Dime boxing, virtual vs. physical

I don't know about you, but when I think of the word "fad," my mind usually jumps to the negative.

I'm generally not a fan of Internet trends: ice bucket challenges, Yanni vs. Laurel, etc. Even card-related fads (the only reason I have a Twitter account is for card stuff) are of little interest to me. The good thing is that I don't have to devote much brain space to them because they usually come and go in about a day. So, then, you may be surprised to know that I actually fell victim to a recent Twitter fad: virtual dime boxes.

If you've read this blog at all (or even just the title of it), you can understand why I was hopeless to resist this particular trend -- the first person I know of to feature a Twitter dime sale was Jenny (@JennyMiller521), whose dime cards are featured in tonight's post.

Initially, I had some reservations about partaking in these sales in the first place: can a physical dime box experience really be replicated? Can virtual sales even be all that exciting? And won't I have to pay out the you-know-what for shipping?

Yes, yes, and not at all: the only added amenity to virtual dime boxing was a quite reasonable shipping charge: otherwise, all the cards were a dime. Jenny posted pictures of her dime cards, sold on a first-come, first-serve basis. And while a few faster typers beat me out to a few things I wanted, this dime box haul was as good as any I could ever hope for, physical or virtual.

One of the many joys of dime boxing is discovering stuff I didn't even know I needed, a which translated into the virtual realm with cards like these two -- the Cone is my first from his second (and largely forgotten) stint with the Mets at the end of his career.

Okay, but can virtual dime boxes add to my mini-collections?

You bet.

How about my top-tier player collections?

Check.

Parallels continue to be a staple of dime boxes in both the physical and virtual world.

My plans for really trying hard to build a 2013 Topps Adam Greenberg rainbow never really materialized, but that doesn't mean I'm not on the hunt for parallels (especially for a dime!).

Every so often, I find a dime box that seems to be a final resting place for someone's abandoned player collection (the gluttony of Pudge Rodriguez cards I found in the two-cent boxes at last week's card show are a good example).

I don't know if Jenny ever tried collecting Griffey in the past or what, but I certainly added a good chunk of new Juniors to my own growing collection of his via these dime sales.

Nifty '80s cards I couldn't believe I didn't already own (that McRae's already been featured in a frankenset post, in fact).

Here's something I don't think I've never seen in a physical dime box: American Heritage chromes.

Topps's two American Heritage releases stand to this day as the only base sets I've ever built by hand, and I'm on a slow quest to collect all the chromes as well.

Count me among the many who never knew Pepsi produced minis.

Here's some more oddballs I've never seen before, another mark of a good dime box.

This sale even had the after-the-fact euphoria that accompanies a stellar dime box dig.

While I still have a few other virtual hauls to feature around here, the dime-sale fad seems to have died down on Twitter, and I'm a bit sad about that (though my wallet is probably thrilled).

Aside from the personal thrill of my own hauls, they were a good reminder that Cardboard Twitter doesn't always have to be a stomping ground for the hit-crazed, case-breaking population of the hobby.