Sunday's Afternoon Blaster - 2011 Gems of the Game

Welcome to this week's Sunday Afternoon Blaster.  Today's edition is a bit different than all the others.  I have nearly picked my local Wal Mart clean on discount blasters, so when I was shopping at Meijer this week and spotted a blaster I had never seen before in their card aisle, I popped at 19.99.  In this blaster you get 10 baseball packs and 1 graded card.  I am not a huge fan of graded cards, but I am not as against them as most of my fellow bloggers.  They have their place in the hobby, but should not (and hopefully never will) be a primary category of cards.  Some of you are probably rolling your eyes saying...whoopdedoo a repack, but I have never purchased any type of repack before.  Why not take a shot.  No specific goals here, but a decent Gem 10 card might pay for the blaster.

Card coloration is it's availability

white = I'm keeping it

green = available for trade

red = already claimed/traded

pack one

2009 Upper Deck Series 1 (18 cards)

69 Carlos Zambrano - Cubs

13 Chad Tracy - Diamondbacks

45 Daisuke Matsuzaka - Red Sox

17 Jair Jurrgens - Braves

124 Ryan Spilborghs - Rockies

187 Joe Saunders - Angels

112 Fausto Carmona - Indians

472 Chase Utley checklist - Phillies

408 Travis Snider - Blue Jays

6728 YSL Hideki Matsui - Yankees

430 Josh Whitesell - Diamondbacks

443 Pena/Iwamura/Upton Team Leaders - Rays

263 Jason Giambi - Yankees

280 Eric Chavez - Athletics

246 Ryan Church - Mets

342 Kyle Lohse - Cardinals

308 Adam LaRoche - Pirates

315 Adrian Gonzalez - Padres

pack two

2007 Upper Deck Masterpieces (4 cards)

6 Kirk Gibson - Dodgers

45 Ken Griffey Jr. - Mariners

51 Delmon Young - Rays

38 Albert Pujols - Cardinals

pack three

2009 Upper Deck Goudey (5 cards)

70 Carlos Guillen - Tigers

60 Fausto Carmona - Indians

111 Ben Sheets - Brewers

195 Vernon Wells - Blue Jays

179 Rick Ankiel - Cardinals

pack four

2009 Upper Deck Goudey (5 cards)

98 Scott Elbert - Dodgers

64 Cliff Lee - Indians

227 Carl Yastrzemski SP - Red Sox

35-23 Yount/Braun/Gallardo/Fielder red border - Brewers - Spiegel

162 Ryan Doumit - Pirates

pack five

2008 Upper Deck Baseball Heroes (5 cards)

12 Josh Hamilton - Rangers

64 Miguel Cabrera - Tigers

185 Johnny Bench/Ivan Rodriguez - Reds/Tigers

94 Chad Billingsley - Dodgers

53 C.C. Sabathia charcoal parallel - Indians

pack six

2009 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions (4 cards)

32 Josh Hamilton - Rangers

60 Matt Garza - Rays

75 Carlton Fisk mini - Red Sox - AdamE

83 Akinori Iwamura - Rays - Spiegel

pack seven

2008 Upper Deck X (6 cards)

30 Brandon Phillips - Reds

100 Lastings Milledge - Nationals

72 Eric Chavez die cut parallel - Athletics

X-BU - B.J. Upton XPonential insert - Rays

4099 YSL Chris Chambliss - Yankees

41 Gary Sheffield - Tigers

pack eight

2009 Upper Deck Icons (5 cards)

71 Kosuke Fukudome - Cubs

59 Johan Santana - Mets

42 Grady Sizemore - Indians

22 Chipper Jones - Braves

85 Rick Ankiel - Cardinals

pack nine

2010 Upper Deck Series 1 (8 cards)

14 Esmil Rogers - Rockies

230 Humberto Quintero - Astros

282 Jeff Weaver - Dodgers

SB-112 Vladimir Guerrero Season Biography - Angels

CP11/CP12 Anna Kournikova(?)/Enrique Iglesias - Celebrity Predictors - Colbey

79 Ty Wigginton - Orioles

503 Darren O’Day - Rangers

579 Troy Tulowitzki/Todd Helton checklist - Rockies

pack ten

2008 Topps Series 1

117 Boof Bonser - Twins

45 Dontrelle Willis - Tigers

231 Casey Blake - Indians

244 Adam Wainwright - Cardinals

144 Jerry Owens - White Sox

YR58 Adrian Beltre Year in Review - Mariners

31 Ronny Paulino - Pirates

75 Felix Hernandez - Mariners

240 Jim Thome - White Sox

292 Mark Loretta - Astros

THE GRADED CARD

BCCG 10 - Mint or Better (not PSA, but maybe still big money)

1990 Upper Deck (ugh)

#771 Fred Lynn (really? someone sent this in to be graded?)

IMPRESSIONS
Design: N/A

Well, obviously I can't judge the design of a repack.  But I can say of the sets I got I like 2008 Baseball Heroes, 2007 Masterpieces, 2008 Topps, and 2009 Icons the best.  2008 Upper Deck X and both Upper Deck main sets are okay.  The less said about the other two, the better.

Inserts / Hits: D
I picked an insert in nearly every pack; some good, some not so good.  My favorite is the die cut parallel of UDX.  I think that set is starting to grow on me.  I also got another SP from 2009 Goudey which should be easy to trade which is always good.  After the first pack and getting another YSL card (and later one more) I admittedly cringed, but I did find an insert that is even worse than those.  The Celebrity Predictors are quite possibly the worst cards ever printed.  They don't even name the celebrities that they are satirizing, just a vague description.  The graded card is just a joke.  At least it is a 10 (even if it is BCCG), I might put it on eBay once or twice with a $10 price tag and see if anyone bites.  Stranger things have happened.

Value: F
Horrible, just horrible.  Actually if it was 50% off like my normal blasters it wouldn't be THAT bad, but still not great.

Rox in the Box: 3
Well I did have one thing go right.  I got 3 Rockies and needed 2 of them.  Granted they are not cards that are particularly hard to find, but that's 2 more I won't have to get later.

Will I Collect This Set: N/A
I wish this was a set just so I could skip collecting it.

Overall: D
Well my first foray into repacks did not go well.  My local Meijer was built within the last year, so there aren't any discount blasters there yet.  I will probably avoid cards from there for a while until they realize I am the only person in this town that buys cards and lower the price.  This experience has not completely soured me on repacks and I'm sure if I had picked one of the other 4 GOTGs I would've gotten at least a little better than a Fred Lynn.  I may try another one from a different store in a few weeks, but I am going to try the Wally World in the next town first.  Everything is for trade once again (excluding the 2 Rox).  Have fun claiming.

PS - Don't forget to guess right below this post.