Box Break - 2009-10 Panini Hall of Fame Basketball

I've been looking forward to busting a box of this product since I first heard about it.  Not only are there a bunch of great players in there due to the checklist only containing Hall of Fame members, but there are also a lot of players who have never previously had autographed cards in a product.  There are also beautiful looking nickname signature cards.  As a basketball fan, this is pretty irresistible now that it sells for about half of the MSRP.  If I had the cash, this is something that I'd definitely love to break a case of.

I lost my original box break, but here's a recap of what I got:

Box Break - 2007 Upper Deck SP Rookie Edition

This wasn't the first box that I opened, but I thought it was one that was relevant to current baseball playoff events.  I love busting cheap, older Upper Deck products, but you'll rarely see me buying anything from them when it's brand new.

Disastrous Box Break - 2010 Topps Chrome

I want to make these box breaks look nice, but this one doesn't deserve the effort.  Just in case you were curious as to just how bad these cards looked.  The rest of the box wasn't bad at all, but I just couldn't enjoy it.  I think that I'm going to scan the worst of the cards before I ship them off because the defects are really noticeable that way.  Here's the video.  (Sorry about the video being flipped, I'm still getting used to the new computer and software.)

Disastrous Box of 2010 Topps Chrome Baseball from Michael Travers on Vimeo.

Sponsored Blaster Box Break: TRISTAR 2010 TNA New Era

There’s been buzz about this release ever since it was first publicized.  Say what you will about the TNA product on television, but this release contains autographs from some of the biggest names in the history of wrestling.  Hulk Hogan was the driving force of the WWF for decades while Ric Flair was doing the same thing over in WCW.  Now they’re facing off in the same federation and TRISTAR is striking while the iron is hot.

Those two cards aren’t the only ones available in this release though.  The Jeff Hardy autographs in the set should prove to be popular as will RVD’s autographs.  There’s a large autograph checklist though and the majority of the 55 autographs don’t have the amount of name recognition that the average WWE wrestler does.  I know that I’d be tempted not to rip the card in half if I were to pull a Bubba the Love Sponge autograph.  He’s not a wrestler and doesn’t belong in this set no matter how good of a friend he is to Terry Bollea.

I doubt that there will ever be a market for wrestler “rookie cards",” but if there were, this would be RVD’s TNA RC.  TRISTAR did a great job with the quick turnaround of this set.  Hogan, Flair, RVD, Hardy and Mr. Anderson haven’t been in TNA all that long, but they got them into this set and did a good job of it.

The cards look very nice and the photography is great especially when you consider that a lot of these images were taken from the big TNA Monday night special and the show where Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair made their debut with TNA.  The time period between those shows and the release of this set wasn’t long at all.  You’ve got to give TRISTAR plenty of kudos for that.  They definitely struck while the iron was hot and it is paying off.  The cards have improved by leaps and bounds since the first TNA set.  I still don’t know of too many people who are a fan of the glitter, but it’s TRISTAR’s thing so I don’t mind them sticking with it.

Each blaster box contains 24 cards and that includes one autograph card.  So, you are basically paying $20 or whatever the blasters sell for at retail for just the one autograph card.  These are unnumbered retail versions of the autograph cards.  That seems pretty pricey for what you get in a box.

TRISTAR continues to deliver fun autographs on their cards.  The card of Mr. Anderson reads, “Mr. Anderson… Anderson!!” which is what the wrestler yells into an old school microphone lowered from the ceiling as part of his entrance.

On the downside of things, the stickers are once again on stickers.  I can understand it for this set since there was a quick turnaround time, but there’s no way that there should be sticker autographs on future sets.  All that TRISTAR has to do is send a representative or two down to Orlando on a Thursday night with cards to be signed and they’re all set.  It’s really inexcusable.  On-card autographs would really bring these sets to the next level.

Technorati Tags: TNA Wrestling,TRISTAR,box break,TNA The New Era

Box Break: 2006 Fleer Baseball

I wanted to open a low cost box with a lot of varied cards in it and decided on 2006 Fleer Baseball.  The normally cheap box was even less expensive due to a Blowout Cards special.  I remembered how much fun it was to open boxes of Fleer products in the 90s and hope to find more of the same from this box even though it was Upper Deck in Fleer clothing.

The base cards are a little bland.  My biggest beef is with all of the blank space down at the bottom of the card.  Did the bars for the player name and position really have to be that big?  Other than that, this is fine for a flagship set.

What I used to love about Fleer sets, especially Fleer Ultra, were the wide range of fun insert sets that you’d find.  There would be foil, die cuts, glitter, acetate, faux leather, wood, etc.  Unfortunately, this set doesn’t come close to living up to the Fleer legacy.  There are a variety of insert sets, but they’re all plain and none of them really stand out.  At the price I paid, I can’t complain, but I would have hated paying full price for this.  It’s yet another Upper Deck that’s not worth anything near the original retail price.

I’ll start things off with the Team Leaders cards.  You get two studio shots on each card; one of a pitcher and one of a hitter.  "Team Leaders is in gold foil and that’s about as fancy as these cards get.  This box contained 11 Team Leaders cards and while I didn’t pull the Red Sox, I did get the Mariners, Marlins, Mets, Rockies, Braves, Royals, White Sox, Blue Jays, A’s, Padres, and Phillies.  The majority of the cards from this box are up for trade so if you see anything you like, drop me a line.

