Sometimes you can find some interesting things in some interesting places. Rite Aid and Walgreens are sometimes one of those places. I happened to be interested because the Rite Aids in my area (maybe yours too?) are turning into Walgreens. Seem like they are over-saturating the area a bit to me, but what do I know about the pharmacy business.
I just know that you can sometimes find cards there. Usually that comes in the form of Fairfield repack boxes. Those are usually pretty good for finding some TTM cards. So I went into take a look and found the standard boxes, but also what they dubbed as Prime Packs. I guess to each their own as to whether they are really “prime” or not.
So I decided to pick up a few (OK, a lot more than a few) of both baseball and football to see what comes in them.
Baseball – What’s In ‘Em?
Each box comes with three packs, one of which is a hobby pack, and then a bonus card. There was one consistent pack across each of the boxes I got and that was 2018 Topps Series 1. Other than that, there were some minor differences in the other packs and cards.
Almost all the packs had 2013 Panini Prizm. There was one exception and that was a pack of 2011 Donruss Elite. I’m definitely not a fan of the unlicensed products, but I prefer the Prizm over the Donruss product. The only thing remotely interesting was the James McCann prospect card you see above.
Always With the Shiny
The Prizm packs resulted in some interesting cards. I think the highlight, given what’s been going on lately, is the Gerrit Cole rookie card. It’s actually an insert. The Didi Gregorius is an actual rookie card. Below the Gregorius in this picture is another rookie refractor.
I liked the look of the other inserts: Fearless and USA Baseball. Maybe it’s the mirror that makes me forget the unlicensed factor. But either way I just like these a bit more.
Something Different
One of the alternative packs was a 2018 Bowman that was thrown in. In that pack were the two inserts. Obviously the Kingery is a bigger one. That’s a pretty good looking card though.
The Keston Huira chrome card was the only different card that came in the packs. Other than that one card it was all 2018 Topps of some kind. Sometimes they were Series two, sometimes some kind of parallel, but this was the on different extra card that was in the packs.
Focusing on Inserts
As I said there was a lot of 2018 Topps Series 1. We’ve all seen those cards so I’m avoiding showing any base for that reason. There weren’t any big breakthrough cards.
But there were some interesting inserts that you see above. I always loved the Superstar Sensations insert. I wish I found more of those when I was opening these packs originally. The ’83 inserts are nice but they are especially nice because of the two that you see. Halladay was nice to see and with Strasburg just winning a Series and getting an MVP it makes that one a bit more special.
Topps of the Pile
Before we get off those ’18 Topps cards, That Ichiro is pretty in the rainbow parallel. Of course I would rather it not be a Marlins uniform, but it probably looks better because of it.
There were some other interesting packs. I got a few ’18 Allen & Ginters, an ’18 Topps Fire, and an ’18 Topps Chrome Update. The Chrome had two nice rookies in Soroka and Robles. The Fire had that great Red parallel Bench, and if you know me you know I love the colored parallels that go with the uniform.
The Allen & Ginters were just meh. Really nothing to report from them.
Football – What’s In ‘Em?
Football was different than baseball in that well,… it wasn’t different. Every box had ’13 Prestige, ’16 Donruss, and ’19 Leaf Draft. The only difference was the extra card that came with the packs.
I had never actually seen 2013 Prestige and I really like it. They are good looking cards with designs that go with the team colors. I think in some cases they could be really cool for TTMs. I’m not a huge TTMer for current football though.
Prestigious
But the best part a out the Prestige was that these had to be the “hobby” packs. That’s where I found the two “best” (I guess it depends on how you think about it though) cards above.
The first of those “best” cards was an auto of EJ Manuel. But I think the cooler card for me is the Roddy White with the shield, see-through, and die cut. I guess it’s gotta be plastic. It’s just a cool card, plain-and-simple. Well, I guess it’s not plain-and-simple which is why it’s cool.
D-D-D-Donruss
I don’t mind 2016 Donruss much. It’s a pretty cool design and I don’t have a whole lot of it. That could be because I tend to get it in packs like this and I never really went out and bought it on its own. I really just wish there was a little more variety between these boxes.
More D-D-D-Donruss
I do love these old Gridiron kings and the more “artsy” cards that they have in this set. The Largent is also an interesting throwback/crossover with a baseball card design.
When All Else Fails, Leaf Draft
And of course, they throw a 2019 Leaf Draft pack in there. As a Giants fan my favorite card is the Daniel Jones All-American. But who knows, that could change if he doesn’t pan out.
So overall, these were fun to open. I wouldn’t do what I did and find a whole bunch of them though. It think it’s more fun as a little gamble here and there though. If you were going to get more than one, go for that in baseball and not football. Football all was the same for me so I don’t see why that should be too different for you. But by the same token, I got the biggest hits in football.