The 2023 Packstravaganza might just be the greatest baseball card giveaway ever created! This article will explain what it is, how it works, and most importantly, how you can try to get into it for free!
We’re holding a seven-day sports card giveaway from Thursday, January 26, to Wednesday, February 1, and we’re hoping this will become an annual event every January going forward.
Several great sponsors donated products and other resources to make this an amazing giveaway. By the end of the event, we’ll be ripping and giving away about $1,500 worth of cards, services and merchandise, and we’ll give it all away! (It should total about 1,000 cards we’re giving away!) The baseball card packs we’re ripping are from different eras, including the early to mid-1980s, to the junk wax era, to pre-pandemic modern era, to new Topps products from the past couple months!
We’ll have 21 winners across those seven days, with three people winning cards each day. The best card we rip from each day will be sent to SGC for grading for free! And the three best cards of the remainders for that week will also be sent for grading.
Finally, we’re also giving away a vintage 1955 Topps Ernie Banks SGC 2.5 card (worth $100) on the final day!
3 WAYS TO GET INTO 2023 PACKSTRAVAGANZA!!!
I created Packstravaganza to help reward my old audience, to help build a new audience, and to give back something awesome to #thehobby. Here are the three ways I came up with to get into this one-of-a-kind baseball card giveaway that checked off all the boxes for me:
1. 7 RANDOM COMMENTERS WHO SUBSCRIBE, LIKE and COMMENT ON THE PACKSTRAVAGANZA VIDEO (ABOVE)
Your comment must mention your favorite Topps rookie card, then add #Packstravaganza in the comment. The random commenters drawing will be held 12pm ET on Monday, Jan. 23.
2. 7 HAPPY HOBBYISTS
I chose seven commenters from my channel already who have supported my videos with comments, shares and everything else over the past year.
Those seven people are:
- Angelo Hadairus
- Douglas Towne
- Anthony M
- MJ Family Time Cards
- Jeff Mathis
- Spicy Bear
- Jason VTSportsGuys
3. 7 CONTRIBUTORS WHO DONATED MONEY
When I hit 1,000 subscribers, YouTube allowed me to receive “Super Thanks” donations on my videos (on my introductory video, it’s a button on the bottom-right, next to the “Download” link). The three largest contributors by the “Super Thanks” deadline of are automatically entered into the giveaway, and then four other contributors will be randomly selected.
The “Super Thanks” deadline is 12pm ET on Tuesday, Jan. 24.
The top-three contributors at that time will gain automatic entry. Then I will do a random drawing among the rest of the contributors for the other four spots, and I will announce them all in a video later that day.
Basically, if you want to guarantee yourself a spot in this giveaway, you can donate the highest amount – or a top-three amount. If you want a better chance of being in this giveaway than just the commenters, you can donate a smaller amount, and you’ll battle against a smaller crowd of people to have your name chose. (It is possible to win twice – if you win as a contributor, and you also get your name pulled among the commenters.)
The money contributed, after YouTube takes their 30% cut, goes toward a vintage SGC slab we’re also giving away.
VINTAGE SGC SLAB GIVEAWAY: 1955 TOPPS ERNIE BANKS SGC 2.5!
We’re took all the money we received from the “Super Thanks” contributions (minus YouTube’s 30% take), and we bought a 1955 Topps Ernie Banks SGC 2.5 slab, which we’ll be giving away on Day 7 to one of the 21 winners.
(If we end up with more than $135 in Super Thanks donations (since YouTube would keep 30%, bringing the total down to $100 for the slab), then I will buy a different slab at the higher value. But right now, it’s the 1955 Topps Ernie Banks SGC 2.5.)
WHY ARE WE DOING THE PACKSTRAVAGANZA!?!
My guess is about 75% of the people that collect cards right now were like myself, not buying blasters back in 2018! We still considered ourselves collectors, but we were just dormant. Every now and then, we’d buy packs, or maybe we’d buy a single of someone special on eBay, but our collecting bug was asleep until recently.
I did a smaller version of the Packstravaganza last year – buying a bunch of old blasters from Dave & Adam’s Card World, which is THE BEST, and I pulled a rookie Shohei Ohtani and a rookie Fernando Tatis Jr.! It was a blast! I missed out on buying packs a few years ago, and ripping a bunch of rookies, like Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, Mookie Betts and more! So I bought those old blasters so I could have the joy and excitement of pulling some of the best rookie cards from the past decade!
Some collectors weren’t born until after the ‘80s, so maybe they never had a chance to rip packs hoping for rookie cards of guys like Wade Boggs, Roger Clemens, Tony Gwynn, Mark McGwire, Kirby Puckett, Ryne Sandberg, and Ken Griffey Jr.
We’re turning back the clock!
As a writer with The Athletic, I can make connections with companies like Topps, Dave & Adam’s Card World, SGC Grading, and others. This allowed me to ask them for sponsorship – which means free stuff for my subscribers! This giveaway has officially become an event! I haven’t seen anything like this yet, but maybe I’m wrong!
2023 Packstravaganza Sponsors and the Free Stuff They Provided!
I made sure to ask sponsors from different areas of the sports card industry, so they weren’t competing. In other words, I asked Topps to help, not any other card manufacturers. I asked SGC to take part, and not any other grading companies. Why would someone want to sponsor our giveaway if I also had their competitors?
Our 2023 Packstravaganza Sponsors:
- Card Manufacturer: Topps/Fanatics
- Card Shop: Dave & Adams Card World — I joined “The Chase,” DA Card World’s podcast, a couple weeks ago, and we talked about Packstravaganza!
- Grading Company: SGC Grading
- Singles Reseller: BuySportsCards.com
- Breakers: OnWiscardsin Breakers
- Card Supplies Company: Cardboard Gold
- Sports Media: TheAthletic.com
My hope is that someday, this Packstravaganza turns into some sort of hobby holiday – where every January, when the sports card world is kind of dead, waiting for Topps Series 1 to come out, multiple YouTube channels and websites rip boxes and packs of cards to give away to their viewers in appreciation their support!
What We’re Ripping in the 2023 Packstravaganza Giveaway!
2022 Topps Chrome Cosmic Hobby Box
- 20 packs, 80 total cards: Hunting for RCs of Abrams, Wander, Witt Jr., Tork, Pena, J-Rod, Suzuki, Gore, Cruz
2022 Topps Stadium Club Hobby Box
- 16 packs, 2 autos, 128 total cards: Hunting for RCs of Wander, Witt Jr., Suzuki, Cruz, J-Rod, Pena
2022 Topps Archives Hobby Box
- 24 packs, 2 autos, 192 total cards: Hunting for RCs of Wander, Witt Jr., Suzuki, Cruz, J-Rod, Pena, Torkelson
2022 Topps Update Hobby Box
- 24 packs, 336 total cards: Hunting for RCs of Wander, Witt Jr., Suzuki, Cruz, J-Rod, Pena, Torkelson
2022 Bowman Platinum Box
- 20 packs, 100 total cards: Hunting for Top Prospect autos from Henry Davis, Khalil Watson, Jordan Lawler and Marcelo Mayer
2022 Topps Heritage Hobby Box
- 24 packs, 216 total cards: Hunting for RCs of Abrams, Suzuki, Witt Jr., Torkelson, Kwan, Gore, Pena, J-Rod
1983 Topps Baseball
- 5 Wax Packs and 1 Cello Pack, 103 total cards: Hunting for RCs of Wade Boggs, Tony Gwynn, Ryne Sandberg
1985 Topps Baseball
- 4 Cello Packs, 112 total cards: Hunting for RCs of Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Kirby Puckett, Orel Hershiser
1987 Topps Baseball
- 21 wax packs, 357 total cards: Hunting RCs of Barry Bonds, Bo Jackson, Barry Larkin, Mark McGwire
1989 Upper Deck Baseball
- 7 packs, 105 total cards: Hunting RCs of Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson, Gary Sheffield
1990 Topps Baseball
- 21 wax packs, 336 total cards: Hunting RCs of Ken Griffey Jr., Frank Thomas, Sammy Sosa
2015 Topps Update
- 10 packs, 100 total cards: Hunting RCs of Correa, Lindor, Buxton, Syndergaard, Rodon
2018 Topps Series 1 Baseball
- 9 Jumbo Packs, 324 total cards: Hunting RCs of Rafael Devers, Walker Buehler, Rhys Hoskins, Max Fried
2018 Topps Update
- 4 Jumbo Packs, 144 total cards: Hunting RCs of Shohei Ohtani, Gleyber Torres, Juan Soto, Shane Bieber, Ronald Acuna Jr., Willy Adames
2018 Topps Stadium Club
- 7 Jumbo Packs: 84 total cards: Hunting RCs of Sandy Alcantara, Rhys Hoskins, Max Fried, Walker Buehler, Ozzie Albies, Rafael Devers, Ronald Acuna Jr.,
2019 Topps Stadium Club
- Blaster with 8 packs, 40 total cards: Hunting RCs of Pete Alonso, Corbin Burnes, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Eloy Jimenez, Jeff McNeil, Cedric Mullins, Fernando Tatis Jr., Kyle Tucker,
2020 Topps Archives
- 7 Hobby Packs, 56 total cards: Hunting RCs of Dylan Cease, Bo Bichette, Sean Murphy, Tony Gonsolin, Luis Robert, Zac Gallen, Randy Arozarena, Yordan Alvarez,
10 FREE GRADED CARDS BY SGC GRADING
One of my favorite parts of this giveaway is that SGC is sponsoring us, and they’ve agreed to grade 10 cards that we pull from this event for free!
