5,500+ Unopened Packs of Pure Goodness

I have a confession to make.  I obsessively write down purchases on any cards I acquire.  it is an addiction.  No doubt, whenever I buy a blaster box at the store, I always make the note next to it "stupid buy!" or "why did I get this again?"  It pains me to see $20 go down the drain for a $1 jersey card of a nobody and 50 accompanying base cards. 

I found a guy one time who was selling a collection from a family member who had passed away.  He mentioned there were a lot of unopened packs of cards.  After a while, he didn't respond back to me!  I was sooooo worried.  This sounded like the dream deal.  So what did I do?  I contacted him again ... under my "alias" name.  For some reason, he liked how my alter-ego acted and was fine with me coming over.  I'm not proud of that, but hey, it got my foot in the door.  And oh, what a glorious room that door led to...

One pic of the many boxes overflowing with packs!

I made an appointment to meet with him, and when I went there, his living room was filled with packs.  Not 80's and 90's junk ... newer stuff.  Not hobby stuff mind you...just retail stuff, but it was heaven.  After negotiations for quite a while, I was able to wipe him out of every single stinking pack he had, along with tons of binders of cards, and other things.  It was truly a super sweet deal. 

I packed up my family-mobile and it was stuffed to the gills in cards.  My mind was going a million miles a minute - what do I do?  Sell some?  Sell all?  Open all?  What?  I got home and unloaded it all.  I thought maybe there would be 1,000-1,500 packs of cards.  NOPE - Over 5,500.  Allen & Ginter, Turkey Red, SP, etc. 

I ended up selling a few hundred packs, and kept many of them around for months.  While baseball was on or something, I'd go into my garage, grab a pile of packs and rip away.  After a while, since there was lots of basketball and football, I figured I just had to rip them too, even though I didn't collect them much.  That forced me to learn what cards were good.  I was fortunate to pull 50 Blake Griffin rookies, tons of Mark Sanchez rookies, Tim Tebow rookies, etc. 

Blake Griffin, anyone?

When the stockpile went down to 5,000 I put the whole collection up for sale just to see what would happen.  One person from out of state expressed *extreme* interest and even made plans to get a uhaul to come pick everything up.  After a while, it turned out he left me high and dry. 

Some miscellaneous pulls

No problem!  I figured I'd go ahead and rip everything....everything.  As a result, I was able to make more off of everything opened than I would have if I sold it all.  Not to mention the fact that I had months of fun and enjoyment ripping packs open ... guilt free, knowing I bought them at a great deal. 

My son and I had lots of fun opening them together.  My wife even got in on it for a while.  What a great time!

Here are some of the binders I scored (There were about 20 of them, if I recall correctly).

I'm not sure if another deal will come up like this, but it is the thrill of the hunt that keeps me looking!