The Elusive Rite-Aid Repack!

I've been doing a great job in 2016 of sticking to my goal of not buying retail packs and blasters, and so far it hasn't been all that difficult. The thing I enjoy much more though, and find harder to give up, is the $5 repack.  They typically have a few of these at the checkout counter of my local Rite-Aid.  I find myself in there maybe twice a month, and every single time I was checking out earlier this spring the same repack was right there within arms reach.

After enough trips to Rite-Aid like this I almost began to feel bad, those cards deserved a good home where they'd be appreciated.  I'd been staring at Jose Altuve here, and the 99 mystery cards behind him, for long enough.  Into my basket the cards went, and a week or so later I had some free time to sit down, rip the box open and see how I did.

Obviously, there was a lot of junk, but you go into one of these expecting as much.  It doesn't really bother me because a) much of my childhood collection was lost or damaged so many of these cards are still "new" to me, and b) the entire box was $5 and this is supposed to be fun, remember!

It turns out this would have been a nice little box for an Astros or Expos fan, as I seemed to get quite a few cards of those two franchises.  In the end though, it was the ultimate box for a Red Sox fan like myself, because I pulled one card that absolutely blew me away.  You'll have to wait until the end for that though...

I know it's a worthless set, but I was happy to pull a new Nolan Ryan for my collection nonetheless.

An interesting bat rack photograph of former Red Sox catcher Rich Gedman.  Another nice Astros card.

How about that smile!

Can't complain about a new Diamond Kings card.  Especially when the color scheme of the set really compliments the team pictured.

I weeded out the doubles before I scanned everything in, so every card in this post is new to my collection.  Not a bad photo here, especially by 1988 standards.

One of these days I should really find a cheap wax box of '91 Topps.  It's one of those sets that brings back so many collecting memories for me.

Another cool Expos card.  Those were some...um...interesting uniforms.

Here's an even better look at them.

Love the photograph on this one.  It's from the same Score Traded set that gave us the awesome Eric Lindros baseball card.

Some really good variety in this box in terms of sets and years covered.

Here's another Astros card I enjoyed, or half of one anyway.  Other half is even better!

Really, this thing was loaded with Expos and Astros cards...

Skinny Sammy Sosa RC!  I should put this into a thick screw-down holder and move it to my safety deposit box at the bank ASAP.

Opening Day.

Whole lotta green and yellow on this one.

Possibly the greatest set of the '90s.  One of them anyway.  Peace, Willie.

I got a few cards I needed from more recent Topps flagships sets, which is great.

Even one from a set that came out before I was born.

Ramon Martinez RC, a nice portrait shot at beautiful Dodger Stadium.  Surprised I didn't have this one already.

Remember this guy?  I had totally forgotten about him quite honestly.  He debuted in 2007, and never appeared in an MLB game after 2008.

A pair from 2000 Topps, which I have very little of.

Mr No-hitter, Mike Fiers.

Now for a handful of the better cards.  I like this Now & Then "Evolution of the Mustache" card of the great Dennis Eckersley.

No idea who this guy is, but it's a purple parallel, so I figured someone might be interested in it.  Already on my Zistle trade list!

Here's another purple parallel, my first Toys 'R' Us parallel from 2014 Topps.  Everth here appears to be at the end of the road as far as MLB goes, having been released by a couple of different franchises since he last played in early 2015.

Alright, now for the card that made this by far the best repack I have ever purchased in my life...

When I first thumbed across this one in the stack I stopped and just stared at it for probably 30 seconds.  I thought to myself this is too good to be true, there must be some kind of trickery involved.  You might be asking yourself why the big fuss over a Mookie Betts rookie?  Well, this is one of those short-printed photo variations.  I already had Mookie's standard rookie in my collection:

Not a bad card at all, but nowhere near as interesting as the variation...

I have nearly pulled the trigger on this card so many times in the past, but have been unwilling to pay the high asking price.  For example, only one seller is offering this card on COMC right now, and the asking price is $19.99.

I could not have asked for a better card to fall out of this repack for so many reasons.  I'm a Red Sox collector, Mookie is my second favorite current player on the team and a guy I half-collect, plus I'm a big fan of the photo variations in Topps flagship no matter who the subject is.  Just unreal, one of my better pulls from any product, repack or not.

The only problem?  Since the day I purchased this last lonely repack, the area at checkout where the cards typically are has been completely bare.  I haven't had an opportunity to pick up another of these even if I wanted to!  If this does turn out to be my final Rite-Aid repack, it was certainly an epic one...