Box Break: 2012 Bowman Chrome

I bought this hobby box of Bowman Chrome on sale at Dave and Adam's during their Black Friday preview sale about 2 weeks ago and I just got done opening and sorting out what I got from it.  My tradebait posts from last week has been taking up a lot of my card time but that's ok!  I'm glad to be able to send the tradebait I offered to people that will appreciate them more than I do for cards that I want or need.  There's still a bunch of cards left so take a look over them if you might be interested in making a trade.

So onward to the BowChro box I got:

This year's Bowman design looks great all chromed up.  I got a nice assortment of refractors as you can  see.  Not much to write home about.

Here's my colored refractors.  Not much to see here but I think Spankee or dkwilson might be interested in the Upton blue though.  (I don't know why it looks purple in the scan).

Here's my autograph card from the box of JR Graham.  I'd never heard of him before this card but at least I know he touched it.  I'm a fan of the Bowman Chrome autographs because they are on-card so I'm nearly 100% sure they are authentic.

I also got a few inserts in the box.  I'm a fan of the Futures Game inserts even though I hadn't heard of either of these guys.  I think their generic sounding Latino names might be the culprit though.  It's not a knock on the guys themselves, it's just that the names aren't really that memorable since they are somewhat generic.  I'm not as big a fan of the Franchise Favorites inserts.  It's not because of the Yankees card I pulled either.  Robinson Cano continues to follow me around in every box I open though!  The insert set just reminds me too much of Legendary Lineage and Timeless Talents.  I wasn't a fan of those either!

Here's the one card that makes me call this box a success.  I know it's just a dinky Nick Markakis refractor card.  Just thinking about all 330 cards being paralleled though, it's a tougher pull than you might think to pull your favorite team or even your favorite active player.

I got a bunch of cards for my set that I'm building but it's hard for me to say I wasn't a bit disappointed. My inserts and refractors were somewhat crappy and the autographed prospect card was an unknown to me.  Maybe Graham becomes a superstar one day and I become a thousandaire from the card!  Everything pictured is for trade except for the Markakis!

What I Got For Christmas

I hope that everyone had a Merry Little Christmas.  I know I did.  The last few days I've driven over the hills and through the woods to visit family members and friends and I used today as a little reflection time and to do what I love to do: stare at pictures of men!  More specifically I'm staring at new pictures that I got as gifts.  I think I had a pretty nice haul.  I got a blaster to 2011 Bowman Chrome from a friend, a hobby box of 2010 Bowman Chrome from my wife, and a couple rack packs of 2011 Topps Update in my stocking.  I didn't get much of note out of the Bowman Chrome blaster but the 2010 Bowman Chrome hobby box was loaded with some really nice hits and a bunch of cards towards the set:

Here's the "lesser" hit of the box.  It's a pretty nice looking card of a team that I don't really care for.  BTW, it's numbered 86/150 for those of you that are interested.

 This card is actually a bonus hit out of the box.  Team USA autographs are tough pulls at 1 in 207 packs so I'll venture to say that this is a case hit.  This card is especially cool because he was drafted by the Orioles this past summer.  I'll most definitely be hanging onto this card!

Here's my promised autograph of the box and it turns out that it is a refractor.  Not bad!  I think he's one of Minnesota's top prospects because I have heard of him.  I did look up the price range of this card and it does book for 80 bucks!

 Here's the most awesome card I pulled.  SUPERFRACTOR! SUPERFRACTOR! SUPERFRACTOR!  These are really tough pulls dropping at 1 in 5625 packs.  That's one in every 26 cases.  I have no idea whether I should hang onto this one or try to sell it.  I've pulled a couple printing plates and 1 or 2 1/1's in my pack busting career, but this one is bar none my best 1/1 card.  I can see why Superfractors are sought after because they look amazing!