Fleer has done some cool Lumber Company cards in the past, but this one doesn’t compare.  The design is a nice one and on its own it would be fine, but you can’t help but to compare it to Lumber Company cards of the past.  This box contained Miguel Cabrera, Manny Ramirez, Vlad Guerrero, A-Rod, Troy Glaus, Aramis Ramirez, Eric Chavez, Alfonso Soriano and Ken Griffey Jr.  I’m being unfair to this insert set because it does look nice.  I just wish that there was something in this box that was more than just gold foil.

Like the majority of the insert sets in this product, this one also returns from previous years.  Upper Deck did themselves a disservice by doing this because you can’t help but to think of better looking versions of these sets.

The Smoke ‘n Heat inserts have flames on the bottom and a red fire baseball in the background.  This set focuses on pitchers and I pulled the following: John Smoltz, King Felix, Carlos Zambrano, Pedro Martinez, Curt Schilling and Roy Oswalt.

This is the first insert set that I really dislike the look of.  The red background just doesn’t do it for me.

The good thing about a set such as this one with numerous insert sets is that they get to focus on lots of things you may not usually see insert cards devoted to.  This next set focuses on some of the best fielders in the league.

The Smooth Leather insert set is very basic with a foil stamp.  This box contained Greg Maddux, Mike Mussina, A-Rod, Ichiro and Scott Rolen.

One thing that you always found plenty of in Fleer sets were parallel cards.  Fleer Ultra always had gold medallion parallels and you’d find various other parallels in their others sets.  There is a parallel version of the base set, but you don’t get many of them in a box.  My box only contained three of the parallel cards which are gray on the left side and have a glossy front as opposed to the non-glossy base cards.

The three player on my parallel cards were J.T. Snow, Noah Lowry and Alfonso Soriano.  These parallels aren’t numbered and even though there are only three in a box, I don’t see there being much demand for these cards.

The next insert set is the only one that had any kind of flair to it.  Not Flair as in super thick, super glossy cards, but you will find a little bit of etched foil on these cards.  That’s saying a lot for this set.  Sorry to keep harping on the fact that Upper Deck phoned it in on these inserts, but that’s the feeling that you get opening one of these boxes.  It’s similar to opening a box of 2010 Topps and wishing there were only half as many insert sets.

The Stars of Tomorrow cards are pretty nice looking.  You’ve got team colors, etched foil and a nice design.  We’ve got a winner here.  Unfortunately, there are only three of these in a box.  I pulled Joe Mauer, Rickie Weeks and Jeff Francoeur.  2 out of 3 isn’t bad as far as predicting the stars of tomorrow goes.  Mauer is currently one of the superstars of today.  I’ve got to check and see if there are any Red Sox in this insert set because I think they’d look very good in this design.

We’ve got one more insert set and then the one hit that I pulled out of the box.  The final insert set celebrates the previous season’s award winners.

A-Rod was the AL Most Valuable Player and Huston Street was the AL Rookie of the Year.  Those were the only Award Winners in my box.  These cards are classy looking with gold foil along the borders of the picture and the two banners in front of the picture.

I always liked cards like this that commemorate events from the previous season.  I like having cards of all-stars, home run derby champions, award winners and record setters.  I’d like to see more of that in sets again.

The hit from the box was this Miguel Tejada plain white jersey swatch.  I’ve got to say that Upper Deck picked a really strange picture to use on this card.  Is Tejada doing the Hokey Pokey and putting his whole butt in?  Did someone just pull his finger?  If there were more of the picture, you could tell more easily that Tejada was looking towards first to see if he had successfully turned a double play.  Instead, it looks like Tejada is sitting on an invisible chair.

This was still a fun break and you get a ton of cards.  A little more variety in the inserts would have been nice though.  This was a great value, the condition of the cards was good, I can’t complain about the collation and the design of the cards was alright.  I would give the box a B-.

Technorati Tags: baseball cards,box breaks,2006 Fleer

Sponsored Box Break: 09-10 Panini Classics

I came home Monday night to find a nice surprise waiting for me.  Panini had sent over a box of Classics to break open and review on the site.  This came as a complete surprise and made my day.

Packs of Classic carry a suggested retail price of $6 and boxes are currently selling for $83 on Blowout Cards.  You get 18 packs per box and 5 cards per pack.

The design of the base card is simple.  The cards feature large, close up images of the player and look very nice.  I didn’t see a lot of variety in the types of pictures used while going through the cards that I pulled out of my box, but I only have 75 out of the 200 cards in the set.

This set is chock full of goodies for a Celtics fan such as myself.  Once you get past the fact that Rajon Rondo was left out of this set in favor of Kendrick Perkins and washed up Rasheed Wallace, you start to see some very cool cards available to pull.  One card in particular that I will be chasing is the Reggie Lewis Blast From the Past Jersey card.  As far as I know, this is the first jersey card ever produced of the late, great Reggie Lewis.  There’s a regular version numbered to 199 and a patch version numbered to 30.  The two patches listed on eBay so far have gone for $50 and $70 dollars.  It definitely looks like Panini filled a demand with this card.

The set consists of 200 cards.  Of those 200, the first 100 are regular base cards.  Cards 101-160 are Legends and those are numbered to 999.  Panini states that you get at least 3 Legends in a box and I beat the odds there and pulled 4 Legends out of my box.  I got Buck Williams, Oscar Robertson, Kareem and Willis Reed.

This is not a product for set collectors.  With 16 boxes in a case, you’re not going to get a complete set of Legends out of a case at 3 per box and that’s if you get perfect collation.

I will be looking for some singles of Celtic Legends such as Larry Bird, recent and long overdue Hall of Famer Dennis Johnson, Bill Russell, Kevin McHale and Bob Cousy.

Cards 161-200 are autographed rookies.  All of the big names are here including Blake Griffin, Tyreke Evans, Stephen Curry and Brandon Jennings.  Some of the cards are numbered to 999 while this Jeff Teague is numbered to 553.  A couple of the rookie autographs are numbered to only 99 copies making a complete set that much tougher to complete.

The best part about the rookie autograph cards in this set is that from what I’ve seen, they’re all on-card.  That has been a rarity in basketball for anything that costs less than $50 per card.  I think the only stickers to be found are on the jersey cards, but some of the superstars could possibly be sticker autographs, I’m not 100% sure.

There are some numbered parallels.  Every card in the set can be found in various numbered parallels.  This David Lee is a Dress Code Platinum numbered 5/25.  I also pulled an Andre Iguodala Gold which is numbered to 100.

These cards are usually more of a crap shoot than anything else pulled out of boxes.  If you pull a numbered card of a minor star it’s no big deal, but if you pull a low numbered card of a big star then it may be your lucky day.  Pulling a serial number that matches the player’s jersey number can be rewarding as well.  So, it’s nice to have that chance to get a little something out of the box besides the advertised hits.

These Dress Code cards are one of the few negative things about this set.  These cards only exist so that there can be jersey parallels.  The jersey cards look nice, but these cards don’t.  To top it off, the set checklist isn’t that impressive.  There are some players in this set that leave you scratching your head.

If these cards only existed as jersey cards then they’d be perfect.  I don’t see the need to have the base versions as well.  Since I’m a set collector by nature, I’d much rather have more base cards than an insert set where you get 3 of 25 cards.  My box contained Sam Perkins, Shawn Marion and Samuel Dalembert.

I’m not sure why it bothers me so much, but I really don’t like that these insert cards are designed with the jersey variations in mind.  It’s not quite as glaring on these Classic Combos cards and the player selection is much better, but those basketballs with the player’s jersey number on it are almost as big as the player pictures.

My box contained Kobe/Odom and LeBron/Shaq.  What I would have liked to pull would have been the Garnett/Pierce and Russell/Sharman cards.

Again, the jersey versions of these cards look good, but these “template” cards don’t look quite as good in my opinion.

These Classic Confrontation cards are two sided and feature players who have faced off frequently during their careers.  This card features Kevin Garnett who plays forward and Shaquille O’Neal who plays center.  There aren’t any stats on the card at all so you’re not really sure what confrontation they’re talking about.  Maybe it’s just weirdness on this card, let me check the other card that I got in my box.  That one features point guard Chris Paul and shooting guard Dwayne Wade.  Looking at the rest of the checklist, most of the rest of the checklist seems to make sense.  I just seem to have pulled two of the abnormalities.  There are some nice matchups such as Bird/Magic, Worthy/Parish and Kidd/Nash.

The final insert set is another one with a jersey window integrated into the design.  The jersey cards do look nice, but the regular cards look a little strange with the team logo floating in the middle of nowhere.  It results in the bottom part of the card looking crowded with the player smooshed over to the side to make room for the logo/jersey window.

My box contained three Classic Greats.  I was happy to pull Celtic Great John Havlicek, but also saw Lakers James Worthy and “Mr. NBA Logo” Jerry West come out of the box.  I think that I pulled all of these Lakers because the box destined for Boston ended up going to The Basketball Card Blog.  Now I have to hope for a Boston sweep and the Cousy card from that box will make its way to Boston.

So far, you’ve only seen one of the hits from this box.  Each box guarantees four hits, but you don’t know what kinds of hits that you’ll get with the exception that at least one hit will be an autograph.  I was very lucky with the contents of my box since it contained three autographs.  Since these are all on-card autographs that ends up being a great value.

This redemption card is for a Jodie Meeks autograph and is numbered to 249.  I love Panini’s card replacement process and wanted to see what their redemption process is like.  I really like that you can pick the time frame that you are willing to wait before you are offered a replacement.  I selected the 4 month time frame for this card to see what happens.

The final autograph in my box was of Jermaine Taylor and is numbered to 999.  I don’t think that I got a rookie autograph in my box of a player that averaged more than 5 points per game last season which is unfortunate.

Before I go on to the final hit from my box, check out the first post on this thread paying particular attention to the hits that were in the box.  That box contained two autographs that were also in my box as well as a patch card of a player named Gerald.  I had already stated that my box contained three autographs and you’ve seen all three of them so the final card in my box must be a patch card of a player named Gerald.

