Variety Pack

On the latest #CrackinWaxMailDay, a few @CrackinWax box breaks add some cards to my collection and some trade bait as well. 

 

Since Crackin' Wax brought back their "break of the day" feature (basically smaller breaks with a daily discount), I've started picking up a few more spots here and there. Results have been mixed, of course. For this latest mail day, I cards from some random team breaks as well as one where I did get to buy my team.

First up is a couple of "silver pack" inserts from 2022 Topps that feature the much loved but overused 1987 design. At some point these shifted from being promotional packs handed out by affiliated card shops to being "box loader" packs in hobby boxes. In either case, they're kind of like the prize at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box. The Luis Robert card heads to my trade box.

The prize card of the break, if not the whole mailer, is this Tyler O'Neill card from 2022 Topps Heritage.

The O'Neill card is far from ordinary. It's a "French text" variation, numbered to 73. It's quite fitting for the Canadian-born slugger. (Just don't call it O-Pee-Chee!)

I ended up with a few Heritage short prints, which must have beaten the odds. I'm not super wild about legends popping up in the regular checklist this year, but I still suppose it's a fitting tribute to the original set.

The real problem with the Tris Speaker card presents itself on the back. In the fine print, his team name is: St. Louis Cardinals(?!) Of course, Speaker never played with the Cardinals, so this mistake get this card sorted into the wrong team piles. The original 1973 Topps #476 card is a Walter Johnson All-Time Shutout Leaders card (Speaker doesn't appear in the set.) Also, note how Topps is apparently legally unable to spell out Pete Rose's full name.

These two Dodgers cards came from some kind of Bowman break. I didn't do so well in this one, but I never have a problem getting rid of Dodgers cards.

A Donruss Optic break was also not particularly fruitful, but I did end up with an insert card of this young hitting monster.

I felt compelled to jump into an NBA Hoops break even though I've opened a fair amount of it for myself. I just wanted to encourage more basketball breaking. Here we have one of the best players in the league and a dude named Bones.

Here's a couple of purple parallels. I believe these are typically found in hobby boxes, while retail has a similar blue parallel counterpart.

The new NBA Play-In tournament is currently in progress, although I'm trying to ignore it. There is a Blazers lottery pick on the line, however. (Go... Clippers? Ugh.) The Hawks are also in this Play-In thing, which is a bit of a drop-off after winning their division last season. This numbered Trae Young insert also gets added to my trade bait stuff.