Coming down from the excitement of a Superfractor, I got this Liquorfractor of Tom Terrific out of on one my Update rack packs.  I did also get 2 Diamond Giveaway codes that I don't know what to do with.  I've already cashed out my portfolio and hadn't planned on getting anymore.  Heck, I even traded all 37 of my unique rings away and deleted the shortcut to the site from my favorites.  I ended up with
10 Orioles rings, 12 Browns rings and 15 Cal Ripken rings.

So as you can see, there was some real Christmas magic in the packs I received this year.  I hope everybody else's card gifts were as wonderful as mine!

Box Breaks: 2011 Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects (with Chrome!)

I'll admit that I've gone a little crazy with all of the box breaks lately but this should be my final one at least until Christmas.  Bowman Draft Picks is a product that has for the most part been a hit with collectors over the last few years.  Since I am a pretty big Bowman fan, I actually jumped feet first into the fray and bought 3 boxes on preorder way back in the summer.  Lets see what I got:

 I got just got one blue refractor and its of a Yankee. This one is numbered 2/199.  Good luck Brandon cracking that lineup with A-rod blocking your progression to the majors.

I got one gold refractor of a Braves prospect that I don't know anything about.  I still don't know anything about him because there is no patented Bowman scouting report on the back.  BTW, Kyle is #'d 41/50.

 Now this is a little more like it, I know who this guy is.  I got a TTM back from him during Spring Training and have been following him a little bit here and there since.  Not a bad looking border considering the team he plays for.  Mike is #'d 339/499

My first Autograph is of the Giants 47th pick in this years draft?  I was a little underwhelmed to say the least until I did a little online research.  Topps screwed the pooch on this one, he was actually the 47th player taken overall!

 This relic actually came out of a blaster box I picked up at Target.  Not a bad player to get a relic of I guess.  It's numbered 168/199

Here's my next autograph of Taylor Jungmann.  I think its pronounced "Young-man". Anyways, it's a pretty nice looking card except for the terrible photoshop job on his hat.  Enough with the awful photo manipulation Topps!

Here's my favorite card of the 3 boxes.  Its the refractor version of the autograph and it really looks good.  Brandon is an interesting story as he comes from Wyoming.  There is no High School baseball in the state so he was drafted on the merits of his American Legion and Travel team play.  Not only was he drafted, he was drafted in the 1st round.  I read about him in my sports weekly and I'll be following his career to see how he turns out.  Also of note, I'm glad that Brandon takes pride in his penmanship.  His signature is legible and neat.  I hope that it doesn't degrade into chicken scratch as he moves up the minor league ranks.

To say that I really enjoyed this year's Bowman Draft Picks product would be stretching the truth.  I'm still a fan of all of the new players but there just seems to be something missing from the product this year.  I was able to finish off the base set and base prospects set so that's a plus but I'm still far from completing the Chrome sets.  I'll get a want list up eventually for those.

Here's a listing of the paralells that I have up for trade:

Gold Parallel: 42 Shaw, 72 Presley, 88 Vizcaino, BDPP52 Snell, BDPP95 Clifton, BDPP98 Farinaro, BDPP100 Meadows

Blue Parallel: 1 Moustakas, 31 Dirks, 59 Cozart, BDPP1 Hicks, BDPP24 Crick, BDPP103 Pabst

Refractor Parallels: 5 Beato, 13 Hamburger, 21 Sosa, 30 De La Rosa, 39 Godfrey, 60 Alburquerque, 65 Lynn, 73 Pestano, BDPP4 Armstrong, BDPP34 Gagnon, BDPP45 Hope, BDPP48 Anton, BDPP55 Martin, BDPP60 James, BDPP65 Reynolds, BDPP72 Gamache, BDPP94 Ciuffo

Blue Refractor: 26 Brandon Laird #'d 2/199

Gold Refractor: BDPP74 Kyle Kubitza #'d 41/50

Box Break: 3 Boxes of 2011 Bowman Chrome

I splurged on 3 boxes of Bowman Chrome when they went on presale earlier this summer.  For some reason, I've become enamored with Bowman Chrome over the past year and I'm probably the only one in the entire blog-o-sphere that has any interest in building sets of this product.  I think half of my decision is that I seem to have piles of Chromes sitting in my commons boxes as "leftovers" from building base Bowman sets and feeling guilty about it.  Also, I think I need a set building challenge.  Let's face it, building flagship Topps and Bowman sets isn't terribly difficult! These are going to be more of long term projects because buying cases of Bowman Chrome products is out of the question budget. Hopefully I can finds some lots left over on eBay that will help me towards my goal and then I can fill in some gaps with Sportslots and at shows.  So without further ado, here's the highlights of my 3 boxes:

We'll start off with one of the more rare cards from the break.  USA autographs are pretty rare in this years product so you know that a blue refractor is even more rare.  It is numbered but it's not that it really matters anyway.  Al seems to have a nice autograph at this point in his career (I think he is a high school senior and is eligible for the MLB draft this coming spring) but it will probably devolve into some scribble like most players autographs these days.

Speaking of scribbles, it leads me to my next mojo hit of a Canadian fella that will be tormenting the O's for the foreseeable future.  Does the facsimile autograph in anyway resemble "Brett" or "Lawrie" to you?

I don't have much to say about this Gold refractor of Youkilis other than it might fetch me a few bucks in trade value or COMC store credit.

This little sucker popped out of the last pack I opened  Wow, Orioles cards look great on the regular Orange and even better as Orange refractors!  If they weren't numbered so dang low, I'd probably have a couple more of them!  This one is #d 24/25.  I saw Ronnie play this past summer and he seemed like he doesn't like to sign autographs.  He just sat up on the railing while the other guys on the Baysox happily signed for me.  Maybe he just having a bad day or I went to the wrong game.

Here are 2 of my autograph cards that I was promised.  From the scouting report on the back, Swagerty seems like he is projected as a back end bullpen guy for the Cards though looking at his Baseball Reference page, he started and relieved this year.  Segura just got added to the Angels 40 man roster and his a highly regarded Top 100 prospect.  I will compliment each of these players on their penmanship.  It even appears Jean ran out of space and just meandered the pen back towards the start his signature!

And last but certainly not least, my redemption cards.  I'm not a fan of Topps' new bland design of these redemption cards.  It reminds me of some crap that Pannini would do.  Regardless, the refractor set of USA baseball card excites me a little bit and the Orange Refractor autograph of Jacob Turner is pretty exciting.  This is my second Orange refractor autograph of the year as I pulled a Sean Coyle from regular Bowman this past spring.  If there was another team that looks great as Orange refractors it would have to be the Tigers.  I haven't decided what to do with the Turner yet.  I might try to sell it on Ebay and see if I can turn it into a 1967 Brooks Robinson.

Overall I have no real complaints about Bowman Chrome this year. The cards don't warp up nor are they off-center.  They look great as always and the particular cards I invested my hard earned money in could not have been much better.  

If I had one complaint though, it would be the amount of cards per pack.  Across all of Topps' Chrome lines, I think packs should have 5 cards per hobby pack. 4 cards just isn't enough to make the casual collector willing to plop down the cash.  Don't get me started on retail as there are 3 cards per pack.  That's a buck per card.

In particular, I noticed in my 3 boxes that whenever there was an insert, refractor, or autograph, it took place of a base set card.  Why couldn't the "hit" take the place of a prospect card.  The prospect set only consists of 110 cards with the base set consists of 220.  If Topps can't add another card to the pack, don't short me a base set card to put in a hit!  

Here's the rest of the inserts and refractors that I will have up for trade:  

Refractors: 17 Granderson, 58 Hudson, 69 Hanson, 74 Hill, 90 Weeks, 106 Bruce, 110 Gutierrez, 121 C.Young, 140 Weaver, 168 Garza, 217 Cobb

Prospect Refractors: BCP121 Gast, 186 Brantly

Green X Fractors: BCP182 Sampson, 193 von Rosenberg, 218 Riordan

Purple Refractors: BCP136 Magnuson, 160 Cole

Blue Refractors: BCP121 Higashioka, 175 Lawrie

Gold Refractor: 166 Youkilis

2001 Throwbacks: Chipper Jones, Ichiro (english), Ichiro (Japanese)

2001 Throwbacks Prospects:  BCT13 Mesoraco, 14 S Miller, 15 Deshields Jr, 18 Chisenhall, 19 A Vizciano

2021 Diecuts: 4 Deshields Jr., 7 Ranaudo, 8 Allie, 12 Singleton, 17 Dominguez, 24 Turner, 25 Myers

2021 Diecuts Refractors: 3 Taillon, 11 Banuelos, 16 Tago, 18 Sano

Bowman's Best Prospects: BBP54 Singleton, 59 Archer, 60 M Perez, 64 Myers(2), 65 Turner

Box Break: 2011 Topps Chrome Hobby

I preordered this box a little while back and had almost forgotten about it until I got the shipping notification. I started to get cautiously excited knowing the debacle that 2010 Topps Chrome was.  It had been nearly 2 weeks since I opened any packs (which is a long time for me!) so it was good to smell that new card smell again.  So I ripped a few packs and was pleasantly surprised to see that the cards were of a pretty high quality.  No pringle warping, no surface gouges, no dinged corners, no off-center or miscut cards and hardly any roller marks that plagued last year's edition.  I am happy to see that Topps fixed these issues for this years release.  Even the non-card collectors that work there know that those cards were of totally crappy quality!

I'm going to list the "lesser" inserts here:

Topps Heritage Chrome: Nelson Cruz, Carlos Quentin, Neil Walker, Brandon Beachy

Nothing to really write home about here...

Topps Chrome Throwbacks: Aroldis Chapman, Freddie Freeman, Felix Hernandez, Brian McCann

I know the back of the package says Vintage Chrome, but I hardly consider 1996 Topps Chrome to be "vintage".  I'll just call them throwbacks since Pepsi can call their 1990's designs throwbacks!

Refractors: Brandon Beachy, Carlos Pena, Dustin Pedroia, Andrew Cashner, Ichiro, Vernon Wells, Jonathan Sanchez, Jorge Posada

The Refractors from this box produced the exact amount of cards allotted for the box.  The odds were 1:3 packs.    I really cleaned up on Brandon Beachy and overall Braves in this break.  The Jorge Posada card is kinda funny because it says he is a Designated Hitter but the picture is of him in catchers gear chasing a foul pop up

My Astros lucky streak continues with this Sepia Refactor.  I particularly pull a bunch of Parallels of JA Happ.  I think I got an Orange parallel from 2010 Bowman, a Blue from 2011 Bowman and now this Sepia Refractor.   I could take or leave this version of refractor.

I think the Atomic refractors are kind of neat but to me they just look like a zoomed in version of the flagship Diamond Anniversary parallels.

Blue Refractors make their return.

This gold I was happy to get since they are numbered out of 50.  I'm not really thrilled about the player because he hasn't played in nearly a season and a half.  Oh well, you can't win them all.

My first promised autograph is actually the refractor version.  Somehow the scanner didn't pick up the rainbow coloring.  I thought that Crow was once a hot Starting Pitcher prospect and it wasn't that long ago.  KC fans help me out here, I'm interested to know why he is pitching out of the bullpen.  Did he totally tank as a starter?

Here's my second promised autograph of the box.  This was probably the second best autograph (in my opinion) I could have pulled next to Zach Britton.  Earlier in the season, Pineda was lighting it up and a shoo-in for Rookie of the Year.  The league caught up to him but he is still a very solid pitcher and seems he will form a tough 1-2 punch with King Felix for years to come.

I'd give this box a 4.5 out of 5.0 score only because I pulled 2 Orioles from the entire box (Markakis and Derek Lee base cards).  Otherwise I was very pleased with the results and I think the cards look great in Chrome.  The flagship was only so-so in my book but be chromed, they look a little more dignified.  I'm still scratching my head about the double team names around the baseball and logo though.

All cards are for trade except the Pineda.  I want to hang onto that card for a while, unless I get an offer I can't refuse.