Baseball Cards 101

Take your pick or do both, watch the video:

Or read the results:

Very close to the odds again,
19 Gold Foil - Best of the bunch, Matt Garza or Scott Rolen
8 Golds - 9:Riggans, 77:E.Santana, 87:Langerhans, 91:Buckner, 120:Berroa, 182:Ponson, 263:Patterson, 287:Headley
6 Year in Review - 132, 148, 150, 162, 166, 174
6 First Couples - Polk, Taylor, Fillmore, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon
4 World Baseball Classic - Zambrano, Beltran, Bell, Lee
2 Ring of Honor - Luis Aparicio, Whitey Ford
2 1986 Mets Ring of Honor - Darryl Strawberry, Ron Darling
2 Mantle Story - 67 & 71
1 - Take Me Out To The Ballgame, 1:72 packs!
The box topper - Chrome Rookie #6 Nick Adenhart

The box hit?

Corey Hart - All-Star Stitches

Decided I needed a change of pace with this product.  I’ve been doing Jumbo boxes on the base Topps issue since 2007 series 1.  This time I went Hobby and only bought 2 boxes.

Not too much new stuff with U&H.  They continued a couple of the inserts for the year with Mickey Mantle Story, and Year in Review.  Additional they added in some World Baseball Classic preview cards, Ring of Honor and First Couples.  Ring of Honor highlights World series MVPs.  Ring of Honor also comes in a 1986 Mets World Series Champs flavor.  Why 1986?  No clue!  First couple is all about past US Presidents and their wives.  Yes, I can’t wait for election year to be over too.

So with those in mind here are the stated pack odds with the hobby packs:
Gold Foil Parallel 1:2; Gold Parallel 1:5; Black Parallel 1:59; Platinum Parallel 1:9,434; Printing Plates 1:457; Year in Review 1:6; First Couples 1:6; WBC Preview 1:9; Ring of Honor 1:18; 1986 Mets Ring of Honor 1:18; Mantle Story 1:18; Ring of Honor Gold 1:11,743; 1986 Mets Ring of Honor Gold 1:12,787; Ring of Honor Auto 1:2,569; 1986 Mets Ring of Honor Auto 1:2,849; Sketch Cards 1:214; All-Star Stitches 1:44; All-Star Stitches Gold 1:373; All-Star Stitches Platinum 1:23,017; All-Star Stitches Auto 1:6,394; All-Star Stitches Dual 1:5,994; All-Star Stitches Triple 1:5,994; All-Star Jumbo Patches 1:4,496; All-Star Jumbo Patch Auto 1:23,017; Baseball Card History Buybacks 1:1,384; Silk Collection 1:246; Presidential Stamp Collection 1:867; Take Me Out To The Ballgame 1:72; 2008 Highlights Auto Group A 1:38,362; B 1:11,066; C 1:4,082; D 1:5,587; E 1:6,851; F 1:1,116; G 1:1,109; H 1:1,985; Topps 2008 Presedential Pick 1:15,984

Watch the video to see what I pulled in box 1 -

Or read the full post to get a listing with scans (more…)

UPS delivered this baby to me today.  Last year was my first 2 boxes of anything high end and I must have been bitten by the bug.  This year I ordered early a full 9 box case.  Big cash layout, but I think I got good value out of it.

With this many base in a 9 box case I might try for the base set.  Standard configuration goes like this: 9 boxes to a case; 2 packs to a box; 3 base, 2 parallel and 1 triple relic or triple relic auto per pack.

I pulled all of the following:
Base #/1350 - 1, 5, 7, 8 (x2), 13 (x2), 15, 18, 20, 22, 23, 28, 31, 36, 40, 42, 46, 50, 56, 60, 62, 64 (x2), 65, 67, 69, 71, 74, 75, 76, 78, 91, 101, 103, 107, 116, 225, 227, 230, 231, 233, 238, 239, 240, 243, 245, 250
Sepia #/525 - 9, 20, 22, 23, 26, 28, 35, 38, 40, 49, 51, 56, 64, 79, 82, 83, 86, 88, 225, 246
Emerald /#240 - David Wright, Bob Gibson, Francisco Cordero, Eric Chavez, Travis Hafner, Wade Boggs, Red Schoendienst, John Bowker
Gold #/99 - Roger Maris, Billy Martin, Tony Gwynn, Tom Gordon
Black #/30 - Hanley Ramirez
Sapphire #/25 - David Ortiz

Here’s some video if you’d like to watch the break unfold.  Couldn’t wait to get home so I busted the first box at work.  The rest is broken into two videos: boxes 1-4 and boxes 5-8.

