2017 Topps Holiday Hobby Shop Set (Bowman) at the LCS! and BOOM!

FYI

I finally updated my Trade Bait page. Its looking a little weak due to my heavy trade activity in the past month. I'll try to build it up by next month.

Topps Update Jumbo Pack

So I won't make it a mystery; my LCS is Grand Slam Sports Shop in Sterling Heights, MI. Its about 3 miles from my house and I don't visit it even a fraction of as much as I should. I always pull hot cards there. I went in to get the free pack of 2017 Topps Holiday cards you could only get at hobby shops after spending $10 on Topps products. I dropped $15 on a jumbo pack of Update to spend my minimum $10 to get my 3 Holiday card pack. I had my son with me and he was not in the mood to be at a card shop at 9:45am so I just grabbed the first pack that was at least $10. I have done well with cheap retail Update packs but don't really enjoy the product due to lack of Tigers and it only being made to overpopulate the world with Judge and Bellinger cards. Anyway, I didn't get crap in the pack that cost 3X the retail ones. Not even a gold numbered card. No Judge, no Bellinger, no real hits.

SP, whoopdeedoo. This year Topps has killed the SP Photo Variation Market

Not a real "hit" in my book. Of course I just finished a trade with a certain D'backs collector. I'll have to hang on to it for him.

Foil. I keep pulling the Keuchel cards and I keep becoming more annoyed with him.

Who the hell is this guy, and why do I now have 8 of this card? Is there a pack of Update that this card isn't in?!

Bittersweet JV and another World Series participant and my 6th DeJong update card.

Finally a new name.

HOLIDAY PACK

The Holiday pack made up for it though. I pulled 3 good names and one was numbered. Can't complain there.

My streak of rarer Cody's continues.

I think I have every one of Yuli's RCs without trying.

#'ed /99!

That's One Way to Spend a Couple Bucks

Lastly, I had a few bucks in change and there are standards I live by that state you cannot walk out of a card show with more than 24 cents in your pocket and you can't leave a card shop with more than 99 cents. So I grabbed the top pack of 2017 Heritage Minor League and was done buying. The case boasted one auto per box but it didn't look like anybody had bought any yet. I busted the pack to find only one name I recognized:

#'ed /50!

Quick Trip to the LCS; Cody Bellinger and Dansby Swanson

I was finally able to take my brother to my LCS for the first time. We are really putting a hurting on their hobby packs. I pulled that Judge redemption a while back and this time my brother had the luck. I teased him into buying some Heritage telling him that I don't even have a Cody Bellinger card yet. He actually pulled one...a numbered one.

/999

He bought some other packs including a Donruss that contained this gem...

He crushed it with hobby packs. I had only $5 to throw away so I bought from a basket that had old junk packs 7 packs for $5. I got some really good stuff including this Jeter I already had but its a very interesting card.

I also found this Red Wings team set in the bin. Bad scan but love the Metal:

I have been SLOWLY updating my trade bait page so check it out. Here are just a few cards I added today some oddball Griffey for those JR. collectors and a Nomar RC:

2017 Stadium Club

I was able to sneak to the LCS while "getting groceries" to see what was new. The counters were all taken up with people cracking into 2017 Stadium Club boxes. I didn't see anything too great come out of them except one fat kid pulled a chrome Omar Vizquel, called it junk, and then refused to trade/sell it to me. I would have offered him a box of twinkies but he didn't want to barter. Anyway, I bought one pack of Stadium Club to be like the cool kids. $8.00!  I saw someone else post about paying 6 or 7 and thought it was kind of funny. I got taken, that's what I get. Anywho, I did pull the one card I wanted most out of the set:

Still waiting for this guy to explode.

 Here are the other two cards worth mentioning from the set:

Sickest RC ever!

I keep trading Sanchez but he probably has a better chance of being HOF than Judge being a catcher and Judge having such little time played for how old he is.

 I can't wait to get my hands on some 5X7's of this set! Also, I have been to numerous stores countless times and have yet to see ANY Bowman Platinum or Stadium Club other than at the LCS. I am awaiting a few trade packages and a bunch of packages of Tigers stuff I won in Homerun Derby and All Star Game contests on Facebook.

My first local card shop in 20 years!

My 1st LCS buy. Not anything impressive for anyone else but its a start.

 The last time I had a card shop local to me I was 12 years old. It was a magical place I started frequenting as a child any time I could. It molded my passion for collecting cards.
Today, I was out running errands and saw a shop called GRAND SLAM SPORTS that I had seen when I searched for local shops. Most of the "card shops" around me are pawn shops or antique dealers with a handful of cards they know nothing about in a glass case next to some fake Rolex's. I am over the moon happy to find a real brick and mortar shop. I could have spent hours in it but had my tired 2 year old son with me so I spent a whole 5 minutes. I quickly spent $4 on 4 cards and left. I will return as soon as I can and hopefully spend some real time there and pick up some treasures.