A Surprise Ripping Of Two Boxes At My LCS

Great thing about aerospace is that typically you get to work a 9/80 shift meaning that you get every other Friday off.  When I get the chance I like to take that Friday off and spend some time at my LCS.  I got to do that last Friday.

My goal this time was to knock off a bunch of 1980 Topps I needed.  I knew my guy at the LCS had several boxes of commons to go through, so with checklist in hand I tore in.

After about an hour flipping through cards and checking the numbers off the checklist, I had pulled close to a hundred 1980 Topps I needed.

About half-way through those 1980 Topps the dealer pointed out a couple boxes of new junk he had recently gotten.

This is stuff people bring in to get a couple bucks for, or to just get rid of.  He knows I like to go through it so he always mentions when he has new junk. Whatever I pull out of these junk boxes he usually gives me for free because, as he's told me, he'll probably throw it away or donate it since he has no room for it.

So I went through the boxes, looking for the baseball cards and riffled through them. 

There was a row of 1995 Topps Embossed that had a few Angels in it.

And if you recall from my last post I had a problem identifying the brand that these were.

There was also this silver counterpart to the Gold Tim Salmon that came from Remember The Astrodome in my last post.  Coincidence?  I think not.

About this time I noticed that the dealer started to open a couple packs of 2014 Topps Opening Day from a box on the table in front of him,

so I asked him to let me know if he found any Angels.

He agreed, and I went back to the junk box.

Found the tandem of Wally Joyners in the box.

I've come to learn that the real term for the gold versions of 1995 Topps Embossed is Golden Idol.

Not a good looking card the Gold Idol, way too dark.

Also found a nice John Olerud.

This actually wouldn't be a bad set to pick up.

There's only 140 cards in the set, and the only insert set was the Golden Idols at another 140 cards.

The Idols were inserted only 1 per pack so those would be tougher to pick up.

I have a ton of these 1991 Impel/Line Drive AAA and AA cards.

A massive set, both at 650 cards.

I love these cards as they're great for autographs.

1994 Bowmans Best DeShawn Warren.

Warren was drafted out of high school, and bounced around in the minors until 1999 never making up to the bigs.  He had some pretty cool cards though.

The dealer saw that I was starting to wrap things up and asked if I had any more time available to stay and rip open the other packs from the two boxes of Opening Day he had.

"Heck yeah!"

You can keep any Angels you pull too, he said.

Holy crap.

I was stoked just at being invited to rip two boxes of packs, but to keep any Angels I pull too?

Awesome.  What an opportunity to get some great cards for my team, a bunch of inserts, and maybe nail some nice Mike Trout.

Nope.  Here's what I pulled as far as Angels:

Now I am in no way complaining, just stating the facts.

Two boxes of Opening Day, that's 72 packs, and these are the only Angels in there?

And of these there were maybe 5 dupes, but only one of the Trout insert.

All the more reason I've cut way back on buying packs to get the team set.

It would cost me a fortune to build the set that way.

But Man, that sure was fun.

At the end of it all I showed the guy what I had pulled: the stack of 1980 Topps, the random cards from the junk boxes, and those that I pulled from Opening Day. I asked what I could pay him for all this.

He said I could have it.

I love that man.