The common complaint I’ve seen about Triple Threads is about the plentifulness of rookie autos.  I don’t think I did too bad at 6 total.  Only 2 were the base version.

Sam Fuld - Base version, team initial variation

Elijah Dukes - Base version, team initial variation

Hunter Pence - Sepia version #/75

Seth Smith - Emerald version #/50, team initial variation

Chris Young - Emerald version #/50

Justin Ruggiano - Gold version #/25, team initial variation

but to go with those rookie autos I did get a Rookie Triple Relic Triple Auto :

Armando Galarraga, Fausto Carmona, Troy Patton - Emerald #/18

Beyond rookies I pulled some nice Relic only pieces of current and retired players:

Grady Sizemore #/36

Tom Seaver #/36

Whitey Ford - Emerald #/18

Justin Verlander - Emerald #/18

Robinson/Palmer/Robinson #/36

V.Mart/Sizemore/Hafner #/36

Mathews/Chipper/Murphy - Sepia #/27

No complaints with those.  Now how about a couple star/retired auto relics?

Big Papi - Base? yet #/18 - there’s some pack damage to this one, hopefully Topps can take care of this.

and it gets better:

Paul Molitor - Sapphire #1/3

and better still:

Chien-Ming Wang - Sepia #/27

Best for last, how can I do better than the last one???

BIG PAPI!!! - Letter Plus Relic #3/3

That just became one of the top items in my collection.  With that said if anyone approached me about trading it for a Letter Plus Relic or a Jumbo Plus Relic of a Twins player I would trade straight up.  (I can hope right?)

With 2 more boxes broken I should be close with SP to complete the set.  Out of both boxes I pulled:

256 base + 6 damaged base
22 short print - ouch (should have 24, 1 damaged)
26 regular mini, including Alex Rodriguez
9 A&G back mini: Alex Rodriguez, Adam LaRoche, Miguel Cabrera, Fausto Carmona, Travis Hafner, Curtis Granderson, Aaron Rowand, Carlos Pena, Derek Lowe
5 Black border mini: Alex Rodriguez, Jim Thome, Jermaine Dye, Jose Valverde, Grady Sizemore
4 World Leaders: Kenya, South Korea, Sweden, Thailand
1 Ancient Icon: Sun Tzu
1 Team Orange: Sir “Wagonwheel” Stevens
1 Worlds Greatest Victory: Mark Spitz
1 Worlds Deadliest Sharks: Bull Shark
1 Super Shortprint: Kosuke Fukudome - 1 per 2 cases!

and not to forget my six relics and one silk:

Carlos Marmol

Garret Anderson

J.J. Hardy

Prince Fielder

Rafael Furcal

Rafael Furcal

Torii Hunter

Whew,  that was a mouthful.  It’ll take me at least the next day before I have my trade and want lists updated.  If you’re looking to trade for any of the better stuff I’ll only trade for similar Allen & Ginter stuff for now.  The cloth mini is available and I would love to get a Twins cloth for it if I can.

Before I forget, here’s the video:

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All 5 cases arrived on time.  I knew exactly what my night was going to be like.  Five hours of repacking, and printing shipping labels.  I should have scheduled the break for 8pm.  Would have been a better break between all the boxing up.

On second thought, 7pm was a good choice in time.  I had gotten 3 or 4 packages done and spotting the time just grabbed the next box for myself.  Over on the Beckett boards a couple posters bearing David Wrights signature and a topps hologram had been pulled from cases.  When I pulled my box out I spotted the folded posted sitting below in the case.  You can imagine how fast my body starting pumping the adreanline.  I carefully unfolded the poster.  Immediately I recognized that it was not the same design as the David Wright poster.  Mine instead was about the Ancient Icons set and no auto.  It depicts each of the cards from the set on the poster.  I’ll have to see if I can get a photo taken.   I’m already planning on getting a frame for it.  The poster should look beautiful hanging on the wall.

My very first pack yeilded a shark mini.

In the remainder of this box I pulled:

131 base
12 short print
12 regular mini
4 A&G back mini: James Loney, Mark Buehrle, Chipper Jones, Kelly Johnson
3 Black border mini: Bobby Jenks, Adam Wainwright, Andrew Miller
2 World Leaders: New Zealand, Peru
1 Ancient Icon: Alexander the Great
1 Team Orange: Minty Beans
1 Worlds Greatest Victory: Man walks on the Moon

and not to forget my four relics and one auto:

A.J. Pierzynski

Stephen Drew

Tim Hudson

Todd Helton

Alex Rios

What a night huh?  And don’t forget I still have two boxes for Tuesday night.  You can watch the live box breaks via Ustream.tv.  I’ll start at 7pm central time again.  In case you missed it here’s the video: