not much to select from

a few months ago, i was in a walmart looking for some quilted northern. we were not in dire straits at the time, but were starting to feel a bit of concern regarding our bathroom tissue supply. i did find some and then took a look at the card aisle. there was nothing there except for some marked down value packs of 2019 topps series 2 and, for some reason, a blaster of 2020 panini select.

i hadn't heard much about select, but when i saw that there were only 12 cards per blaster, i figured i knew why it was still sitting on the shelf.  still, i was jonesing to open some new packs, so i bought it.  here's what i found.

base cards were of marcus stroman

tommy pham

and tyrone taylor

the premier cards (number 101-200) feature a different design. here's shun yamaguchi

and jose berrios

so that's 5/12 of the box. the rest of the cards were inserts or parallels, which was nice i guess.  here's a scope prizm parallel of dj lemahieu

plus one of trent thornton

and a carolina blue prizm julio teheran

those are numbered to 35, as you can sort of see on the back

so that leaves a third of the box as inserts. let's have a look.  this first one is a spark insert of mookie betts

unfortunately, betts was still considered a red sock in this set.

here's a 25-man insert of max scherzer

and a holo prizm parallel of a 25-man insert of max scherzer

one card to go, and it's not a bad one. it's a launch angle autograph of aristedes aquino

it's a sticker auto numbered out of 250

but still not bad for retail.  at the time i bought the box, i almost certainly could have recovered my investment by selling the aquino, but i chose not to.  as i type this at the end of august, i could maybe get a third of what the box cost. that's what happens when you're optioned to the alternate training site.

i'm not complaining as i enjoyed opening the packs and knew what i was getting in to ahead of time. now, if it were chronicles there on the shelf, i probably would have left it behind.