Since it’s a seven-day event, we’re going to submit the best card from each day in for grading – the TOP HATS waiting for SGC tuxedoes! Then we’re going to choose three of the best of the rest to send in also!
Imagine pulling a Tony Gwynn rookie, or a Ken Griffey Jr. rookie, or a Shohei Ohtani rookie, and then it comes back as an SGC 10! It’s the giveaway that keeps on giving!
SGC was also kind enough to send us t-shirts and breaking mats to give away to our participants, too! Those will go to the winners whose cards were chosen to be graded.
HOW PACKSTRAVAGANZA WILL WORK!
The way we’re going to do this is we’ll pick one person from each of the three segments (commenter, Happy Hobbyist and Super Thanks contributor) for each of the seven days (I’ll name the winners ahead of time, of course.) Then we’ll open packs for those three on a particular day.
- 7 Random Commenters deadline is Jan. 23, 12pm ET.
- 7 Super Thanks Contributors deadline is Jan.24, 12pm ET.
Once I have all the names, I will use WheelofNames.com to sort out who from each of the three groups will be picking on which days. (While all seven days will have great cards, I do expect the Day 7 finale to be the best, so you want that day.)
In many cases, there will be an even number of packs for each winner each day. If we only have ONE pack of something, like a 15-card pack of 1989 Upper Deck Baseball, then we’ll give the first five cards to Person No. 1, the next five cards to Person No. 2, and Person No. 3 gets the last five cards. However, there are some packs that don’t have a total divisible by three, so more cards will go to the persons in the higher positions. In other words, if it’s a 28-card cello pack, then Person No. 1 would get 10 cards, while the next two would get only nine cards.
At the beginning of each day, I will use the Wheel of Names to determine which of the three winners will be in the first, second or third position.
If one or two packs are to be divided by three people, I will give the first third of the cards to Person No. 1, the second third of the cards to Person No. 2, and so on.
But if packs have inserts or special cards loaded in the middle of the pack, like in Jumbo Packs, then I will deal out the entire pack like a deck of cards, with Person 1 getting card No. 1, No. 4, No. 7, and so on.
DAY 7 FINALE! 1955 TOPPS ERNIE BANKS!
We will hold back some packs for the 2023 Packstravaganza Finale, which will happen on Day 7! The three winners for this day will get some cards from nearly all the boxes we open. For instance, we’re going to open a hobby box of 2022 Topps Archives (24 packs), but on the day we open it, we’ll only do 18 packs for the three winners on that day. Then we’ll open the final six packs from that box on Day 7. They’ll also get the final packs from the other boxes and blasters, too, so it’s going to be a pretty awesome finale!
After all the cards are opened, and all the best cards are chosen to get graded by SGC, we’ll use the Wheel of Names, filled with all 21 participants, to choose the winner of the 1955 Topps Ernie Banks SGC 2.5 slab!
We’re also going to use the Wheel of Names to give away one-year subscriptions to The Athletic to TWO winners!
TOP HATS TO GO WITH YOUR SGC TUXEDOS!
Each night, commenters will help me pick out the best card (the top hat!) we pulled from that day, and that will be the one we choose to send to SGC for grading. At the end of the week, we’ll also pick the three best cards that weren’t chosen as top hats already! (I will submit the cards, then once they come back to me, I’ll do a reveal video for all of them, and then I’ll send all the cards out to the winners.)
We’ll also give away SGC t-shirts and SGC breaking mats on that final Packstravaganza day! Finale!
PACKSTRAVAGANZA RULES
Some other random rules we thought of to put in writing –
- I will ship out all cards and slabs packaged safely using USPS with tracking.
- Any box toppers or bonus materials will go to Person No. 1 that day.
- I will do my best to keep this as fair as possible, but I’m sure some unforeseen things will arise.
Let us know what you think, is there a way we can make the Packstravaganza even better? Tweet at me or hit me up on Instagram @DavidGonos!
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