Plastic & Packs

One of my favorite holiday memories involved flipping through Sears and Service Merchandise catalogs and circling all of the toys I wanted.  These days I'm a little too old for toys.  Or am I?

1992 Topps #40

As I approach the big five-oh... I still enjoy the occasional Lego build.  This Christmas I received a few sets from my best friend, her niece, and her nephew.  Figured I show off one of the sets and tie it into some other plastic items that have recently entered my collection... along with a quick pack break for those readers who only care about cards.  Spoiler alert... the Ripken shown above (used to lure readers) was the best card I pulled.  But before we get to the packs, let's show off the plastic first.

Here's the Lego set I received and built on Christmas:

Lego 75312: Boba Fett's Starship

This is the third Slave I Lego set I've owned (also have Lego sets 75243 & 75060), but it's the first one I've taken the time to build.  Although it's too small to be considered minifigure scale, I think the Lego designers did an amazing job with this set.

The build itself went smoothly and provided a little over two hours of entertainment.  My only concern is the brick built stand that comes with this ship is pretty flimsy.  I hope it doesn't tip over and knock over some of my other Lego Star Wars ships.

As for the other two Lego sets I received... I haven't built them yet.  One of them I plan to take into my classroom.  I'll build and display it there, since I think some of my students will get a kick out of it.

Let's move along to some other plastic items I received recently...

First up are some new decorations for my team shelves in the office:

These trinkets were part of a much larger care package sent to me by my buddy Woody who I met on the card forums back in the day.  I'll share some of the other goodies in a future post, but for the time being... these mini-helmets and TeenyMates were more appropriate for today's post.

These remind me of items you'd find in those quarter machines at the grocery store back in the 80's and 90's.  Although these days, I'm sure they'd charge a buck or two for these novelties.

And rounding out the plastic items are these fantastic looking samurai models that Ryan (SumoMenkoMan) sent me last week:

When I was growing up, my parents would go to this small grocery store in Japantown called Dobashi where they sold little model kits that would sometimes contain a piece of candy.  This appears to be the modern day version of those model kits.

According to Ryan, he found them at the flea market and he generously sent me the duplicates from this purchase.  Each model came with a little sign and a trading card.

Dobashi closed their doors back in 2006, but the next time I go to Nijiya (another Japanese grocery store) I will definitely see if they have anything like these plastic samurai warriors.

Thank you Woody and Ryan for these cool display pieces that have already been added to my office.

And rounding out the post are six packs of baseball cards for all of the card collectors out there.

The first one was included in the box from Ryan with the samurai figurines.  It's a 2021 Leaf Holiday Bonus Pack:

I'm not sure how these were distributed this year, but in the past Leaf would offer collectors these packs as a bonus when they purchased Leaf products.  According to Blowout, each pack is guaranteed to contain either an autograph, a relic, or a printing plate.

Here's what I pulled:

2020 Leaf Ultimate Draft #BA-RS2

It's an autograph of Raimfer Salinas, who appears to be a prospect in the New York Yankees organization.  I'm not familiar with him, but maybe Kenny can give us a prospect report in the comment section.

The final five packs are Junk Wax Era packs that I picked up back in November when I purchased a small collection from my buddy.  He originally purchased this collection from a guy at a card show, pulled out the nice cards he wanted, and sold me the leftovers.

One of these days, I'll sift through the box and pull out some of the more interesting "stuff".  Until then, here are the five packs I chose to open:

Before opening the packs, I thought about the one card I was hoping to pull from each pack.  Here's my list:

1.  1988 Topps:  #360 Tony Gwynn (Pulling a playing era card of my favorite player would be cool)

2.  1989 Donruss:  #33 Ken Griffey Jr. RC (Figure this is a pretty obvious choice)

3.  1990 Fleer:  #74 Jose Uribe (This will probably be the only way I'll ever acquire this notorious card)

4.  1991 Donruss:  #NNO Nolan Ryan Legends Insert (I've never been afraid to dream big)

5.  1992 Topps:  #380 Barry Bonds Gold Parallel (Hard to believe that I still need this card)

Did I pull any of them?  Of course not.  Here is my favorite card from each pack:

Out of all of them, the Fisk and Ripken are the two I'm happiest about.  They'll be going towards a project that I will eventually reveal.

Until then... happy Monday and sayonara!