The big hit from my box was this Gerald Henderson prime patch card numbered to 25.  Unfortunately, this brings up another frustration for me.  Panini does a good job of designing the jersey cards on their insert sets, but make the mistake of also using those designs for jersey-less cards that don’t look as good.  Now you’ve got a nice looking base card with a jersey swatch slapped over the stomach of the player.

If this patch were placed inside of one of the insert cards it would have resulted in a beautiful card.  This is a beautiful patch in an alright looking card.  It just confuses me a little bit.  There’s a lot of good in this Panini release, but there’s a good amount of bad as well.

It may seem like I’m being harsh from reading the review of this set, but I think that is mostly due to the fact that this set contains a lot of one of my biggest pet peeves.  If Panini designed jersey cards and then only used those designs for the jersey cards, this set would improve by leaps and bounds.  They should also confine the jersey swatches to those cards designed to hold them.

The main selling point to this set is going to be the on-card autographs, but since you are only guaranteed one autograph per box, I don’t know if that’s going to be enough to push sales of this set.  I would have liked for these to be at least two guaranteed autographs.  I know that I would be disappointed if I purchase a box that contained one autograph and three relic cards.  My box contained three rookie autograph and that’s a box that I would have been very happy with if I had purchased it.  Yes, they aren’t great rookies at the moment, but sometimes you have to give them time.  People would have scoffed at Rodrigue Beaubois autographs at the beginning of the season, but by the end of the season he was one of the top rookies in the league.  So, someone such as Meeks who had a good college career and is on a team with some other good young players might hit his stride in his second or third season.  Due to the wide range of what you can get in a box, it’s tough to give this an overall value rating, but for my box specifically I would give it an A.  It’s tough to beat three on-card autographs and a low numbered rookie patch.

The collation was fine.  I didn’t get any duplicates.  Panini boxes have this weird trend of inserts coming in numbered order.  It’s very evident in the flagship set where you get a ton of inserts, but you notice it in this set as well.  I pulled Classic Confrontations 7 and 8, Classic Combos 1 and 2, Dress Code 8, 9 and 10 and Classic Greats 13, 14 and 15.  Combine that with the other box break that I liked to which was extremely similar to this one and it makes you wonder.  I have to think that it wouldn’t hurt for Panini to possibly look into changing how they load up their boxes.  Then again, I got all of my promised hits which is a lot more than I can say for the Topps and Upper Deck boxes that I’ve opened over the past couple of years.  I’d give the collation a B+ with just a few points off for the quirkiness of the collation across the whole run of the product.

The condition of the cards out of the packs were good with the exception of one of the autographed cards.  The Jermaine Taylor had a lot of white showing along the black edge on the bottom of the card.  If it were a better card, I would send it back especially since Panini’s card replacement process is so great, but for this card I think I’ll just hold on to this copy.  This box gets an A for condition.

Finally we come to design.  I’ve discussed the card designs thoroughly in the box review so I’ll just give the grade here.  I’ll go with the middle of the road C.  There’s a lot of promise, but after a great looking set such as Studio, this was a bit of a letdown.

Overall, I would give this box a B+.  I would place this product at the top of the heap as far as Panini’s releases go this year.  The best looking set is Studio, but this is the set that people are going to go after if they want the best rookie autographs of this year’s players.

Technorati Tags: Panini,box breaks,Panini Classics,basketball cards

Box Break: 2010 Rittenhouse Lost Seasons 1 Thru 5

Rittenhouse is the second company to have the Lost license with the first being Inkworks.  I wasn’t a big fan of the Inkworks products as the boxes seemed too expensive to me for what you got.  Rittenhouse took over the license and they seem to have gotten things right.  For just about the same price per box, you get three autographs instead of just one and there aren’t any redemption cards.

Rittenhouse as a company puzzles the heck out of me.  They don’t take advantage of new media at all.  They barely have a website.  You won’t find Rittenhouse Archives or Scifihobby.com on Twitter or Facebook.  You won’t find any sponsored breaks to check out before you buy.  The company does have a rewards program, but the amount of points needed to get any of the rewards are ridiculous.  You have to buy 6 boxes and some loose packs just to qualify for one rewards.  They may as well not even have the program since it’ll really only benefit dealers and case breakers.  Just put that money towards some nice box toppers and you’re all set.  That’ll save the postage on mailing in the wrappers and reward normal collectors.

Rittenhouse makes some high quality cards.  They aren’t glossy, but once you’ve held them in your hands and looked at them, you won’t mind at all.  The pictures look great on the sturdy, bright white card stock.  The fact that there’s no gloss makes them perfect for autographs.  I wish that I had the Hurley card pictured above when I sent my autograph request to Jorge Garcia because I would love to have this card signed and in my collection.

The set consists of 108 cards (kudos Rittenhouse for that little detail) with one card for every episode of the first 5 seasons.  Header cards for each season that double as checklists fill out the rest of the set.  This set makes me wish that Rittenhouse had this license from the beginning and had done 108-card sets of each season as they aired.  Those sets would have been beautiful.

