Trying a Sportlots Box

Not too long ago, I placed my first order through Sportlots with their new box shipping method.  In case Sportlots isn't your thing, or you just haven't been up on it, Sportlots has enabled sellers to offer box shipping.  This means sellers can ship all of their orders to a central Sportlots location, where all of your (the customer's) orders can be grouped together in one package and shipped to you all at once.  The idea is that sellers can offer shipping discounts if they can ship to one location, and the customer saves some money.  In practice, I'm not entirely sure that it saved me all that much money in the end.  I can attest that the per seller shipping cost was far less than it has been in the past.  However, the cost to get my box from Sportlots to me was over $10, and that may have negated the savings from the individual sellers.  Truthfully, I don't know.  I didn't pay enough attention to the numbers to say that for sure.  Next time I'll make that comparison.

The impetus for this purchase came from the temptation to pick up a box of 2013 Crown Royale football for cheap, in hopes of finding some Brad Sorensen parallels I needed.  In the end, my better judgment ruled as I realized that I wasn't interested in the rest of the set, so I would be better off just buying the singles I wanted.  The rest of the purchase was the result of me spending the money that I would have spent on the boxes I didn't really want on cards that I selected myself.

This is what the box looked like when it arrived.  The Sportlots people just took all of the individual packages from the sellers and put them in one medium flat rate box.  I was somewhat surprised, not expecting to see everything in its original packaging from the seller.  It's not a bad thing at all, just different from what I expected.

All of you baseball-only people will probably lose interest after this. This is the extent of the baseball buying I did in this order.  All of these are set needs.

Set needs on the football side came in this form.  You know, for a lower-end product like 2016 Panini was meant to be, I've really had a hard time tracking down some of the no-name rookies in the set at a price I am readily willing to pay.  Kenyan Drake was one of the better rookies of the class, and was cheaper than some of the other guys people had for sale.  The Unsung Heroes insert set from Absolute of the same year is one of my favorites and is now almost done.

Yes, I found some Packers I needed.  All of these are from a special Shopko set issued in 1997 following the Pack's Super Bowl victory.  I had heard of the set, but had never owned any of it.  Now I do.  I still always forget that Andre Rison was a part of that team.  I will never grow tired of Desmond Howard cards on the Packers.

As great as Brett Favre was for that team, my favorite Packer of the era was LeRoy Butler.  I'm not sure there has ever been a better blitzing defensive back.  One of these cards is evidence--Butler is sacking Trent Dilfer on his 1997 Stadium Club card.

Butler was a somewhat under-recognized member of the 1990s All-Decade Team.  Mostly because of their positions, these guys were too.  These cards are very 90s.  Skybox Thunder and Topps Gilt Edge (modeled here by Larry Allen and Mark Stepnoski) in particularare uniquely 90s.  I have to say, I don't understand why a set called "Gilt Edge" has some kind of tribal islander theme.  It makes no sense.  And what would the 90s be without an early Bowman's Best and some Pacific (Tony Boselli and Bryant Young)?

 A parallel universe!  Or at least some cards that are parallels.  Check out that mid-oughts Kansas City offensive line.  Priest Holmes and Larry Johnson may have been great running backs in their own right, but having these guys in front of them didn't hurt matters.

Inserts ranging from the mid-90s Stadium Club to last years Panini Unparalleled.  All of these players, with the exception of the Boz, go into my All-Decades collection.  Poor Bosworth.

The order wasn't all 90s love, though.  Here are some stars of the 80s on cards from the late 70s and early 80s.  Gotta love two HOF DBs on one leaders card here.

Progressing through the 80s here.  I may be biased here, but I love the 1989 Score John Anderson.  Anderson is a Packer great who is way underrepresented on cardboard.  The action shot on this card, of Anderson and Tim Harris swallowing up a Bills runner is awesome.

 

This lone 1980 card may seem important because it includes a picture of Walter Payton.  However, I wanted it for a different reason.  This happens to be the rookie card of one Len Walterscheid, the first Southern Utah State College player to go on to the NFL.  This makes this the first card of any one of my fellow alumni.  Walterscheid wasn't drafted, though.  The first draft pick didn't come until 2013.  Walterscheid's son, Justin, also played for SUU during the time I attended school.  Justin is currently the offensive coordinator at SUU, since 2015.

And, finally, stickers!  I don't actively pursue many stickers, but when I'm trying to round out my collection of 80s era safeties and linemen, they do a great job of filling slots on a page.  From top left: Dave Butz, Kenny Easley, Nolan Cromwell, Brian Hansen, Kenny Easley, Carl Banks, Dwight Stephenson, Dwight Stephenson, and Eric Dickerson.

Speaking of Eric Dickerson, I'll end with three inserts.  I'm pretty Jon will like the first one.  In fact, he may have already shown it on his blog recently.  Maybe?  It's a nice-looking set that I've enjoyed from his COMC purchases, and this is one of a few that I own as well.

In all, the Sportlots box turned out to be a better purchase for me than 2 boxes of Crown Royale.  And what about the Brad Sorensen cards that sparked the purchase?

Yeah, I found a few.