Baseball Cards 101

Holy cow!  Can it be that I’ve not opened anything in almost a year?
What can I say?  Life gets busy and other things have higher priority compared to baseball cards.

I decided this time around I’d gets the boxes from 2 different suppliers.  One box from dacardworld.com and two boxes from blowoutcards.com.

Box 1

I won’t bore you with the details on the base cards, here’s what I pulled in inserts:

Regular Mini - Ryan Kennelly (#21), Raul Ibanez (#163), Johnny Damon (#197), Ron Teasley (#291), Chris Pettit (#292), Gaby Sanchez (#301), Troy Glaus (#329)
A&G Back Mini - Chris Coghlan (#44), Brandon Allen (#140), Jake Peavy (#184), Nolan Reimold (#300)
Black Mini - Jorge Posada (#143), Craig Gentry (#222)

National Animals - Iceland, Philippines, Italy
Lords of Olympus - Demeter, Pan
Monsters of the Mesozoic - Velociraptor, Spinosaurus, Protarchaeopteryx
Saltiest Sailors - Bartholomew “Black Bart” Roberts
World’s Wordsmiths - William Shakespeare, Fydor Dostoevsky

Baseball Sketches - Dewayne Wise (#8), Jimmy Rollins (#9), Daniel Murphy (#15)
A&G Relic - Matt Kemp
A&G Auto - Jeff Clement

Box 2

Regular Mini - Chris Coghlan (#44), Orlando Hudson (#66), Brandon Allen (#140), Michael Young (#171), Orlando Cabrera (#347)
A&G Back Mini - Ryan Braun (#3), Nicolaus Copernicus (#105), Sig Hansen (#203), King Tut (#271), Isaac Newton (#297)
Black Mini - Carlos Betran (#40), Carlos Lee (#146), J.D. Drew (#206)
No # Mini - Tony Hoard & Rory (#?)

National Animals - Brazil, Canada, Sweden
Lords of Olympus - Eros, Helios
Monsters of the Mesozoic - Ankylosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus
Sailors of the Seven Seas- Vasco Nunez de Balboa
World’s Wordsmiths - Dante Alighieri

Baseball Sketches - Mark Buehrle (#2), Hideki Matsui (#10), Troy Tulowitzki (#12)
A&G Relic - Melky Cabrera, Chris Coghlan
A&G Auto - Johnny Cueto

Box 3

Regular Mini - Jason Heyward (#53), Luke Hochevar (#94), Galileo Galilei (#116), Jordin Sparks (#216), Hiroki Kuroda (#336), Jon Garland (#341)
A&G Back Mini - Victor Martinez (#36), Josh Johnson (#39), Andre Ethier (#65), Niccolo Machiavelli (#103), Matt Garza (#252), Stephen Drew (#345)
Black Mini - Adam Lind (#1), Carlos Lee (#146), Scott Feldman (#259), Kurt Suzuki (#281)

National Animals - Cuba, Kenya, Mexico
Lords of Olympus - Persephone
Monsters of the Mesozoic - Spinosaurus, Pentaceratops
Sailors of the Seven Seas - Vasco Nunez de Balboa
World’s Wordsmiths - Shen Kuo

Baseball Sketches - Mariano Rivera (#4), Ichiro (#5), Daniel Murphy (#15)
A&G Relic - Aaron Hill, Ian Kinsler, Matt Kemp
A&G Auto - Alcides Escobar

At this point I’ve pulled the average on all the bigger hits except the Yankee Stadium Legacy memorabilia card.  I thought this would be a good stopping point if I wanted to sell the rest.

In the past a messed up box has brought better than average return, or the next box in the case makes up for it.  So, I decide to press on and open the other half.  Must be something in there to make up for all those John Maine autos.

(more…)

When this product first came out I was not very interested in it.  I skipped it until the price came down.  This case came from blowoutcards for just over $500 shipped.