There are insert card for another ABC show to be found in packs.  While I am watching FlashForward, I wouldn’t be extremely upset if it were to be cancelled.  It has taken what could be a very interesting concept and gone almost nowhere with it.  It started off well, but the hiatus killed it and it hasn’t regained the momentum since coming back.  I would have much rather seen promo cards for another show that J.J. Abrams helped create and that’s Fringe.  That’s quickly become one of my favorite shows and I look forward to seeing what ridiculousness Walter Bishop is going to do and see each week.

There are some fun inserts to be found in these packs.  There’s a six card set of the Oceanic Six printed on acetate with clear sections.  It looks like there’s a picture of the character off of the island in color with a picture of them on the island ghosted in the background.

The other two cards pictured here are lenticular cards.  They really don’t scan well, but they look good in person.

The middle card pictured here is of the Smoke Monster.  This season, the Smoke Monster aka The Man in Black is spending most of his time in the form of John Locke.  Popular theory says that in the past the Smoke Monster took on various forms such as Christian Sheppard, Dave and possibly even a black horse.  Hopefully they’ll explain why it could do that then, but is unable to now.

The bottom card shows Hurley’s Mr. Cluck’s Chicken Shack restaurant as it is struck by a meteor and destroyed.  The explosion killed reporter Tricia Tanaka who was covering the grand opening.  This was just another example of the terrible luck that followed Hurley around off of the island after winning the lottery with the cursed numbers muttered repeatedly by another patient in the mental hospital Hurley spent time in.

Rittenhouse jumps aboard the painted card bandwagon with their own insert set.  These cards would definitely appeal to fans of Topps Gallery, Turkey Red or Upper Deck Masterpieces.

You won’t find any gloss on these cards either and these would be beautiful cards to get signed.  This is a set that I could definitely see myself tracking down if some of them show up online at a decent price.

The theme for my box seemed to be deceased characters as three of the four characters are no longer on the show.  Shannon was shot by Ana Lucia.  Boone died after being crushed by a plane while tagging along with Locke.  Juliet died due to injuries suffered while detonating a hydrogen bomb back in the 70s.

Enough about these cards though.  The main reason that people buy these boxes is for the autographs.  Who did I pull?  Let’s find out…

My first autograph card is of Patrick Fischler as Phil.  Phil was a member of the Dharma Initiative back in the 70s.  I can’t say that I was too impressed with this autograph, but these autograph cards are great.

All of the autographs are on-card and there’s a nice, big, white area for the actors and actresses to sign in.  The front of the cards are not glossy, but the backs of the cards are.  I like this decision because it prevents things like eBay idiots adding a “1/1” notation to a card and then trying to find a sucker to buy it.

Before I go any further, I have to warn you not to buy these Lost cards by the pack.  These packs are extremely searchable.  In my box, packs without an insert contained 6 cards and packs with an insert only contained 5.  You might not be able to tell the difference by holding them or looking at them, but anyone with a caliper could easily tell the difference.

My next autograph was of Andrea Roth as Harper Stanhope in “The Other Woman.”  They had to include the episode title for this autograph card because otherwise no one would have any clue who this character was.  She appeared in one episode as Juliet’s therapist

It’s nice to see that crappy autographs aren’t confined to athletes.  Actors and actresses can have terrible autographs as well.  Seriously, what the heck is that supposed to be?  Was she drawing a picture?  Getting an autograph of a minor character is even more disappointing when the autograph looks like this.

So, I had pulled two out of my three autographs and wasn’t feeling all that great about the box.  The autograph cards are easy to pick out when you open a pick due to the borderless design.  So, when I saw the next borderless card I slid the card above it aside slowly.  I saw a cursive T and then a printed T and then a familiar bald head.

Terry O’Quinn autograph!  My second favorite character on the show behind Hurley.  This card totally saved the box in my opinion as I think this is the best autograph there is to pull out of the box.

This set has a great design and the insert sets give you a little bit of variety as you open the packs.  I got a complete set out of my box which should always be the case with a non-sports box.

You can’t beat the value since you get a handful of inserts, a complete set and three autographs per box.  Even if you get three of the lesser autographs the box is worth it.  If you pull one of the bigger stars, they go for close to the cost of a box.  This Terry O’Quinn has sold on eBay from anywhere between $35 and $50, but this one won’t be making it’s way to eBay as it will find a permanent spot in my collection.

I would give this set an A- just because the autograph checklist is a little weak and you could very possibly get three clunkers who have each only been in one episode of the show.  The set itself is beautiful and the inserts add a lot of fun.  I have no choice but to give my box an A+ for a grade.  The only way that it could have been better was if I had pulled O’Quinn, Michael Emerson and Nestor Carbonell in the same box.

Technorati Tags: Lost,Rittenhouse Archives,Terry O'Quinn

Sponsored Box Break: 2009 TRISTAR Prospects+

This box break is brought to you by the fine folks at TRISTAR.  I apologize for not getting this box break posted earlier, but it was the perfect storm of construction and illness that kept me from pulling this together.  Now that everything is done except for the painting, I can get back into the swing of things.

