Baseball Cards 101

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:

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….. (more…)

My last box of 2008 Topps Chrome.  This one killed my needed base in half, but I’m still short 30 cards to finish the base set. Next product I plan on breaking live will be 2008 Topps Allen & Ginter.
Still no extra auto to make up for my short box, I’ll just have to give Topps Customer Service a try. The rest of the box produced -

66 base cards
9 Refractors - Kevin Youkilis(30), Hunter Pence(65), Brian Roberts(89), Grady Sizemore(94), Johnny Damon(106), Geovany Soto(129), Aaron R0wand(169), Joey Votto(196), Blake DeWitt(211)
2 Copper Refractors - Felix Hernandez(23), Rico Washington(204)
4 Heritage Chrome - Hideki Okajima(C102), Adian Beltre(C121), Dan Uggla(C125), Joey Votto(C165)
1 Heritage Refractor - Joey Votto(C165)
6 Trading Card History - #27-#32
2 All-Rookie Tream - Mauer, Fielder
2 Mantle Story - #49
2 Mantle HRH - 450, 460
1 Mantle Story refractor - #49

and 2 autos:

Base - J.R. Towles

Base - Jayson Nix (2nd one)

and once again Ustream is having issues, I’ll get the break video posted soon.