Archive for Dollar Tree

Don’t be a dick to Dollar Tree if they don’t sell you packs for a penny

Posted in Commentary with tags , , , on February 7, 2020 by Cardboard Icons

It’s been said on Twitter that Dollar Tree has been selling NFL trading cards this week for a penny per pack.

Some folks have walked out with dozens from each store, claiming victory against a hobby that often seems like it prices people out.

Meanwhile others have found such packs and store clerks have refused to sell them.

The latter is what happened to me Friday morning when I located 25 packs at a single store.

My experience went like this:

I walked in, grabbed the packs and went to the register. I asked them to check the price because they had been discontinued across the county. They checked, it rang up a penny and then they asked for a manager to check the situation.

At first the manager said they had to throw them away; then she clarified that they actually get sent back to the distributor.

I understood, thanked them and told them to have a good day.

Now, it’d be easy to come off angry and act like they owe it to us to sell the item. We could cause a scene and make threats to force the issue. But I know from working retail that price changes that drop to this price point usually mean that the item is supposed to be returned to the distributor. The process by which retailers signal this is different and with Dollar Tree it appears to be the $0.01 price point. Other places change the price to $0.00.

Bottom line, don’t be a dick to the Dollar Tree clerks or manager if they tell you they can’t sell them. They’re just doing their job and adhering to their company’s protocol. And threats to stop shopping at the discount retailer will ring hollow as they’ll happily tell you to walk out the door with your 50 cents instead of letting you walk out with 50 packs after you invoke the “customer is always right” mantra.

If you do see packs, take them to the register and see if they’ll sell them at the penny per pack. If they do, then you’ve won. But always be cautiously optimistic.

For the uninitiated, packs at Dollar Tree contain five cards, always four base cards and one parallel or exclusive card. There is NO CHANCE at autographs, relics or serial numbered items.

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Video Break: 2018-19 NBA Hoops Dollar Tree packs

Posted in Box / Pack Break with tags , , , , , , on March 6, 2019 by Cardboard Icons

My son enjoyed the process of opening our 2018-19 Revolution box on video so he was game for another. Here is the second video my 8-year-old son and I did this week, this is the break of some 2018-19 NBA Hoops packs we found at Dollar Tree.

The Dollar Tree packs are completely void of inserts or hits, save for an exclusive yellow parallel card that is seeded one per pack. Each pack does contain a total of five cards, so this was a fun way for us to pull more cards for out Hoops set and chase a potential big fish in the Luka Doncic yellow parallel that has consistently sold on eBay for $75-$110.

You can view the video HERE.

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Reliving childhood memories at Dollar Tree

Posted in Newspaperman with tags , , , , , , , , on February 18, 2011 by Cardboard Icons

By now, most of you know that Dollar Tree carries sports cards. Most of the stuff they sell isn’t highly sought after.  In fact, it’s downright junk.  I mean why would someone pay $1 for 2010 Topps Update pack containing 5 cards and no shot at any hits or parallels when you can spend $2 at Target or Walmart and get twice as many cards and have a shot at inserts?

But on occasion I find something worth while.  In this case, I found a little piece of my childhood.

The year 1988 was a special year for me as a collector.  It was my first true year of collecting.  Sure, I bought some packs in 1987, but it was in 1988 that I really got hooked on cardboard.  I loved Donruss for the Rated Rookies, and had fun finding odd-ball packs at random convenience and grocery stores throughout the area

At Dollar Tree last week, I found a sealed Cello Pack of 1988 Donruss … one featuring new HOF Roberto Alomar on the top.  Under normal circumstances I would have just chucked the pack to the side as this product is the epitome of junk.  But there was no way I could pass up on this pack given the card showing on top.

Truth be told though, that find was not as exciting as unearthing these two packs: 1988 Fleer Star Stickers and 1988 Sportflics.

The Star Stickers set is one that always intrigued me because in 1988 I could only find these packs at one store — a 7-Eleven near my grandfather’s house, which seemed worlds away at the time. I bought a handful of packs back in the day, hoping to pull any player from the Oakland A’s, probably the hottest team in the sport at the time. I didn’t have very good luck.

But on this day, I struck gold in the form of a Carney Lansford card — who ironically is from the area where I live.

Like the Fleer Stickers, packs of Sportlics were only available at one store in my area — a grocery store across the street from my house.   If memory serves me right, these packs were about 50 cents for a pack of three cards.  In 1988, this was pricey. Needless to say, I only bought a few of them when I was a kid.  So I was excited to unwrap one the other day.  Unfortunately the results were typical for what I would have pulled 23  years ago.

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Dollar Tree sells baseball cards

Posted in Newspaperman with tags , , , , on October 5, 2009 by Cardboard Icons

Gotta give a hat tip to Chris Olds at Beckett for pointing out that the discount chain Dollar Tree has been selling baseball cards.

About a week and a half ago, Chris announced this threw his Twitter account, and since then I’d been pondering what on earth the store could have for a buck a pack. Well, as you can see from the image, it’s pretty much leftovers from 2008. You’ve got some Donruss Americana,  Upper Deck First Edition baseball and football, UD X baseball, UD Football Heroes, and some random Donruss/Panini football items. These packs looks like they were rifled through as they were strewn everywhere. I guess the pack searches will stop at nothing to find a single-color swatch of some hump.

CardsOne1I hit up a few other Dollar Tree stores in search of UD Timeline — which Chris said others had seen at the store — but I could not find any. But I did find some of this: Cards One “Historic Vintage Collection: Baseball Edition.”

My jaw dropped when I saw this because I knew that it was repackaged commons with some sort of gimmick attached. Here the company is giving you 15 cards in a pack with a “Historic Star Card in Every Pack.”

Also, they give odds for pulling cards as old as 40 years, and there is a redemption program: four wrappers and $3.99 for one autographed card. See the odds HERE.

Well, you know I had to try ONE pack just to see what they considered a star card. So here is the Cards One pack break:

1: 1990 Score George Canale rookie

2: 1990 Score Kelly Gruber

3:1988 Donruss Vicente Palacios Rated Rookie

4: 1990 Fleer Ramon Martinez

5: 1988 Score Phil Niekro (Star Card?)

6: 1988 Topps Dwayne Murphy

7:1988 Topps Jose Guzman

8: 1988 Topps Brad Havens

9: 1987 Topps Garth Iorg

10: 1991 Topps Jim Lefebvre

11: 1987 Topps Gary Ward

12: 1987 Topps Joaquin Andujar

13: 1989 Donruss Ken Hill rookie

14: 1993 Score John Habyan

15: 1991 Upper Deck Deion Sanders (Star Card?)

Comments: Well, that was fun. <insert snicker here.> That was like a throwback to the times when I would grab stacks of cards from my “common” boxes and pull out my semi-stars. In this case, I would have set aside the 1991 Upper Deck Deion Sanders card. I’m not sure what card the company considers the star card here. I’ve made the sacrifice to buy a pack of this stuff so that you don’t have to. Stay Away.

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