Ending 2018 with a very 2018 repack

I have so many fun things to show off on my blog - great blogger mailings, my awesome online marketplace find, and a gift from one of my favorite pro players. And I'll get to those soon!

Instead, I bought one last Walgreen's Fairfield repack yesterday. As noted, we had been traveling for a week. So I stepped out to Walgreen's for milk, and decided to treat myself to a repack. When I checked out the toy aisle, there were four baseball repacks, but one stood out:

New packaging! To most of us, usually these are a dark green, like this one:

Figuring these have new packaging and thus, possibly more recent cards, I took a chance. I was right. This was full of some interesting 2018 cards.

Most of the 2018s were from Bowman, including a Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw. The Harper is 2016 Topps, of course.

There was also some 2018 Finest.

I was most pleased with the amount of 2018 rookie cards, including a sweet Miguel Andujar I didn't have, and a few other decent prospects.

There were also a lot of prospect cards from 2017, including Mickey Moniak and Tanner Houck.

The Young and Lee are from 2018.

There were even some 2018 Topps team set cards!

Of course, what is a repack without Barry Bonds?

Some of my more recent repacks had some newer Topps packs, but we're back to junk wax here with a pack of 1992 Donruss. No, I didn't pull a Ripken auto.

While I didn't get a 1:4 hit, hard to complain about this repack. The new Andujar RC almost makes it worth it on it's own, plus it had a lot of star power with Harper, Trout, Kershaw, and some top tier prospects.

Not a bad way to end 2018! Happy New Year to you all. If you're going out, have a fun and safe evening!

The Diamond Giveaway got me thinking...

The Diamond Giveaway got me thinking…

In-pack gimmicks and promotions nowadays drive to websites, and rightfully so. It’s easier to track results and certainly cuts down on having to deal with envelopes and postage. I can’t imagine how much different some older gimmicks, such as Collector’s Choice You Crash the Game, would have been with a simple online hub.

I remember the first You Crash the Game I ever pulled was Barry Bonds (it was 1995), and the homerun date listed on his card was actually in the past by a few weeks. Do you know how I found out if that card was a winner? I called the sports editor’s number on the local paper and asked. He graciously answered my question (Bonds didn’t homer), although a few times after that I did the same thing and they started to get mad.

The few that did win, usually you had to sign the back of the card and then send it in with a check or money order for few bucks for shipping, and they’d (in this case Upper Deck) send you back your prize. Sometimes it was a special card of that player, other times it was a mini set. It was exciting to win and anxiously await your prize.

I’ve been wondering how a game like this would work in today’s collection environment. I’d assume there would either be a code on the card that you redeem on a website. I would personally love to see something like the old You Crash the Game cards with a date that a player must accomplish the feat listed, and if you win you redeemed it online for a prize. The collector could even have an online portfolio of prizes/cards that could be traded or shipped. Sounds like the Diamond Giveaway, actually, although your prize would be tied to a player’s performance as opposed to just a random code.

What do you think? What old promotion would you like to see brought back with today’s technology?

Diamond Giveaway is cool, but not my favorite sweepstakes of all-time

Redeeming my Diamond Giveaway code last night made me fondly remember one of my favorite redemption programs of all time. Card companies have always held sweepstakes and redemption programs that make collecting a little more exciting. This was especially true when Upper Deck Collector's Choice hit the shelves in 1994.

Collector’s Choice was the Topps Opening Day of the ‘90s. It was Upper Deck’s $.99 pack that was the sister to their other higher-end sets. At a time when the prices of packs of cards really started to climb well above $1, this was a welcome brand for any kid who didn’t have a ton of money to spend on cards, like me. Packs were plentiful at the local CVS drug store. The base cards in the 1994 set were simple, and each pack also included a silver signature card, their version of the Topps Gold parallel set.

In 1994, Collector’s Choice had an instant win game called You Crash The Deck. It was a scratch-off card with a head-to-head game between players, and as a kid I remember being pretty amused by it. I don’t quite remember what the game itself entailed. However, there was also an instant win box with decent odds for a prize. Twice I won the same prize, an 8-card hologram insert set from the previous year’s Home Run Derby. The set was called Home Run All-Stars and featured some of the game’s biggest sluggers. I vividly remember sending in my two redemption cards and getting the sets back. I was a huge fan and it put the brand in good graces with me. In fact, I still have at least one of these sets.

In 1995, Collector’s Choice came out with two sets – SE and the regular base set. Unnecessary. But they morphed their sweepstakes game into the popular You Crash The Game insert series – in silver AND gold none the less. Not only were these insert cards pretty cool looking, but the rules changed from 1994. For example, if you pulled a Barry Bonds that said June 28 and he hit a home run that day, you could redeem the card for a prize. Remember, this was before the internet was mainstream, so if you pulled a card and the date had already passed, you had to do some serious legwork to see if you had won. I remember my local newspaper getting mad at me because I would keep calling and asking if Griffey or Bagwell hit a homer on a certain date. They legitimately told me to stop calling. 

They also had similar You Crash games for their other sports sets, and as a result, I ended up with quite a few redemption prizes from each of them. Usually it was a special card of the winning player, or even a 30-card set. In the coming years, they tweaked the rules from time to time, and one year their prize cards were even clear cuts (!!). I still have a Chipper Jones from that redemption.

Topps Diamond Giveaway is a fun sweepstakes, but for me, it hardly comes close to You Crash The Game. Although I could be singing a different tune if I unlock a 1952 Mantle. So I’d like to open it up to you. What’s your favorite all-time card redemption or sweepstakes?