Who doesn’t love a deal, especially when they come in the form of marked-down collectible baseball cards.

True clearance prices for sealed packs of baseball cards in a retail setting are rarely seen. Most stores blow through product before there is a chance for it to sit around. And in the cases where stock has collected dust, the packs are sent back to the distributor and then they are repackaged in another form.

And in the occasions where cards are marked down, they usually are brands that are not super appealing. Well, in some Toys R Us stores right now, you might find something that is appealing — 2010 Topps Chrome baseball, and in some places 2010 Bowman Chrome baseball.

The 2010 rookie class is one that continues to be at the front of the hobby even two years later.

Nationals’ pitcher Stephen Strasburg, Cubs shortstop Starlin Castro, Braves outfielder Jason Heyward, Marlins outfielder Mike (Giancarlo) Stanton and Indians catcher Carlos Santana are the five names that led that fairly deep rookie card class. And in Topps chrome you have a shot at their rookie cards, as well as signed versions that can be worth big money.

Toys R Us appears to have been restocked with loads of 2010 Topps Chrome rack packs which feature three sealed retail packs (4 cards per pack) and a retail exclusive pack of three orange refractor parallel cards. The original price on these packs was $9.99. These are now available to you for $4.99.

And while the odds for any autograph are tough, and the chances to land one of the aforementioned five rookie studs are even worse, the opportunity is there. And no one is passing up that chance when it comes at basically $1.66 a pack.

I’ve visited three Toys R Us stores this week and found Topps Chrome in each of them, and in one store I actually located a blaster of 2010 Bowman Chrome for $12.99. (I opened it, it was bad …. really, really, bad.)

Needless to say I cleared out all of the Topps Chrome packs, and it is always fun to look back and see this many refractors.

And those rookies? Yeah, pulled a few of those too:

Even a few shiny ones:

But nothing, and I mean nothing, compares to the feeling when you beat the odds and pull the main card in the set from a retail pack:

2010 Topps Chrome Refractor Autograph Stephen Strasburg /499

Happy hunting.

This entry was posted on April 12, 2012 at 5:05 pm and is filed under Box / Pack Break with tags baseball cards, Giancarlo Stanton, Jason Heyward, Mike Stanton, rookie card, Starlin Castro, Stephen Strasburg, Topps, Topps Chrome. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.