Baseball Cards 101

Well my cases are not here yet, but I thought it would be nice to have a box for shipment planning.  So I went to my local hobby shop and picked one up.  Just like before 24 packs to the box and 8 cards to the pack.

In the first two years of Allen & Ginter Topps used Dick Perez sketch cards, 1 for every team, as a pack searcher deterrent.  They worked well and were collectable themselves.  The drawback was that in a single hobby box you would pull 24 out of 30.  This year Topps got smart and used a state themed insert with one player born from each state.

Another change up this year is additional mini inserts.  This got started last year with the unannouced Emperor and Snake minis.  Small 10 and 5 card sets that were very hard to pull.  2008 brings us 3 annouced insert sets and 2 unannouced.  World leaders featuring depictions of countries and thier current leader, 50 in total.  Baseball Icons featuring retired players of the game, 17 to the set.  Ancient Icons featuring historical figures and mythical subjects, 20 of those.  The unannouced sets seem to be as hard to pull as last years,  but I still don’t know how many are in each.  The first features players from Team Orange a fictional baseball team.  The second features Sharks.

The following odds are printed on the back of the hobby packs:
short print 1:2; Worlds Greatest Victories 1:24; short print mini 1:13; Orange Cards 1:144; A&G back mini 1:5; A&G back short print 1:65; Black border mini 1:10; Black border short print 1:130; Rip Card 1:189; Printing Plate 1:961; A&G Cloth card 1:439; No number mini 1:151; Bazooka back mini 1:301; Wood mini 1:4,395; World Leaders 1:12; Ancient Icons 1:48; Baseball Icons 1:48; Framed Autos Group A 1:277, B 1:256, C 1:135; Framed Auto Relic 1:26,431; Cut Signatures 1:138,500; Framed Relic Group A 1:280, B 1:71, C 1:20; Framed DNA Group A 1:203,317, B 1:264,312; Framed Originals 1:26,500.

Continue reading to see what my first box yeilded…..

Odds say I should pull:

130 base
24 state cards
12 short print
14 regular mini
4-5 A&G back mini
2 Black border mini
2 World Leaders
1 Either Ancient or Baseball Icon
1 Worlds Greatest Victory
2 Relics or Autos

I think I did a little better than that and pulled:

131 base
12 short print
12 regular mini
5 A&G back mini: Robinson Cano, Moises Alou, Rich Hill, Dontrelle Willis, David DeJesus
3 Black border mini: Vladimir Guerrero, A.J. Burnett, Joey Votto
2 World Leaders: USA, Mexico
1 Ancient Icon: Alexander the Great
1 Baseball Icon: Pee Wee Reese
1 Worlds Greatest Victory: Fall of the Berlin Wall

and not to forget my two relics:

Delwyn Young

Edgar Renteria

5 cases are scheduled for delivery Monday.  Look for a live stream possible for one box on Monday night and two for Tuesday night.  You can watch the live box breaks via Ustream.tv.  I’ll start at 7pm central time.