Box Break: 2012 Topps Update Series

I'm way late to the party when it comes to this years Update series but the longer you wait to buy a hobby box, the less you have to pay for it!  I bought this box at the CSA show the weekend of October 12th-14th for 48 dollars.  It was a bit of an impulse buy but I think I made out rather well on this box.  Actually, I can't think of a better flagship hobby box that I've opened in terms of the cards I got out of it!

I picked the second to the last box from the bottom of the pile.  Apparently I got the right one since there were 3 Orioles parallels in the box.  Strangely enough, the Jason Hammel gold sparkle came out of the same pack as the base card did.  As a matter of fact, most of the gold sparklies came out of the same pack as the base card did.  I got a ton of the regular gold parallels that I'll be listing at the end for trade.  I need pretty much all of the Orioles except Hunter and Hardy.

I also did fairly well on Orioles inserts too.  I got the Ripken and Jones Golden Moments, as well as the Palmer Golden Greats!  Not too shabby but I still need another copy of each to finish out the team set since each of these will be heading into their respective PC binders.

I was pretty stoked when I got Matt Kemp's SP variation card.  Then I realized that there would be a feeding frenzy between Spiegel, Plaschke, and Night Owl to see if they can trade me for it.  Anybody want to take bets on who sees it first?  HAHA!  I think the SP variation cards are pretty cool ever since Topps has been inserting them into packs.  The jersey variations and the diamond sparkles are/were stupid.  I really want a Jim Thome Orioles card but I don't have 200 bucks to spend on one.  The Jose Reyes and Albert Pujols jersey variations were dumb too.  If you really wanted them in their Marlins or Angels jerseys that bad, why not wait another month and a half and get them in Heritage as base cards?

 I think I may have bought into the whole Harpermania hype a little bit.  I haven't gone crazy buying his cards or anything but I have been lucky and pulled quite a few from packs.  I guess that happens when you buy a lot of Bowman products!  The streak continues with the Golden Moments, the 1987 mini, and the All-Star card (not shown).  I think he does have a bit to learn about playing baseball at the top level but I do respect the way he plays the game with his hair on fire.  I think the maturity will come with age and as long as he keeps his mouth shut and lets his bat do the talking, he'll win over more fans.

Here's my hit of the box, and it's a goodie!  Yonder Alonso seems to have a bright future out there in San Diego.  There are regular versions of this insert and then there's the #'d to 10 gold sparkly version that I have!  These cards are one in 16,680 pack pulls!  Holy Crap!  That's 463 hobby boxes worth!  I haven't quite decided what to do with the card yet but I'm leaning on putting it on eBay or COMC if no Padres fans can blow me away with an offer.  What do you think I should do with it?

Here's all of the inserts and parallels that I pulled from the hobby box and the retail packs I opened.  Everything is for trade!

Gold Sparkle: US63 Laird, 65 D. Norris, 78 Durbin, 108 Loe, 140 Duensing, 159 Sheets, 191 Abreu, 239 L. Scott, 257 J. Quintana, 261 Oliver, 278 Pettitte
Gold Bordered: 57 Betancourt, 254 Humber, 199 Dunn, 262 Marcum, 331 Pujols, 334 Rizzo (missing some foil on the front), 351 Hart, 369 Street, 373 Car-Go, 425 C. Zambrano, 436 C. Perez, 453 Garrett Jones, 515 Bloomquist, 519 Gio Gonzalez, 546 Thornton, 600 Kershaw, 656 C. Santana, US11 Ankiel, US49 Burnett, US82 Wigginton, US83 C. Lee, US109 Marte, US153 Maholm, US161 Dozier, US223 Logan, US293 Victorino, US300 Kotsay, US328 Soto
Blockbusters: BB-2 Sabathia, 4 G Carter, 6 Buhner, 9 Ryan(2), 13 Cespedes, 17 Hunter, 20 D. Ortiz, 24 Carlton(2), 28 J. Santana, 29 M. Ramirez
Golden Greats:  GG-81 Banks, 88 Griffey Jr, 89 Brock, 92 R. Jackson, 97 Boggs, 98 Spahn, 99 Stargell
1987 Minis:  TM-101 Goldschmidt, 107 Bumgarner(2), 112 Darvish, 115 Beltran, 118 A. Jackson, 121 Latos, 132 Rice, 136 Beachy, 144 Trumbo
Golden Moments: GM-U5 J Santana, 9 M. Cabrera, 12 Granderson, 15 Castro, 17 Price, 21 Banks, 26 Yount, 45 Tulowitzki

Lastly, here's my needs list to complete my set:

13, 17, 25, 33, 41, 45, 47, 54, 55, 57, 60, 67, 100, 111, 123, 127, 159, 166, 171, 186, 197, 224, 232, 247, 249, 251, 267, 270, 288, 293, 305, 316, 327