A taste of some actual retail therapy

Whenever I go into Target, I always 'fly by' the card section, but most of the time in 2020, I've come to expect nothing - I was headed to the card section for another fruitless check, when I saw a dolly [near the games section, closer to the toy aisles, where other non-sport gaming cards are located] holding a box with a MJ Holding logo, which I know as one of the companies [there is more than one?] that puts trading cards on the shelves for Target.

I was hoping that was a good omen for the actual card section that matters and sure enough, the shelves that usually resembled a Cold War era Soviet supermarket had been replenished with some actual baseball cards - there were no retail flippers looking to pounce at the seemingly fresh setup, so I was all alone by myself to take things in for at least a couple of minutes.

Maybe what sort of caught my eye were the supplies - since Ultra Pro makes their products in China, I'm not sure if there is still an obstacle to getting new batches of supplies through a pandemic.

However, the various things that hold and protect cards should be as important to the average card collector - there was a 5-pack of Ultra Pro magnetic holders [too bad they were 130-pt and not the 55-pot I usually like to use], a 4-pack package of penny sleeves and an 'odder' toploader combo.

Maybe these retail offerings were repacked from older, inferior stock - but for the moment, I was glad to see them in-hand.

As for actual baseball cards, I'm not sure if 'Topps Fire,' 'Topps Archives' or 'Topps Stadium Club' will ever be sought after 'for value' like the Bowman Mega Boxes, Topps Series 2 or Topps Chrome I've whiffed on - but after a long drought, the former are baseball cards to me just the same [TSC is always a 'fan favorite' in my book] and tried to see what combination I could pick up.

I don't expect to see this card section to be as fruitful in my next visit, but like a good boy scout, I only grabbed what seemed reasonable to me at the moment - a couple of blasters of 2020 Topps Stadium Club, a hanger pack of 2020 Topps Archives [I have a couple of blasters I'd ordered online that are still MIA after three weeks] and a hanger pack of 2020 Topps Fire.

I ripped through my little haul and go figure after finding an IP autograph card I got signed from 2019 spring training maybe the day before - I pulled cards of hot rookie du jour Luis Robert in both hangers and one of the two blasters I ripped.