Sunday, July 8, 2018

Deconstructing A Repack, Forming a Repack Bill of Rights


The local pharmacy had one of these 100 Card + One Pack Repacks from the Fairfield Company, Lucas Duda was on the front.


Here are the oldest cards in the pack, '85, '86 Donruss and a glossy insert from '86 Topps Rack Packs. I feel buying these repacks the same way I feel about eating fast food. I already know I will regret it, but I do it anyway for the convenience and the cheap carbs. 


Not including Topps, here are the newest cards from each manufacturer, '94 Donruss, '92 Fleer Ultra, '91 Score and Upper Deck. Topps went all the way to 2017.


The pack - 1990 Donruss. "Orange you glad I didn't say Triple Play?" --Fairfield, probably


Members of the Hall of Fame from the repack - there was another Tim Raines from '88 Score as well.


My four favorite cards from the repack - I am pretty sure I already had all four of these already, but that's the chance you take with a repack, right?

Some Stats:
There were actually 102 cards in the repack.
65 were Topps Cards, mostly 2015 (16 cards), 1988 (16), and 1989 (11).
14 were Donruss (and the pack would be 16 more), 8 Fleer, 7 Score, 7 Upper Deck, and one '93 Pacific.

It's been a while since I purchased one of these, because to be honest they are terrible. It's not about getting high dollar cards or hits for these, but it should be about variety and surprises. If I were to start making repacks on my own, I would have a few rules for myself.

Variety is the Spice of Life

1. No duplicate cards (this repack had 2 pair of duplicates).

2. No more than 5 cards from same set. (this repack had three sets with 10+ cards)

3. Cards from every decade since the 1980s (this repack had 0 cards from 2000-2010)

Spread the love between the manufacturers

4. Topps should be less than half of the repack.

5. Non-Topps should include more years than just '88 - '91

6. It's ok to skip the main set and go with extra offerings (Fleer Ultra, Leaf, Score Select, etc.)

Repack with intention

7. Seek out interesting photo choices.

8. Select a handful of fan favorite players to include, along with a few Hall of Famers.

9. Be willing to get weird - use some box sets, oddballs, traded/update, etc.

Last but not least

10. Include cards you would want to see in a re-pack.

(This is my philosophy for blind trades, too)

4 comments:

  1. I have a much more favorable opinion of repacks than you, but that was a BAD repack.

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  2. I agree with this-the sets you see in repacks are always the same. Too much 2010 and 2012 Topps, too much 86-92, and even the oddballs are often from the same sets.

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  3. I've always been a fan of the old All-Star glossy cards, so getting three of them would have been a win for me!

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  4. "Orange you glad I didn't say Triple Play?"

    Nice. That made me smile.

    ReplyDelete