Temptation

I purchased some sealed vintage wax packs awhile back - Here's one of 1979 O-Pee-Chee

 There are ten cards to a pack, I just know there's a Met in this one. I'm very tempted to bust it open and see what other cards might be in there! It's very hard to resist, so thankfully I bought two. Here's what I saw when I opened the pack:

Two cards get eaten by gum and wax, respectively, so here's most of the pack. I think Joaquin is my favorite, I'm a fan of the rainbow sunrise Astros uniforms...

But


wait


what's

this?

I have to say that I never, ever, ever, get the "hit" in a pack or box of packs. Pulling Ozzie's Rookie card is definitely the best card I've ever gotten out of a pack in my life. Sweet sideburns, dude.

I'm less tempted to open that other pack now.

I'm geared more towards vintage, so this made me happier than if I had pulled a relic or auto - what is the best pack you've ever opened? Is there any single card that made you do a little happy dance?

Gotta start somewhere

Over the weekend I started sorting my collection by teams, to try to make sense of it all. I want to be able to find items for trade faster, and to make some room for new things.

I managed to find one box full of the very first cards I collected, and they were in pretty terrible shape:

The scan doesn't really do justice to the number of creases and dings. But I think I'm going to hang on to these, as they mean more to me than I'm sure they would to the landfill.

When I started collecting 1965 O-Pee-Chee, the first thing I bought was an eBay lot of about 50 cards, half of them from '65. Some were in great condition, others not so much, I've replaced several of them with sharper versions, but there's one I think I'm going to keep:

 That's pretty amazing, no?

I don't know why anyone would want to part with this 1/1 Brooks Robinson "Spaceman" Parallel.

Every collection has to start somewhere - do you still have any of the first cards you collected?

Topps Stadium Club 2014 vs. 1995

Here is another probably irregular feature on The Old Arbitrary: comparing one product 19 years apart.

Today I'm looking at Topps Stadium Club. I got a deal on a 2014 minibox at last week's card show in Mounds View. This week at the Valley West show, a vendor had a ton of "vintage" packs, including these 1995 Stadium Club series 1 and 2 for 50 cents each.

Cost:
1995: 14 cards per pack, 4 packs (56 cards) for $2.00

2014: 5 cards per pack, 6 packs (one autograph card, 30 cards total) for $28.00

Not surprisingly, the new product is more expensive. I don't recall how much these packs cost in 1995, but it was definitely more than 50 cents. 2014 has an on card autograph in every box, though.
Advantage: 1995

Base cards:
1995:

2014:

The only thing that can beat Stadium Club photography is more Stadium Club photography. While the gimmicky poses are fun, they are really cheesy and so '90s. 2014 is a cleaner classy look and the photography is top notch.
Advantage: 2014

Card backs:
1995: Very 90s, video game style bar charts (Topps skills rating system), two more player photos, busy busy busy, and yet, no career stat line.

2014: A fairly clean look, with a background image of home plate, reminiscent of the first few editions of the product. Shows 2013 stats for active players and career stats for all.

Advantage: 2014

Inserts:
1995: Virtual Reality, Best Seat in the House, Cover Story, Statistical Extreme

2014: Luminous, On Card Auto, Field Access, Legends

I only listed inserts that were in the packs I opened, I'm sure there are more. What is the difference between the "Virtual Reality" insert and a regular base card? Not much. "Statistical Extreme" is very 1995 Fleer. I kind of hate die-cut cards- I'm always worried they will get dinged up, but I do really like the Rickey Henderson card I pulled.
Advantage: tie, because inserts

Hall of Famers:

1995: Greg Maddux, Ozzie Smith

2014: Ozzie Smith, Rickey Henderson, Duke Snider, Lou Gehrig, Ernie Banks, Bob Feller, George Brett

Really not a fair fight, as 2014 has a ton of retired players from all eras. Projecting the active players I pulled from 2014, probably David Ortiz, Adrian Beltre, Clayton Kershaw are the most likely. The Wizard wins the no-prize for being in packs from both sets.
Advantage: 2014

Twins:

1995: Alex Cole - hit his first career home run in 94 (it was his 1,317th MLB at bat), was a decent speedy CF in 1994. He came up with Cleveland, was an original Rockie, wore turtlenecks and shades, but didn't last much longer after that season and a half with the Twins.

2014: Joe Mauer - That's kind of a stupid looking hat, Joe. Good thing you've won an MVP and three batting titles, because otherwise I was leaning towards the turtle.
Advantage: 2014

Overall:
Have to say that as much fun as it was to open the 1995 packs, I don't miss the '90s that much. The 2014 Stadium Club might be my favorite version of the product since 1992. The first few years of Stadium Club were a revelation. 1994 and 1995 seemed to be starting a slide of the whole hobby into some really unnecessary inserts and parallels.
Winner: 2014

Where would you rank 1995 Stadium Club?

Card show WIN

Oh boy - this show was a very good one for me.

I found some packs of junk wax that I missed the first time around as a kid - 1995 Stadium Club. Better 20 years late than never, right?

I doubled the size of my 1954 Topps collection (from 2 to a whopping 4!)

I got a great deal on these '48 Bowmans from the vintage dealer that gets all my money (He also sold me a lot of vintage at .50 per card, I picked up a bunch of nice cards from him today.)

Best of all, a different vendor brought his binder of 1965 O-Pee-Chee!

!!!

I only was missing one card that he had, Dan Osinski, but the bigger/better news was that he had the two unmarked checklists I needed (my copies were marked up like whoa)

There were several other small successes (finished the 2015 series one All-star Rookie Cup, for instance) but this was a really great show for me. I feel like I won the lottery! Even though I'm coming home with a lighter wallet.

First new packs of 2015

2015 arrived today in Minneapolis. Topps Baseball, I mean.

Here's the first pack for me:

And my favorites from that pack (Colabello was the first card upon opening the pack.):

Kennys Vargas is a beast and totally awesome. This is his first regular Topps issue card. I have his 2014 Heritage high number and his pre-rookie Bowman prospect card already, so I guess you could say I'm doing a PC of Vargas. Looking forward to his cards being more ubiquitous this year!

I also purchased a hanger box, which should have about 72 cards, and a blaster box with 10 packs.

If you did not get in on one of the group breaks and have a favorite team, I'm most likely just keeping a selection of these cards and I probably will have doubles, so let me know if you're looking to trade. Contact form is on the right of my blog's main page.

Edited to Add: The Blaster Box contained a "First Home Run Medallion" card - Phillies phans, check it out: