30 Unopened packs of baseball Cards

It doesn't happen very often but when it does... I'm talking about unopened packs of baseball cards on eBayUK. Just last week, a seller put five lots of unopened baseball cards up for auction, I was lucky enough to win four of them, I was hoping for the fifth but was beaten out. Hopefully it went to the good home of one of my fellow UK card bloggers.
All the packs are from 2002/3, Donruss and Upper Deck. I have a sneaking suspicion that they are from repack boxes because there is clear plastic glue on the back or front of about 5 packs.
Some of these sets are familiar, but most were new to me.
Included was;

1999 Upper Deck Powerdeck 1pack,

2001 Donruss Studio 4packs,

2002 Upper Deck Rookie Debut  pack,

2002 Donruss Fan Club 5packs,

2002 Donruss 1pack,

2003 Upper Deck First Pitch 4packs,

2003 Upper Deck Series 1 2packs,

2003 Upper Deck Series 2 2packs,

2003 Upper Deck MVP 2packs,

2003 Upper Deck Standing O!  2packs,

2003 Donruss Team Heroes 2packs,

2003 Upper Deck Honor Roll 2packs,

2003 Upper Deck 40 Man 2packs.

They were delivered in a lovely big brown paper covered brick. I'm not ashamed to say it was a tad exciting. There was only one draw back - postage. It started as £15.00, I was able to knock it down to £8.00, knowing full well that it wouldn't come close to that. The actual postage cost was £2.80. I'm not sure why sellers do this and it is one thing that puts me right off eBay.
But look at all these unopened packs, such a glorious sight.
I will be cracking them open at Pursuit of Red Sox, my bold mission to collect Red Sox cards from packs and complete the occasional set.
All other cards will go into various trade piles.

Fleer Skybox EX 'Plastic' cards

I make no apology for this, but I am a complete sucker when it comes to this type of card. The clear plastic cards that Fleer, in the guise of Skybox EX, foist upon collectors firstly in 1999, and then again and again for the next few years, are the sort of cards I like to have in my collection. Long lasting, strong and transparent.

Although I can see why collectors may baulk.

In Australia they have plastic money, yes plastic notes of various denominations,made I am to led to believe of recycled supermarket carrier bags. When you see and feel this money it just isn't right. Real money should be metal or paper, credit cards are plastic. So it may be roughly the same thing with baseball cards. They should be made of cardboard. Vary the thickness, add a piece of bat or clothing, draw on it if you like (but don't put stickers) but never, NEVER make them from plastic.

Whatever your take is on this type of card, they have to be admired for innovation and trying 'something different'. Is there any harm in that? Some collectors spend a fortune making their cards plastic anyway through the grading process. As I have heard it put recently, the card collecting hobby is for enjoyment. Although I must mention the 2003 version of EX tried a little too hard to be different. The background is very sparkly, too sparkly like lip gloss. If you have young daughters you will know what I am talking about. If not, try to get a hold of some of these cards to get feel for them yourself. I like shiny cards but even this is too much for me.

2003 Topps Insert 1951 Blue Backs

The prices of listing items on e-bayUK have changed recently. In fact good and bad for a number of reasons.
Any item listed with a starting bid below 99p can be listed for free. E-bay just isn't as popular as it once was because I remember having to pay for the listing picture and that has been free for a while. Now this.
Naturally free listing is good for the seller. We have sold a few items and all our items start at below 99p so we list more, mainly because its FREE.
Free lsting is also good for the buyer. I only ever buy one thing from e-bay and that is baseball cards. OK, I admit I buy the occasional random item, but even they tend to be baseball linked. However... there are more baseball cards listed individually now. Pre the free selling incentive, most cards were listed in bulk lots and you didn't really know what you were getting. Now sellers are listing the entire 1988 Donruss set or the 1991 Score set individually, for 99p a card. That is just ludicrous. The entire set may be worth 99p, but each card? That makes the 660 card set of 1988 Donruss worth £654 and the 893 run of 1991 Score worth £885. That is over cooking it a little I know, but you see the problem.
There is a positive side to all this though and that is I purchased this 2003 Topps Ken Griffey Junior insert fashioned after the 1951 Topps Blue Back cards for 99p. There is often negative comments about the inserts placed in packs. I think they got it right with this 40 card insert set in 2003, there was also the Red Back 40 card set as well.
I like inserts, I don't like parallels. That seems like laziness to me. 'Let's just make the same card but write the name in gold or change the colour of the border'. 'Great idea and lets only make 2008 of them!'
My favourite inserts have been the Topps Allen and Ginter Minis and the 1996 Studio Stained Glass Stars, not to everybody's taste but it smacks of effort.
Maybe its because I live in England, but I don't understand the political campaign set inserted into baseball card sets. Famous people, movie stars but politicians. Can someone explain why? I don't want to collect a card of Tony Blair or Margaret Thatcher. It just doesn't seem right!