A case of Heroes come in a 10 box configuration with 24 packs of 8 cards.  Each pack contains 1 parallel, YSL insert, or autograph/memorabilia card.  Upper Deck actually printed some generalized odds on the back of this products packs.  Yankee Stadium Legacy cards come 1:4 packs, Memorabilia cards 1:8, Autograph cards 1:24, Autographed Memorabilia cards 1:120, and Yankee Stadium Legacy Memorabilia 1:240.  These odds are really just a mirror of what the sales sheet promises.

Heroes has 10 base card parallels, 6 memorabilia parallels, 6 autograph parallels,  4 autograph memorabilia parallels, 3 patch parallels and 1 autograph patch parallel.  A couple parallels are retail only.

Base: Charcoal (retail), Emerald, Black, Red, Beige, Navy Blue, Brown, Sea Green, Light Blue, Purple
Memorabilia: Charcoal (retail), Light Blue, Black , Red, Navy Blue, Emerald
Autograph: Charcoal, Navy Blue, Black, Beige, Red, Purple
Autograph Memorabilia: Light Blue, Red, Navy Blue, Emerald
Patch: Light Blue, Beige, Purple

Onto the break results… (more…)

It’s been so long since I used Ustream I had some difficulty getting it going.  No audio for the first couple of packs.

While I thought the first box was great, the last two did even better!
Final 2 boxes gave me:
16 short prints, 5 were doubles
8 chrome, C30 - Nate McLouth, C33 - Ervin Santana, C43 - Carlos Delgado, C54 - Matt Kemp, C83 - Adam Dunn, C96 - Xavier Nady, C97 - Max Scherzer, C98 - Hiroki Kuroda
2 chrome refractor, C41 - Chien-Ming Wang, C87 Tim Linecum
4 baseball flashbacks
4 news flashbacks
4 then & now
4 new age performer

Clubhouse Collection

Dan Uggla

Real One auto

Jim Proctor

I think I came out ahead against the cost of the boxes.

This years Heritage is based on the 1960 Topps card design.  I think they look better then the last two years.    Topps has simplified the product a little by reducing the number of short prints to 75.  Even better all short prints are easily identified by the darker brown back.  Only 2 variation cards exist and are a very tough pull.  One card features Tom Glavine with his name misspelled “Thom”.  The other variation is of Hanley Ramirez in a Red Sox uniform.

Ad panel box loaders are back again from last year as well as the foil stamped 1960 Topps buybacks.  This is one product that never changes it’s configuration.  24 packs of 8 cards to a hobby box.  Here’s the hobby pack insert odds:
Short print 1:3, Chrome parallel 1:6, Chrome Refractor parallel 1:23, Chrome Black Refractor 1:255, New Age Performers 1:15, Then & Now 1:15,  Baseball Flashbacks1:12, News Flashbacks 1:12, Real One Autographs 1:308, Real One Dual 1:2005, Real One Special 1:514, Flashback Autographs 1:12400, Clubhouse Collection Auto Relics 1:6150, Flashback Auto Relics 1:12300, Clubhouse Collection Dual Auto Relics 1:10200, 1960 Cut Sig 1:250000, Clubhouse Collection Relics A 1:219, B 1:52, C 1:97, Clubhouse Collection Dual Relics 1:4800, Flashback Relics 1:383, Flashback Dual Relics 1:34000

My box gave me;
171 base, 40% of the base set
8 short prints, 11% of the short prints
5 chrome, C14 - Derek Jeter, C16 - Aramis Ramirez, C49 - James Looney, C65 - Ken Griffey Jr., C72 - Adrian Gonzalez
1 chrome refractor, C3 - Miguel Tejada
2 baseball flashbacks, bf4 & bf9
2 news flashbacks, nf6 & nf8
1 then & now, tn10 - Sabathia & Ford
1 new age performer, nap15 - Evan Longoria

My box hit was one of the Flashback Relics

Bobby Richardson

I’ve got 2 more hobby boxes to bust, but I’m waiting to bust them with a collecting friend.  I’ll be doing it live on Ustream.tv March 14th @ 1pm CST.
Baseball Cards 101 Box Breaks