Enough about me, lets get to the cards.  My first impression of these cards when I opened the first pack was that they were really nice.  TRISTAR used a really nice, thick card stock with a nice gloss on them.  The only other TRISTAR baseball product that I had opened prior to this was Obak and there was a huge difference between the two sets.  The Obak cards felt like old minor league cards and these cards feel like modern cards.

You don’t notice right away that these cards are unlicensed.  TRISTAR did a great job of selecting nice photos that show the player and when necessary, the airbrushing is well done.  The only card that feels a little strange is the sketch of Stephen Strasburg, but I’d rather a sketch card of a player in the set than no card at all.

The set consists of many of the top 2009 draft picks, a couple of minor league free agent signings and some veterans on the multiplayer cards.  The base cards are nicely designed with a nice large area for the picture with foil on the top and bottom.  The cards look really nice in person.  Unfortunately, my scanner seems to highlight my fingerprints on the foil more than anything else, but that’s not the case when you are holding the cards in your hand.

Each box of Prospects+ guarantees 11 hits.  I got the 11 hits that were promised, but my breakdown was a little different than what is listed on the sell sheet, but I’m not complaining because in my opinion it was an error in my favor.

Serial numbered cards are a staple of TRISTAR releases.  The sell sheet states that each box will contain 2 parallel cards, but my box only contained one; this gold parallel of Tony Sanchez numbered 15/50.

Sanchez played his college ball right here in Massachusetts for Boston College.  The Eagle was drafted 4th by the Pittsburgh Pirates after setting the B.C. single season record for runs scored with 63.  If Ryan Doumit can’t recapture 2008’s glory, his time behind the plate might be running out.  Pittsburgh usually has a good number of their draft picks pan out, it’s just a shame that the don’t end up playing in Pittsburgh for long.  They’ve traded away an All-Star team over the past 5 or so years.

This Matthew Hobgood card is one of the short print portrait cards.  The sell sheet states that there should also be two of these per box, but this one was the only one that I received.  There are also short printed color variations.  The above Tony Sanchez is actually a numbered version of the color variation as the regular version of the card has a yellow background.

Although variations get under the skin of some collectors, I don’t see any problem with them.  If it is a card that you like then you keep it and if not then you sell it.  As long as it isn’t a card that was supposedly pulled that “accidentally” made its way into packs, I have no problems with variations.

I love the Obak set.  I love that there are Obak update cards as inserts in this set and I will definitely be tracking these down.  My box contained the #2 draft pick Dustin Ackley who was overshadowed by the immense hype surrounding Stephen Strasberg.  I don’t think Seattle minded too much being able to select him with the second pick in the draft.

It’s tough to go wrong with the Obak update cards since there are only 5 of them so you’re either going to get Strasburg, Ackley, Donovan Tate, Sanchez or Hobgood.  There are back variations just like in the rest of the Obak set and these cards will complete that set beautifully.


The reason why I didn’t mind getting only one each of the short print and parallel cards is that I ended up with 4 of the Crystal Ballers insert cards.  I like these cards a lot.  They’ve got a really nice design and the backs are interesting.  Each card back has three statements about the player with the first starting with the letter P, the second with the letter R and the last one with the letter O.  My box contained Matthew Hobgood, Michael Leake, Jared Mitchell and Slade Heathcott.

The final four hits in each box are serial numbered autographs.  Prospects+ contains autographs of all of the top 40 signed 2009 draft picks including Strasburg so you’ve got a shot at some great cards.  The highest serial number you’ll find on the autograph cards is 199 which is very good.  In many other sets you’d have to find a rarer parallel for it to be numbered that low, but not in Prospects+.  In this set, it’s either that or better.

This card here is a fun autograph to pull out of the box.  Alibay Barkley was the 1521st overall pick in the 2009 draft.  For those of you counting at home, that was the final pick in the draft.  Yes, Barkley is 2009’s Mr. Irrelevant.  That’s a fun card.

Jeffrey Kobernus was the 50th pick overall by the Washington Nationals.  In 2009 at the University of Washington, Kobernus batted .341 with 14 2B, 3 3B,  8 HR, 40 RBI and had a .544 slugging percentage.  If he can continue that success in the minors, it shouldn’t be too long because he’s playing for the Nationals.

Next up is an autographed card of Randal Grichuk.  Grichuk was the 24th pick in the draft and will be joining the Los Angeles California Angels of Anaheim organization.

Grichuk was drafted out of high school were he batted .613 with 21 HR, 23 walks and 46 RBI in 28 games.  He continued to hit well in the Arizona League as a .322 clip with 53 RBI in 53 games.






My one parallel autograph was also the one of the highest draft pick in my box.  This is a green parallel numbered to 25 copies.  Allen Pollock was drafted 17th overall by the Diamondbacks.  A Notre Dame alum, Pollock hit .365 with a .443 on-base percentage during the 2009 season.  Pollock is said to have above-average speed and has played in the middle infield as well as the outfield.  That versatility could help him reach the majors more quickly.






