Trade Bait - $10 LCS Mystery Packs

I think I may have posted about these a couple of times but I can't remember and I am too lazy to go back and look.  One of the two LCSs I frequent puts together small packs of cards to purchase for $10.  Lately I haven't been winning much on the bid board so I have been picking up a pack or two.  The packs usually contain 1-2 rookie cards and 1-2 hits.  The hits many times are in person autos on cards which some people shy away from but he seems to have some good sources to get the autos and it isn't like I am going to sell them.

One of the allures are randomly inserted bonus prizes.  He usually has a case that contains 1 1st place prize, 2 2nd place prizes and 4-5 3rd place prizes. I have won a few times and have been on a bit of a lucky streak.  These are $1,000 cards but usually some nice stuff pops up.  

Here are 6 packs I have picked up over a few visits.

I will start off with what was perhaps the worst pack for me.  If this was the first one I ever bought, I might not have ever gone back.  Two certified autos but nothing that fits into my collection.  All of these cards with the exception of a couple will be for trade if you are interested.

This pack contained a nice looking IP auto of HOFer Wade Boggs. The holographic card is pretty nice looking and the sharp blue auto is perfectly placed. I already have a Boggs auto as part of my collection so this one could probably be had in a trade but I am also fine keeping it in my collection.

This pack isn't great but I am hoping the Russell auto might make a Dodger blogger fan happy.  I get quite a few Dodger IP autos since I live here in Dodger town.

This pack picked it up a little.  A nice Josh Hamilton IP auto on a high end Tribute base card.  It looks pretty sharp and Mr. Hamilton may make another appearance before this post ends.  The Heritage News Flashback card sports 3 Dodger IP autos, Manny Mota, Claude Osteen and Maury Wills - pretty cool.

Here we see another Mota auto along with a John Olerud IP auto on an Ultra card. I always enjoy seeing photos of Olerud fielding with his helmet on, brings back memories.  As a bonus, I needed the Walker card for my Donruss set so that one isn't for trade.  Another bonus in this pack as a 3rd place winner, I will show you what I picked in a second, just one more pack to share.

Here is my final pack for this post.  A Machado rookie is nice, the hits are super exciting to me.  However, this one scored me another 3rd place win!  In these packs I have a 33% winning percentage which isn't too shabby since there are 6-8 winning packs out of 100.

So here are the two 3rd place prizes I picked:

First up is a Duke Snider Nabisco certified autograph.  There was a Leaf cut signature of Tony Oliva that tempted me but I couldn't pass up an auto of a Hall of Famer.  I have another Duke auto in my collection so this one could be had for the right price but I have no qualms with keeping this one around.

My other pick came from a different batch of packs, the Oliva wasn't an option.  I picked up a Bowman's Best auto of Josh Hamilton from early in his career.  I really liked Hamilton at this point before his life went to heck.  I had him on my keeper fantasy team and the sky was the limit.  This card isn't worth a ton but it brings back fond memories of a time when I was dominating my keeper league and ahead of the curve on identifying prospect.  Everyone has followed my lead and my team is now a middle of the packer but this Hamilton card is a great reminder.

Since doing these scans I have picked up a few more packs so more to come...