Recent Pack Breaks

On some of my recent Lowe's runs, I've slipped into Target (which is in the same shopping center, conveniently!) to pick up a few packs to rip.  I have gotten some funny looks from Target associates since I've been walking into their store looking like a bum.   Imagine some (almost) 30 year old dude walking in to the card section with muddy Red Wings, dirt crusted work pants and a grimy, sweaty t-shirt.  I think I've either scared the kids away with either my unkempt appearance or the stench of sunblock and sweat!  More cards for me!

So I've decided to go ahead and collect Bowman this year after much debate.  I've picked up a few (3) blasters and several of the value packs.  I had past success with the blasters which you can read about in my archives but the only real card of interest that I've gotten recently is this Gold LJ Hoes.  Hehe, Gold Hoes....  Still, out of all of the Bowman I've busted, I've yet to get any other Oriole card besides this one, a regular and chrome version of Jonathan Schoop.  No Crush Davis, No Adam Jones, No Bundy, No Manny...  Luckily I've gotten a few in trades.

Here's my updated list of 2013 Bowman I have for trade:

2013 Bowman:
Gold Parallel: 4 Jackson, 48 Sale, 49 Price, 50 Pujols(2), 51 Longoria, 55 Lynn, 92 Wright(2), 94 Heyward(2), 99 M. Montero, 109 Phillips, 131 Hechavarria,  132 Beltre, 133 Gose, 134 Beachy(2), 145 Motte, 151 C. Santana, 153 Beltran, 173 Cingrani, 182 Stanton(2), 184 J. Santana, 200 Posey
Hometown Parallel: 90 Butler, 102 Halladay, 124 Shields, 178 Belt
Prospects International Parallel: BP6 Salazar, BP7 Hahn, BP28 Muno, BP31 Robles
Silver Ice Parallel: 98 Holliday
Orange Parallel: 129 Maronde 112/250
Prospects Purple Parallel: BP29 Diaz, 35 Cisnero, 48 Sanborn
Cream of the Crop Mini Refractors: CC-NYM1 d'Arnaud, CC-MM-2 Yelich, CC-MB3
Chrome Refractor Parallel: BCP15 Gelalich #d160/500
Bowman Top 100: 60 Rosenthal 73 Webster
Bowman Prospect Autograph: BPA JC Ji-Man Choi

My 2013 Topps Series 2 breaks have been pretty good.  I've gotten some decently rare cards out of the 2 hanger boxes and the 2 jumbo packs I've broken.  I've had some crap collation in the Hanger boxes though. Except for the inserts, both boxes had almost the same base cards in them.  Out of the 65 so base cards, there were only about 6 different cards between them.  The Rack packs haven't been as bad but out of the 222 total cards out of the breaks, I've only got 93 towards the entire series 2 set.  I guess these cards make up for it (but not really).

I got the Bryce Harper sunglasses SP out of the first hanger box.  While I don't really care for his Nattitude, I do respect the way that he plays the game hard.  I guess that's why I decided to start a mini PC of him.  Don't send me a ton of his cards though, I'll just add to the binder when I pull his cards from packs.

Also, from hanger box #1 I got this red screaming Trout.  The red Target borders really look good with the Angels uniforms.  Shouldn't the 2012 awards be in series 1 instead of series 2?  Either way, this card is headed to my Trout PC Binder.

From hanger box #2 I got some more Nats-jo.  Jordan Zimmerman seems to follow me around since I pulled his mini auto from my box of Allen & Ginter last summer.  Now I get this Chasing History relic card #'d 42 out of 99.  

I think this one came out of the first rack pack I opened.  This is the first digital Camo parallel that I've seen in person and I have to admit, the look pretty sharp.  More than I can say for those pink border abominations.  I think the pick just reminds me to much of the Justin Beaver and Moonlight vampire sissy cards that lurk next to the sports cards at Target.  Beaver will eventually kill himself in high speed car wreck and I've soaked up enough sunshine this year that I probably would kill any vampires that would come into my presence.

