Fairfield Repack - A Definite Winner

A little while ago I posted the guaranteed hit and first couple of packs from this 20-pack Fairfield repack I grabbed at Target.

Today I'm going to dive into three more packs from the box.  First up is another pack of 2008 Upper Deck First Edition Update.  10 cards in the pack...

Gavin's pitching for Atlanta these days, but was shut down during the season this year thanks to elbow surgery.

Last MLB appearance came back in 2011 with the Tigers.  Now age 38, Carlos is likely retired.

At this point in his career, Lance Berkman had only played for the Astros.  He'd bounce around between the Yankees, Cardinals and Rangers before hanging up the spikes.

Yours if you need it Tony L!

One of the more boring photos in a set full of fantastic photography.

Suffered from some mental/social anxiety issues that ended his career at a relatively young age.

Once again, my StarQuest insert goes off to a trade pile, as this Joe Mauer is destined for Jared over at Catching Up with Collecting, whenever I send my next package to him.

Next thing to fall out of the box was 2013 Topps Series 2.  A respectable dozen cards per pack...

A nice shot of Wrigley's outfield wall to start the pack.

Sunset card of the Yankee pitching great.

Per usual, I love the photography on the horizontal cards.  As nice as these past two shots were though, the next one is probably my favorite card in the pack:

With Oakland barely squeezing into the post-season yesterday, maybe we'll see something like this tomorrow night against Kansas City.  I'll be rooting for the Royals despite all the former Sox on the Oakland squad.  How can you not cheer for a team that's in the playoffs for the first time in 29 years?  Funny and fitting that I pulled nice horizontal cards of the Royals and A's back to back.

Definitely could have done worse with my Gold parallel.  I actually just picked up a Soriano card that is near and dear to me, which I hope to feature soon here.

Got the base version to go with my Gold card.

Nice, a new Red Sox card!  I can't ask for much more from a cheap pack than a new card for my Sox collection.

One more pack for today, and it's a big one.  A 36-card jumbo pack of 2012 Topps Series 2.  I've been slowly ripping through a 24-pack retail box of this stuff over the past few months, so my chances of pulling dupes are unfortunately pretty high.  This ended up being probably the pack of the box though, despite those odds.  Here's the top half first...

Dupe.  Not off to a great start...

This Joe Blanton card is one I actually didn't have yet.  Gonna be a few cards before I can say that again in this pack.

Dupe.

Dupe.

Dupe.

Dupe.

Dupe.

Dupe.

Dupe.  Okay, that was brutal.  As is customary with many products the cards end up in the same stretch within a pack.  I knew once I got two or three straight doubles that I was probably in for a long run of them.  Thankfully the inserts broke up the trend:

Although I love Clemente, neither insert card in this top half is too exciting in my opinion, and both are now in the trade box.

After the inserts I got a nice little run of cards I didn't have to finish off the top half of the pack.  This one's definitely sporting an interesting photo of a guy who just enjoyed a monster 2014.

It almost seems, based on the positioning of the runner way behind Beckham as well as the shading, that this one was photoshopped, but I don't believe that's the case.  Maybe a hit-and-run play that resulted in a grounder to second?

Another nice sunset card in this pack, Jim Thome's.  I believe he was included on inserts only in the 2013 release.

That's it for the top section.  Things got much better in the latter half of the section, but would get even better in the bottom portion of the pack...

Dupe.  Here we go again?

Dupe.

Dupe.

Dupe.

Dupe.

Dupe.

Dupe.  Cool card though, always liked the photo on this one.

Dupe.  I thought this was supposed to be getting better?  Just trust me.

These parallels look really nice with the Oakland A's team colors.

Here's the card that made the pack (and the repack box!) for me.  I'm a huge fan of these Legends Variations short prints that feature retired players.  I've got a handful of them that I've picked up over time, but they are a relatively tough pull and don't come cheap on the secondary market.  I couldn't find any odds on the pack for pulling one, but this Ruth seems to go for $10-$15 or more online.  I doubt I'll get a better card in the remaining packs, especially one that fits my collecting interests so well.  A keeper for sure!

Look at those career stats!  Interesting that my guaranteed hit in the repack box was also a Ruth card.  A Yankee fan would have been very happy selecting this box off the shelf at Target.

With all the Griffey collectors out there I shouldn't have trouble unloading this insert in a trade.

As with the top half of the pack, the doubles stopped after the inserts and it was all new cardboard from here on out.

So, there were another three packs.  Despite the collation in this 2012 rack pack killing me, it's never a bad thing to load up the trade box.  Besides, that Ruth SP and a new Koji card in the pack before it made these packs winners.  I've got a ton left to rip through and already this value box feels like money well spent!