Some 1990s Packs on Standby

 
In addition to cheap complete sets the past month has seen me scouring Yahoo Auctions for cheap unopened packs to have fun with.  I found one seller offering 10 pack lots of various BBM sets from the 1990s at prices at or lower than their original retail prices and decided to pick up three of them: 1991 BBM, 1992 BBM and 1997 BBM Diamond Heroes. 

These were all sets that I didn't have many/any cards from.  Plus I've been playing a lot of Hyperspace Night Game Pro Yakyu King on my Nintendo 64 lately which has increased my interest in early/mid 90s NPB players a bit so these really hit a sweet spot in my interests.

Normally when I buy packs I just open them right away, but that has always struck me as kind of wasteful.  Opening one pack is a lot of fun, opening 30 is more like a chore.  Its like wolfing down a deliscious desert in one go rather than taking the time to savor each mouthful. So I've decided to maintain these packs on "standby".  My rule is that I cannot open more than one pack on any given day, and can only do so when I'm bored and have nothing else to entertain me.  That way I'll maximize my enjoyment of each of them.  

So far I've opened only one of the 1991 BBMs, which produced this:

No Hideo Nomo rookie card, but not bad!

The 1991 BBMs were the most expensive of these, I paid 200 Yen per pack (2000 total), which is the same as their original retail price.  

The 1992 BBMs were a bit cheaper at 150 Yen per pack (1500 total), so I paid 50 Yen less than the original retail price.

The 1997 BBM Diamond Heroes were the cheapest at 80 Yen per pack (800 total), and the original retail price of those were 400 Yen so they were disproportionately discounted compared to the other two.  The Diamond Heroes sets were BBM's first attempt at making 90s style premium sets with designs that, and I can't emphasize this point strongly enough without using all caps so please forgive me, HAVE NOT AGED WELL AT ALL.  They give shiny, glittery crap a bad name.  They are to baseball cards what the surfing scene in Escape from LA (released at about the same time coincidentally) is to the use of CGI in film.  I could go on, but you get my point. I assume they were also massively overproduced otherwise it would be hard to understand my finding packs of them so cheaply nearly 30 years after their release. I haven't opened any yet but kind of look forward to doing so.  

Anyway, I have 29 more packs to go which should at the very least get me through to the end of the season and are a nice supplement to the occasional bag of Calbee!