarters still seems like a steal. There were a few each of the Benintendi, Tucker, Swanson, and Riley rookies in the boxes, and I figure I got my money's worth with each of them. I struck gold with Randy A., as I found copies of his 2020 Bowman, Optic, Optic Lime Green, and Topps Chrome X-Fractor card. Pretty sure I dug out the only cards of his in the boxes. It's kind went all downhill with the Rays after Game 6 of the World Series. Charlie Morton is gone, Blake Snell might be traded, Wander Franco is being examined for an injury, and now Arozarena is being investigated for a domestic incident. I think he should serve whatever punishment he gets if he is indeed guilty of anything. It just sucks that the Rays were so close and perhaps 1-2 big free agents from competing again in 2021, and now I doubt they will make the playoffs. They do have a decent pitching staff, but many of them are rookies. Speaking of rookies, I didn't have any Forrest Whitley cards, and I hear a lot about him, so I picked up his Update insert. 

I almost finished my 2020 Topps Tigers set. I'll get to the '85 Topps Traded Tiffany Walt Terrell in a minute. The '15 Bowman Cam Gibson is my first card of his, as is the 2019 and 2020 Bowman Riley Greene's. I liked the shimmer on the Prizm Spencer Turnbull, so I picked it up. The Joe Jimenez card is a Advanced Stat card, and I only knew this by looking at the back and spotting the serial number. Too bad, too, because I didn't find the base version of the card, and I needed it for my set. It's kind of funny, because I pulled a Niko Goodrum Advanced Stat card in Series 1, so I now have 2 of the cards for the Tigers team set out of a pretty difficult set to complete. 

The Casey Mize and Kohl Stewart cards will go into thier parts of my Favorite Player Collection binder. The Vogelbach is a Negative Refractor (or maybe Sepia?), but if P-Town Tom needs it, it is yours. Otherwise, I'll add it to my Refractor binder. 

They have these stacks of cards wrapped in foil at the shop that feature either a relic or autographed card in it, and they are all 4 bucks. I dropped the 4 greenbacks needed to get one, and it must've been a hot pack or something, because I've only opened packs with this many hits in weird dreams. The first card out was a Adbert Alzolay autograph, and the next 3 were the Purple Refractor, Chrome, and Red Border Heritage cards of Hosmer and Shelby Miller. After that, I had the Tim Olson numbered rookie and the Shilling (which happened to be a card serial numbered to 100). It dropped down to earth after that with 3 '85 Topps Traded Tiffany cards (including the Terrell) and a few other random cards, and then got kicking again with the Benintendi, the Kerry Wood '98 Gold Label rookie, the Dominic Smith rookie, and relic cards of Eric Chavez and Don Baylor. I don't know about you, but I think for just under 16 bucks for 4 Randy A. cards, a few '15 Bowman rookies, an Advanced Stat parallel, some Tigers for my sets, a Tim Raines rookie, a few parallel cards, an autographed card, and 2 relic cards, I certainly beat the flippers today. 

My LCS is kind of strange. The only other one I frequented growing up was pretty fair with prices, they had dime boxes, and a huge selection. This one is less than 2 years old, has some cards, but mainly tries to sell replica rings, autographed stuff, and crap that I'm not interested in. They have a few newer packs for sale, but the prices are very high, like 7.50 for a pack of '20 Opening Day. They said they will have 2021 Topps in, but I'm scared to ask how much. They seem to know their stuff on big name cards/players, but I just can't get a read on really how much they know. They had a 2020 Topps Update Randy A. card for 15 bucks, but then I got his Bowman, Optic, an Optic parallel, and the X-Fractor for 2 bucks. Maybe they just don't have time to dig through everything they get in card-wise? It may have took some time to dig through 3 monster boxes, but I'll keep doing it if I can get cards I want for less than market value.

I had mentioned in my last post how I was getting some cards together to sent out, and I'm happy to mention that today I mailed out 3 bubble mailers and 2 PWE's. I wish I would've waited to send them out until I scoured the boxes at the card shop, but I promise I will do that next time and try to help guys I trade with out. I was surprised at what they had, so next time I will be ready. I still hope whoever gets packages from me is happy. They should be there around Monday.

Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy