Box Break: 2011 Topps Series 1

I know that by this point, everybody is pretty sick of hearing about 2011 Topps. Just about everyone on the blogs has opened some of this product and I know everyone has read about it. I'm going to try and keep this short and sweet. I bought 5 retail rack packs and 1 hobby box from a reputable internet dealer. The retail rack packs give you more for the money and I'm not paying 40 to 50 extra dollars for jumbo boxes that give 2 extra hits.

First, I like the design this year. Nice clean design. Better than 2010 but maybe not as good as 2009 for one reason I don't like the double team name around the baseball. It seems unnecessary to me. Put the team name on top of the ball and on the bottom put the player's position. I'm splitting hairs though. I'm not a huge fan of any of the inserts except the Kimball minis. Most of them are just updates from the 2010 version with a new name. I don't collect any of the insert sets so I could really care less about them.

I will go ahead and show off the diamond sparkle gimmick I got. Derek Jeter. It's already on Ebay unless somebody blows me away with a trade offer. I hate the diamond sparkle, new team photoshops, and pie in the face shortprints. On the other hand I really like the Hall of Fame player variations.

I'll also show off my relic. Robinson Cano leather nameplate. This manu-CRAP-tured stuff is just ridiculous. After 2 years of pulling AL East Rival's "relic" cards from packs. I officially hate ALL manufactured relic cards. I don't buy blasters of the flagship so I don't get any of these as a "bonus". Please, somebody take this junk off my hands. Somebody come up with a good trade offer for it.

Out of my hobby box I got this Black Bordered #'d to 60 of Jason Marquis. 1 in 100 packs, so I demolished the odds there. I noticed that the Gold bordered cards are a lot more scarce this year. I got 5 total from the hobby box and retail packs. Braun, Starlin Castro, Aardsma, Moyer, and Helton are all available for trade. I got a bunch of the platinum diamond parallel too but they are already spoken for.

I also got two original backs of the cards your mom threw out of 60 years of topps cards because she knew they would be reprinted anyways. The Andre Dawson came from the hobby box and the Musial came from retail.

I have tons of other inserts I'd love to get rid of so just drop me a line if you need any. I will now leave you with a card that makes me sick to my stomach.