General Forum

A little background:
I'm a Twins fan. I started out listening to them on the radio in the '70s. I attended my first three MLB games in 1987, a weekend series against the California Angels. The '87 and '91 Twins are pretty fixed in my memory. Favorite players are Kirby Puckett, Kent Hrbek, and Bert Blyleven. Important to note that I had collected as a kid and really stopped around the mid-80's. The bug bit me again twice in the last 10 years and I bought cards but then got busy with other things and just let them sit. I don't know why but it bit me again this spring and bit really hard and I've been on the verge of going overboard. I'm still getting used to inserts, and autograph cards, and patch cards, and relics. In fact, I was sure that I didn't understand why anyone would want a relic card, "what's the point?" I thought. 

Then I was openning packs of 2022 Topps Baseball Series 2 and got the card below and I feel like I had to eat my words about relic cards, it's one of the few relic cards that could make me go "whoa!" Touché Topps, touché.

2022 Topps - 1987 Topps Baseball Relics Gold Series Two #87BR-KP Kirby Puckett SN50 (I'll get around to scanning this in sooner or later.)

Anyone else have a pull that they really, really appreciated, enjoyed, etc?

By the way, my math teacher asked me what I thought of the Twins chances in the spring of 1987. I told him "they're a lot better but they will not win the world series." You may remember that they did but in my defense, no one else really expected that particular team to do it either.

Another by the way, my favorite taunt from opposing fans that came through the audio of a broadcast was a surprisingly clean taunt for Hrbek from Fenway. "Hey Hrbek! Buy a vowel!"  

Aaaahhh!
Your not You're.
I'm not that guy, am I? I must be.

I am pretty jealous of that card lol. I have yet to pull a good Twin from a pack. My best was probably the 2019 Topps pack with a Tom Seaver jersey.

Twins fan all my life. My first game was at Met Stadium sometime in the 1970's. I still have a few photos that I took at the game that day. I can't say that I have had any great recent pulls because I haven't opened any packs since I'm not sure when. I see you are collecting a set of 1987 Topps. I probably have most if not all that you still need. I'm working on a 2019 Topps Heritage Baseball set. As my wantlist shows I'm not too far from completion. Go TWINS!! RJ

My brother and I revisited our childhood card shop in our 20s.  We thought it would be fun to pick up some old wax packs so we grabbed a handful.  One was '82 Donruss and we pulled a Ripken RC.  He was one of my childhood favorites and it was even better because we always seemed to get the shaft when we were kids looking for Canseco or Griffey Jr. cards.

It's not baseball, but it's easily the best card I've ever pulled that I still have. From a single $3 pack of 2000 UD Ultimate Victory football, I pulled a Tom Brady RC SN2000. Not many people knew who he was then, but I kept it because I also collect the Patriots. That card is easily the card that I could sell for the most money (if I wanted to) from my entire collection. Even better is that it was one of several packs my Grandma gave me for Christmas that year. I also pulled a Brady RC from a Skybox Impact pack from that stack (still have it too).

For baseball, I have 2 cards that immediately come to mind. #1 is a 2009 UD Icons Immortal Lettermen Ozzie Smith patch SN40. Even though they are manufactured patches (not from a worn or used jersey), it was exactly the "hit" I was hoping to pull from that box. #2 came from the same box, NOT for what I pulled but for what I did with it. I pulled a Pablo Sandoval AU card that I quickly traded for a Mint Ozzie Smith 1979 Topps RC. I finally got my white whale of 25+ years in the condition I wanted without having to buy it!!!

I have a trio in NASCAR that really stand out. The one that is still in my personal collection is a 2016 Panini Certified Jimmie Johnson AU, SN15 card. It's the only JJ AU that I've ever pulled myself but the SN was 13/15 and (at the time) it became the 13th JJ AU in my collection (I have 22 JJ AU's now). Even at a highly discounted price of $35 for the box in 2018, the JJ was the only card that made that box worth the money! By value, my best pulls were cards that I quickly traded for goodies for my PC. My highest BV card ever pulled, at the time I pulled it, was a 2010 Press Pass Legends Quad-AU, SN25 card of the Force Family (NHRA's John Force and his 3 daughters). I traded that for my first ever JJ AU and a Mark Martin 2009 Press Pass Showcase SN5 Triple MEM card. A few years ago, I found a 2009 PP Showcase box for under $200 and bought it b/c it finally hit my price-mark for buying another box. From that box I pulled a Dale Earnhardt Sr. Jumbo Firesuit SN25 card. I traded that card and several others for a Jeff Gordon AU/MEM, SN45 from 2011 Showcase and a Danica Patrick AU/MEM, SN25 from 2010 Showcase. I still have both of those cards and the Martin card. I traded the 1st JJ AU/MEM card years later to someone  trying to complete the set for a different JJ AU/MEM card. Then I traded that one to another set collector for a different JJ AU/MEM card. Each time I traded the JJ AU's, I got one a little older. You can read all about my JJ AU collection and the trades in the User List on my Profile page.

I've had some very awesome pulls in my life, but I've still never pulled a 1/1 card of any kind. I own a bunch, but have never pulled one myself. Most of the really good pulls I've had got traded for something I actually wanted and they usually went very fast.

My bet pull will be an Auston Matthews Upper Deck Young Gun Rookie Card.  I pulled it from a Tin Can at Target.  This past week I finally finished the 2016-17 Upper Deck Set.

I'm not as much a pack purchaser as much as buying up lots of older cards and I've had a few decent cards turn up unexpectedly.  Picked up a box of "junk" and found two and a half Andre Dawson rookies in it (this was maybe late 90s).  The half was a card that had been ripped appart somehow.  Made me sad to even look at it.

And not exactly a card but in a lot of boxes full of cards, comics and action figures I picked up a few year back, I found silver, like the metal.  One ounce of pure silver.  I thought that was kind of funny.

I've been lucky enough to pull some, what are now, moderately expensive Kobe/Durant/Curry/LeBron cards over the years. Though to me none of them really stand out as being truely memorable and getting me excited at the time.

Some of the cards that I remember being excited to get from packs and therefore would count as my "best" pulls by that definition are the following (which also start with a stangely Minnesota theme, though Timberwolves not Twins).

The first basketball autograph I owned was pulled from a random pack. The immortal Chris Carr is not a household name but was very excited to get this card and the '90s Autographics from any year are just iconic cards in my eyes. At a similar time my younger brother managed to snag a Cory Alexander and Dana Barros. So despite not buying a lot of packs we did really well on the Autographics front even if we missed the big names.

Years later I was lucky enough to pull a 1/1 from a box I bought. Big Al may have never become a real star but he was a very good player at the time and remained so for several years.

Probably my first real basketball hit was this Dwight Howard autograph. It was the first time I combined getting a star player and a tough to pull card. I doesn't hurt that I think it looks pretty cool too. (The cards have a wooden finish and the image is etched into them).

My now favourite pull was one at the time I did not know what it was — this Brad Mackay rugby league card. I was in primary school and wondered why my gold card had an autograph while the ones my friends had didn't. We even considered writing to Dynamic to ask. It was only years later I found out there were 1000 autographed gold cards of 5 players along with the non-autographed versions. Of course being a kid this card was my pride and joy so lived at the top of my card pile taking all the rubber band damage and even went through a rep rugby practice in my pocket so is very beaten up!  

'68 Topps Mantle when I first started collecting.