Final Thoughts:
Design: I like the design a lot.  The fronts of the cards are a little busy, but it doesn’t intrude on the picture at all.  4/5
Collation: My box contained 12 duplicates and while it did have 11 hits, it didn’t contain the right assortment of 11 hits according to the sell sheet.  3/5
Condition: There were some cards with slightly dinged corners and you might be able to see a white spot along the bottom of the Sanchez card, but overall the cards were in good condition. 4/5
Value: These boxes look to be selling for around $60.  When you are getting 4 autographs numbered to 199 or less of potential future superstars, that’s a great deal.  When you also get some nice base cards and the other inserts, in my opinion you’re getting a great deal.  5/5

Total Score: 16/20

Technorati Tags: TRISTAR,Prospects Plus,Stephen Strasburg

Box Break: 2010 Topps Baseball Series 1 Jumbos

I had some overtime on my paycheck, so it was time to order a box of 2010 Topps jumbos.  I love the jumbos and won’t touch the regular hobby boxes as long as these things exist.  I’ve had more luck with the basketball jumbos than I have the baseball jumbos, but my 2009 series 2 jumbo box was pretty loaded.

What’s not to love about jumbo packs?  You get one of each insert in every pack as well as a gold card and a Million Card Giveaway card.  Each box has one Mother real back, black parallel, autograph, relic and hat logo card.  For what some of the hat logo cards are selling for on eBay right now, you can get a jumbo box, sell the hat logo and end up with a lot more cards for a little more than the price of a hobby box.

2010 Topps has a great design.  Yes, the logos are large, but Topps did a great job of making sure that they don’t get in the way of the pictures.  Oh, the pictures.  The pictures in this set are beautiful.  Each time I go through the cards, I find something new that catches my eye (but unfortunately, none of the eye catching things have been a super short printed Abe Lincoln card).

I hate to dwell on the comparisons between Topps and Upper Deck’s flagship sets, but you have to do it.  While Upper Deck’s stadium cards are some of the drabbest, most boring cards that I have ever seen, Topps has some beautiful stadium pictures on their Franchise History cards.  Take this Red Sox card for example, this picture sums things perfectly.  You’ve got the historic Green Monster covered in banners celebrating the 2004 and 2007 World Series victories.  Yes, there are other World Series victories including the first ever, but none of those are as important as the first one after 86 years was.

Then there are cards such as this one.  How old is Randy Johnson these days and he’s still making plays such as this?  Great action shot with the ump in the background looking on to make the call at first base.

I don’t think that the backs of these cards have gotten enough attention at all.  The front and backs have similar designs which is nice.  The gradients look great.  Best of all, full career statistics.  Topps definitely didn’t phone it in on their first set with the exclusive MLB license.

It’s not all great though.  There are a few too many insert sets.  The ToppsTown cards aren’t all that great looking, but if kids like them then I’m fine with them being included.

I pulled silver cards of Lincecum, Mauer, Adrian Gonzalez, Longoria and Miguel Cabrera.  I pulled gold cards of Halladay, Tejada, Vlad, Manny and Ichiro.  I redeemed the codes, but I don’t think that I’ll be putting the set together.

I’m not a fan of the When They Were Young cards at all.  What’s worse is that Topps went and recycled pictures from previous cards.  What am I talking about?  I’ll tell you who I pulled from this set first and then I’ll show a card that most people probably haven’t seen before.  I pulled Little Papi, Little Damon, Little Berken, Little Beckham and Little Wright.  Luckily, these are the cards that are replaced when you get one of the one per box hits so you only end up with 5 of these ridiculous things.

There’s a company out there called Team Baby that makes DVDs for little ones to get them rooting for the team that their parents love.  Back in 2008, Team Baby struck a deal with Topps to include special cards in the DVDs of a player as a child.  The Red Sox DVDs contained David Ortiz, Mets DVDs had David Wright, Yankees DVDs had Johnny Damon and Dodgers DVDs had Russell Martin.  I haven’t seen the other cards from the DVDs, but I’m guessing that they have the same pictures that are in the When They Were Young insert set.

My daughter was given the Red Sox Team Baby DVD, but it came with a 10 card set of cards based on the 2008 design.  The cards were navy blue instead of white and the team name was in the Red Sox font.  They’re nice looking cards and show that the 2008 design was close to being a really nice one.

I’m not a huge fan of the History of the Game cards either.  This is something that I’d buy as a complete set, but not something that I’d chase to complete.  I do like the fact that I got a card of the first World Series with a picture of the old Huntington Avenue Baseball Grounds.  These days you’ll find Northeastern University on those grounds, but there is a nice statue of Cy Young where the mound used to be.  I pulled cards 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 14, 23 and 24.

These cards are sort of blah and the relic versions aren’t all that better.  Players have holes cut in their legs and crotches for the insertion of the relics.  It works better on some cards than others.  My Peak Performers were Lincecum, Braun, Cy Young, Steve Carlton, Morneau, Stargell, Miguel Cabrera, Chipper, Pujols and Pedroia.  I won’t be chasing this set either.  There just isn’t anything appealing about this set to make me chase it.

