Group Break Cards from the Other World

Here's the first of a few group break posts that will be going up over the next few days. This break comes to you courtesy of the Other World. Dan's selection of boxes was intriguing and I definitely had to get in on this one. I'm really glad I did. I picked the Orioles (of course) and my randomed team was the Astros. Here's the goods:

I've always liked Topps Gallery but I have a very precious few of them. This Marty Cordova helps me cross another card off my wantlists. I need more Gallery Orioles!

This mini Old Mill back of Jeremy Guthrie reminds me of the miniscule amount of runs the O's score for him while he's toeing the rubber.

Here's one of the many colored paralells from 2008 Upper Deck Baseball Heroes of Luke Scott. I'm not able to feature many of Luke's cards because there just aren't that many of them. I don't understand why he doesn't get more hobby love because he is a legit power hitter.

Here's a pretty nice numbered insert card from the 2005 Upper Deck Classics box of Brooksie. He just celebrated a birthday last week. Here's to many more!

Here's the meat of the break for me. I think I did rather well with getting a relic card from both teams I picked. The real kicker is that I already had pulled the same exact Tejada from my own box last fall and traded it. I'm really happy with the Ripken Relic card too. One of these days I'd love to be able to pull some mojo of him out of a pack on my own. I can dream!

Here's a list of Astros that I have for trade along with Mr. Tejada from the break. Let me know if you see any you need.

Astros:

2008 Upper Deck Baseball Heroes: J.R. Towles, Hunter Pence, Roy Oswalt,

2009 Topps 206: Ivan Rodriguez, Roy Oswalt, Hunter Pence, Carlos Lee

2002 Topps Total: Jeff Bagwell, Mike Hill, Carlos Hernandez, Richard Hidalgo, Brian L. Hunter, Scott Linebrink, Orlando Merced, Brandon Puffer,

2003 Topps Gallery: Roy Oswalt, Jeff Kent

Box Break: 2007 Upper Deck Goudey

I'm just going to start this off saying that this was one of the best boxes I have ever busted! Stay with me till the end and you'll see why.

I used part of my tax refund from the Virginia State Government to treat myself to some wax. I used all of my Federal refund to pay off my credit card so I needed to do something nice for myself!


I have always been interested in the Goudey line that Upper Deck put out from 07 to 09 but the shortprints really turned me off. I HATE SHORTPRINTS. I decided to swear off the shortprints and just collect the base sets, cards 1 thru 200 for each year, and use the shortprints as trade bait.


I like the o7's because they are the same size as the original 1933 Goudey cards. I really like the feeling of the cardboard in these cards. It just feels old timey and UD did good job of capturing the charm of the original set. Though I am a little perplexed at why UD made a parallel set of Red Lettered Backs that are basically the same collation as the Green Lettered Backs.


Here's the list of shortprints that I have for trade: 207 Fisk, 209 Kaline, 215 Mattingly, 222 Gwynn, 234 Maddux, 237 Santana, 252 Pujols, 254 Howard, 260 Wright, 270 Igawa, 278 Howard, 286 Verlander. If you need scans of any of those, just ask!


Here's scans of the two BIG MOJOZ HITZZ promised on the outside of the box:
Uninspiring at best. I can't complain about on card autographs and not everybody gets a Ripken Autograph in their box. These are for trade.

Now, this is where the box gets good. There are two box loader packs that are promised on the sell sheets for this product. One (1) card pack that is inserted on top where you are promised a Sports Royalty card. I got Peyton Manning. Not bad. He's for trade if anybody is interested.

The second box loader pack is inserted in the bottom of the box underneath all of the regular packs. These packs are inserted 1 or 2 per 12 box case. I was very lucky and got one! The outside of the pack promises 1 buyback and one insert #'d to 15 or less. Here's the Goods:

I got 2 inserts! BADASS!

The Yogi and Reggie insert is part of the Doubleheader insert set. I have no idea what kind of value it may have. The Teixeira is part of the Diamond Stars insert set. Both are hand-numbered and are great looking cards. I have no idea what to do with them at this point.

And now without further delay, the 1933 Goudey Buyback:

I've never heard of Fred Frankhouse but I could really give a crap! IT'S AN ORIGINAL 1933 GOUDEY Card. This becomes the oldest card I own by about 25 years. I nearly fell out of my desk chair when I saw this beauty! Sure the corners are rounded a bit but it doesn't have any creases and the color is fantastic. I LOVE THIS CARD!!! It's definitely not for trade and is going straight into my personal collection.

So there you have it. One of the best boxes I've ever opened. I hope you guys and gals out there share in my excitement about the Goudey Original I pulled!

I'm gonna work on the Green Lettered back set along with the Red Lettered Back set. I won a lot of about 300 of the Red and Green backs on eBay for nothing more than shipping costs so I should be pretty close on both sets. Look for a wantlist later this week.

Box Break: 2010 Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects

I'll start off this box break by saying that Bowman Draft picks has been one of my favorite products for the past 8 or 9 years now. This year is no exception because this is the best box I've busted in a while! A lot of people are not fans of the Bowman line in general because of the so called "same old boring black border" design and the lineup of players that nobody cares about. I guess that is where I differ from others because I like seeing the draft picks and prospects on their first cards. For some players it may be their only card because most minor leaguers never sniff the majors.