Here's a list of my available trade bait that I have:

2013 Topps Series 2:
Desert Camo Parallel: 601 Brandon Moss #d 81/99
Chasing History Gold Relic: CHR-JZ Jordan Zimmerman #d 42/99
Blue Walmart Parallel: 416 Lyles, 452 Ibanez, 417 Forsythe
Red Target Parallel: 335 Hermann, 384 McGee, 483 Valdespin, 521 Scribner, 540 Bourn, 589 Fernandez, 602 Sanchez, 610 Beachy, 614 Upton, 630 Dirks, 635 Gyorko
Chase It Down: CD-2 Sandoval
World Baseball Classic: WBC-9 Beltran
Making Their Mark: MM-4 Kipnis, 9 Skaggs
1972 Minis: TM-52 Freese, 63 Berra, 86 Brett
Chasing History (Silver Foil): CH-76 Gwynn, 77 Clemente, 100 Niekro
Chasing History (Silver Foil/Holofoil): 56 Holliday, 59 Lynn, 95 Cain, 98 Crawford
Chasing History (Gold Foil/Holofoil): CH-53 Weaver, 62 McCovey, 76 Gwynn, 82 Hernandez, 94 Cobb, 95 Cain

Christmas Cards: 2012 Bowman Draft Picks Hobby Box

Here's the last and favorite of my Christmas gifts.  It's hard to believe Christmas was 2 weeks ago today!  This gift came courtesy of my mother and father in laws.  They did good, real good!

I'm a fan of Bowman and all of the prospects that come out of the product.  I like to keep my eye on the future of MLB players.  Sure there could be some tweaking of the entire lineup of Bowman products but I still like it enough to keep collecting it.  I'm not really sure why Topps made Bowman Draft picks a hobby only product this year.  It always seemed to sell pretty well at retail as far as I can tell.

Without further ado, lets see what I got from the box:

Here's one of the 2 insert sets available.  The other being Bowman's Best.  These seem like a Timeless Talents/Legendary Lineage ripoff from Topps flagship.  Some of the player pairings are somewhat strange.  Utley/Naquin, Bruce/Cecchini, and Fielder/Tulowitzki seemingly have not much in common.  I didn't bother to read the backs so I'm sure there's some connection.  I understand the Hamilton/Harper card since they were both #1 overall picks with skills off the charts.

Here's the 2 regular standard Orange and Blue bordered cards from the prospects set.  Never heard of either of these fellows but you never know what they could turn out to be in a few years.

I'm a fan of the Ice parallels from this year's Bowman products.  It's hard to tell from the scan but they even have a refractor-y shine to them too.  The blue refractor of the Rockies farmhand might be the worst photoshop job ever.

I got my promised autograph in the first pack I opened from the box.  Talk about breaking the suspense early on.  I've had this happen a few times over the last few boxes I've broken down if I remember correctly.  Lucas Sims seems like a decent enough autograph to get from the product.  I already own a USA autograph of his from a few years back, but it was a band-aid stickergraph.  I think this box should have ended up in a Braves' collector's hands and you'll see why a little later on.

The box produced it's 6 promised refractors.  I couldn't be happier about the Sean McAdams, it's one less I'll have to track down on COMC.  The Orioles cards produced pretty  well as I almost ended up with an entire team set of the base set and quite a few Chromes.

Bowman is all about the Rookie Cards and I was hoping for a few nice cards the bigger rookies and prospects from this years "class".  I think I did really well in that regard.  Check it out, I got:

The Chrome and regular Will Middlebrooks,

Regular and Chrome Trevor Bauer,

Regular and Chrome of Kevin Gausman (for obvious reasons)

Regular and Chrome of Mike Zunino

Regular and Chrome of Yu Darvish

Chrome and regular of Bryce Harper

This box was veritable Who's Who of 2012 Rookies and Prospects.

Now I said above that this box was a Braves box.  Check these out:

The Orange Refractor on the left is numbered out of 25 and the Blue on the right is #d to 500.  I pulled these out of back to back packs.  Plus the Harper Chrome and Darvish regular were nestled in with the Orange refractor.  Hot pack indeed!  I'm not sure what to do with them yet.

So that does it for Christmas 2012 for me.  Now back to your regular scheduled non-posting from "O" NO!!! Another Orioles Blog.