Now this set is more fun and has more character to it.  These Tales of the Game capture some of the great things that make this sport so fun.  Everyone has seen Carlton Fisk’s game winning home run, but I wish that they had put the actual tale behind this shot on the card.  I’ve written about it before, but there’s a great story about why the camera was on Fisk and not the ball.  Give it a Google and I’m sure you’ll be amused.  I also pulled Pesky’s Pole which is nice.  The Sox later named the left field pole Fisk’s Pole in honor of his 1975 home run.  I also pulled a card of the David Ortiz jersey that was buried under the new Yankee Stadium and one for the Curse of the Bambino that I might have to burn.  I also got cards of Mantle, Jackie Robinson, Josh Hamilton, Ozzie Smith, Prince Fielder and 1952 Topps cards going for a swim.

The Lineage set, like the Peak Performances set, is good for player collectors, but that’s about it.  I’m not quite sure what Yaz and Youk have in common other than last names starting with Y.  Some players are grouped by team, some by position and others by a statistic they excel in.  The set is just all over the place.  I pulled 1, 2, 10, 11, 12, 17, 20, 22, 29 and 30.  I’ll most likely be sending these off in trades except for the Y Sox.

I thought that I would like these cards, but I’m not sure if I’m going to collect them.  I’m still working on the Trading Card History set from 2008 and I like that set more.  The reprints of the vintage cards just don’t look right and it bothers me.  Even the 87 Topps doesn’t look right.  It’s far too light.  My reprints were Aparicio, Mantle, Musial, Robinson, Palmer, Munson, Schmidt, Ozzie, Bo and Ichiro.  My real back card was Ryne Sandberg.

I’m still enjoying the Turkey Reds.  I think it would be nice if Topps could rotate sets though.  Next year bring back Topps Gallery and then the year after that do Cracker Jack.  My Turkey Red cards were of Howard, Tejada, Braun, Mantle, Victor Martinez, Greinke, Holliday, Kinsler, Sandberg and Josh Hamilton.  I still haven’t finished the 2009 Turkey Red set, but I’ll be starting this one as well.

You get 10 gold cards per jumbo box and these are now numbered to 2010.  My gold cards were Tommy Hanson, AL Home Run Leaders (Pena, Teixeira & Bay), Yankees Anthem in the Bronx (A-Rod, Jeter & Cano), Yankees Franchise History, Will Venable, Texas Rangers, Philadelphia Phillies, Nick Johnson, Asdrubal Cabrera and Mike Gonzalez.  All of these are up for trade as are all of the gold cards that I’ve accumulated over the years.  I want to clear all of these things out to player and team collectors.  So, drop me a line if you’re interested.

My black bordered card was Roy Halladay numbered to 59.  I scanned it, but don’t feel like posting the picture of it.

My relic hit was a Melky Cabrera gray jersey swatch.  Just my luck to pull a Yankees card.  I was hoping to pull something Pedroia related, but my luck wasn’t with me.  I’m so over plain jersey swatches so most of these go right into the trade pile and this is no exception.

Here you can see how Topps just took the regular Peak Performance card and stuck a jersey swatch into it with no regard for the picture behind it.  Most of the pictures seem to be set up with that in mind, but it still doesn’t look all that great.  Does it look any better on the autograph card?  Let’s go find out.

Nope, it doesn’t look any better on the autograph cards.  In fact, since the sticker is larger these cards look even worse.

Aesthetics aside, I’ve wanted a Hanley Ramirez autograph for a while now.  I’ll hold on to this for now, but I’ll definitely have to upgrade to an on-card autograph at some point since this auto goes off of the sticker in 5 or 6 places it seems.  Ugh.  I understand why autograph stickers are used, but I’d rather have fewer autograph cards available and have them all be signed on-card.  Similarly, I’d rather have fewer jersey cards and have them all be something special.  If it’s going to be one color it should be almost the full size of the card and it should be autographed.

Another Yankee?  It figures.  The insert set that prominently features team logos gives me the middle finger.  Ruth seems to be one of the most popular players in this insert set even though he has two or three different cards.

I definitely need to pick up one of the Red Sox cards in this set.  I’ve checked out a few on eBay and those are just beautiful cards.

The only other thing is the Million Card Giveaway cards.  I got a set of 1 – 10 in my box and will attempt to redeem my codes tomorrow evening when I get home from work.  I’m hoping for something from the 70s or later even if they’re commons.  I’m also curious to see what kind of condition these cards are in.

So, that’s everything.  Even though I’m not a huge fan of a few of the insert sets, I still like this year’s set a lot.  I got a full set out of the box which is a big deal for me.  It’s worth buying the jumbos to not have to chase the set.  I’ve got plenty of trade fodder and can hopefully transform it into something nice to add to my collection.

On the strength of the great design, photos and variety of inserts this set gets an A- from me.  As usual, the jumbo boxes get an A+ in value.  MY box in particular would rate a B.  I got some nice Red Sox inserts, but two of my three big “hits” were Yankees cards.  The Ruth card is still a great pull regardless of the team.

Best of all, I think that I’m finally up to date on new boxes of sports cards that I wanted to buy.  Now I can bounce around a little bit.  I’ve been wanting to check out stuff like the late 90s Score Red Sox boxes and older Finest baseball and basketball boxes than can be picked up cheaply.  I do have one more box break waiting to be posted though and hopefully I can get that up tomorrow… er, later on today.