Bowman Draft Picks for years has basically been Bowman series 2 and I don't know why Topps doesn't brand it that way. It would do wonders to alleviate the confusing numbering system that has been used for the last few years. The Prospects insert set has a numbering system that runs halfway across the card: BDPP##. It just looks a little silly in my eye.

So enough of my blithering and blabbering about what I like and how I would fix the Bowman brand. Let see what I got out of the box:

I'm not going to scan any of the normal cards, everyone knows what they look like.

I got my normal assortment of base cards, 47 of the 110 in the set. they come 2 to a pack so Not bad I guess. I didn't get any doubles. Notable Rookies: Heyward, Strasburg, Stanton, Santana, Castro, and Bumgarner

For the regular prospects I got 72 of the 110 in the set. These come 3 to a pack and didn't get an doubles. I got a lot of the highly touted (and drafted) guys from this years class. Notables: Taillon, Machado (O's Top Pick), Colon, Sale, Lee, Harvey, DeShields, Grandal, and Brentz

Onto the the base Chrome I got 19 of the 110 cards in the set. Ouch, good thing I'm not building this set! I didn't get any big name players except for Carlos Santana. No doubles

The Propects Chrome was a little better. I got 24 of the 110 cards in the set. Notables: Taillon, Lipka, and Zach Lee. No doubles.

Now onto the good stuff. I destroyed the odds when it came to my refractors and autographs.

I got one regular refractor: (1:11 packs)Vance Worley

One Chrome Prospect Refractor: (1:11 packs) Justin O'Connor

I got one blue bordered parallel: (1:20 packs)Mike Dunn #'d 236/399.

I got one Blue Refractor: (1:40 Packs) JASON HEYWARD!!!!!

I love this card. It's numbered 3/199. I would have called this box a success had this been my only "hit"! It looks so much better in person. I haven't decided what to do with it yet.

I was a little nervous about my promised autograph card because of my experience last month with Bowman Chrome. My mind was put at ease when I got this:

USA Autograph Lucas Sims (1:216 packs). Yep! A CASE HIT. I was ecstatic when I pulled this card. I don't ever remember getting a one per case card!

I was happy to finish out my packs not expecting any other hits in the last 5 or 6 packs. I was very excited to get this card:

Autographed Chrome Prospect Zach Lee (1:38 packs). I guess all of the bad Juju I had from Bowman Chrome is gone! It's signed on card which is a plus and it is mostly flawless (scratches are on the toploader or penny sleeve). Now, I wonder if some other collector will be short an autographed card from their box because of my good fortune? I know how I felt last month when my Chrome box was shorted the promised hit and I wouldn't wish that bad luck on anybody. I hope this isn't the case and that the USA auto I got was an extra bonus hit for being the lucky 1 out of the 12 box case.

I would have to give this box an A. Even though I only pulled one Oriole for the PC, I'm still happy as a loon right now. While I am far from completing the set I still enjoyed my purchase. For the price I paid ( $50 after free shipping, discount coupons, and also being on sale) at Dave and Adam's I definitely made out like a bandit! I also must give Topps a little credit because the Chrome cards weren't extruded from a paper towel roll unlike other chrome releases this year. They lay mostly flat and all have nearly perfect centering. Maybe they have heard the cries of collectors and have corrected these mistakes and 2011 will be a much better year quality wise (I hope!) I might try my luck with a blaster or 2 to work on the set or buy a complete base and prospects set off of eBay. I haven't decided yet.

Adventures in Retail

I had the retail itch the other day and stopped by Target on the way home. I admit I get retail fever from time to time. I am glad I was running a pack busting fever on this particular day. I picked up a 3 packs of 2010 Topps Update. Here are the highlights of those packs:

Yes I got 3 Strasburgers in 3 packs. Since he's on like 20 different cards in Update series, the odds are stacked in the collector's favor. I know a lot of collector's are stressing over the #661 thing. I put it at the end of my base set. It's #'d 661 for reason. The Gold and the More Tales of the game kind of annoy me for some reason. I don't think I will be buying any more Update Series because I'm a few cards short of the set.

I also bought 2 of the value packs of Topps Chrome. Refractor's galore! I think this is the first time I have ever opened a pack of Topps Chrome. I was pretty lucky I think because I ended up with some sort of refractor in each pack! The Strasburg and Stanton Orange came from the same clear cellophane pack. The Arrieta came in the other. Jake brings me one step closer to the Orioles Orange Refractor Team set. The Manny card is my best refractor/x-fractor pull of the bunch. To my astonishment, the Escobar Gold Refractor is a 1 in 775 packs! I am seriously thinking about busting a Hobby box of this stuff because I've had such good luck. My birthday is coming up so maybe I should treat myself or maybe I should quit while I'm ahead. What do you think?

Not pictured are : Orange Refractors: Yadier Molina, Roy Oswalt, Jered Weaver. Refractors of Torii Hunter, Johnny Cueto. X-Fractors of Carlos Zambrano, Erick Aybar

So this time I beat the odds at retail. I guess every collector has his day some times.