Cracking packs

 My dad is in town, and since he happened to come in from Middle of Nowhere America, he was able to find some retail baseball card boxes for us to open at a Walmart he visited.  Here in San Diego county, there is almost never anything of importance on any retail shelves, and it makes me think the Panini Diamond Kings 2017 box I found (and pulled an autographed David Wright materials card from) was just a complete and utter fluke.  Unfortunately, the Ebay sellers know when the product is stocked on the local shelves and swoop in and buy everything so they can make a profit on Ebay.  It is frustrating as all hell if I'm being honest.

Anyhow, my dad bought one blaster box of 2020 Topps Gallery, two boxes of 2020 Panini Contenders which guarantees one auto box, and two mega boxes of 2020 Bowman Platinum, which also contains one auto.  Going into the pack openings, we were well aware that the autograph check list is quite large, so it was likely we'd end up with some random prospects or Joe Schmoe veterans that have $5 in value or less.  That's exactly what we got.  In the the first Platinum box we pulled dodgers prospect Devin Mann.  The good thing about this card is it is numbered to 150 so it is a blue parallel.  

The second Platinum box was probably worse, both in value of the team compared to the Dodgers and the fact that it is a base auto. Rockies prospect Terrin Vavra.  I will say the upside in terms of value is that both of the above players are middle infielders, so if they hit as prospects and make it to the bigs, there will be more value there.

In the Panini Contenders boxes, we pulled a current Major Leaguer in backup A's catcher Austin Allen as well as a pitching prospect in the Brewers organization named Antoine Kelly.  Neither of these hits would be considered exciting, but at least with Kelly you never know what will happen in the future.  The kid could develop into an ace and make the card worth owning. 

I realize the picture uploaded as oriented sideways but honestly neither of these cards is worthy of my time to figure out how to rotate it so that they can be more clearly seen.  Just work with me and tilt your head on this one. 

I forgot to mention in the preamble that I also opened a 2020 Panini Diamond Kings Hobby Box, which contains *on average one autograph and one relic per box.  In keeping with the theme, the auto hit was a bit on the lackluster side, with all due respect to Angels rookie starting pitcher Patrick Sandoval. It is a relic auto so there are a couple of little gray napkins, err I mean jersey pieces on the card as well.  

To be fair, I do like the layout of the card itself.  I really enjoy the artwork though I wish Panini had rights to MLB so they could put team names and logos.  My other hit in this box was a Shohei Ohtani jersey card numbered to 99.  It's not an auto so I gave it to my daughter because she thinks the jersey cards are cool. 

Oddly enough, the card that excited me the most was a Pete Rose 3000 insert card that I got.  I think the 3000 insert cards are beautiful.  As a refresher, I did get the Paul Molitor version from this same set signed through the mail earlier this year by Paul.  Read about that HERE. I actually am going to do the same with the Rose card, and have already sent it to a private signing being held in early December with Pete.  That will definitely be a post you read about here.  I wish there were more non deceased versions of the 3000 set so I could get more signed.  Only seven of the fifteen players in the set are still alive, and they are expensive.

Thank you for reading this longer post.