Refractory Goodness

I wanted to do a little comparison between the different amounts of refractors that I received out of the three 2010 Topps Chrome products that I opened. Since the "hits" were just about the only cards in my box that weren't damaged, I may as well get as much enjoyment out of them as possible. First up, the box.

It's tough to pass up Chrome for the price it is currently selling for. At $35 a box, you're paying just under $1.50 a pack. That also gives you two rookie autographs per box. Sure, the autographs have a tendency to smear, smudge or get wiped completely off of the card and most of the players are bums, but there are two of them in the box. While most of the time this will mean nothing, there are cards out there of Jason Heyward and Stephen Strasburg to be found.

I only pulled 5 base card refractors with one of those being a blue. Colored refractors are ridiculously tough to pull from this product which I think is another reason why people are having more fun opening blaster boxes. The purples look very cool and are a lot easier to find than the blues. My hobby box did also yield two insert card refractors which may have cut into my refractor total. You should get 8 refractors in each box according to the odds, but even with those two cards added to the total, I was shorted a refractor. Bastards!

Next up is the haul from the blaster box that I opened. Seven packs resulted in six refractors and one Heritage insert card. I was shorted one pack in my blaster. Bastards! There were three basic refractors, two x-fractors (both Yankees, what did I do to deserve that?) and one purple refractor. If the one missing pack had contained a refractor (although odds say that it shouldn't have) then I would have equaled the total number of refractors from my hobby box.

Last, but not least, is the "value" pack. I'm not exactly sure where the value is since you're paying $3 a pack. Yes, you're guaranteed the three orange refractors, but how much is that really worth? The odds say that you should get one other refractor in your three packs, but I got two. I added one more blue refractor to my collection as well as a second Nick Swisher X-fractor. I did alright on my orange refractors. They aren't favorite players or anything, but I did get "rookie" cards of Mike "Lost in the Strasburg hype" Leake and Brennan Boesch.

In a few months, once all is said and done and all of my missing cards are sent to me and all of my damaged cards are replaced, I'll really like 2010 Topps Chrome. That being said, my opinion of the company is severely dependent upon how they handle these requests. If the boxes remain this cheap or drop even lower, I'll probably purchase another box or two to chase the set. So, if anyone has any Chrome you don't want and would like to send them my way, I'm sure that I can find something here to make it worth your while.