Being a Brewers Fan is hard

I'll be honest I really thought this year might be the year.  The Brewers were in first place of the NL Central for most of the year.  Of course the part of the season that counts is when they melted down, but I'm use to that.  While it was hard watching my team implode there are still things I love about being a Brewers fan.   The main one is picking up awesome cards for pennies.  

Point in case are these two great Jimmy Nelson rookie cards out of Panini's Immaculate Collection.  I picked up both of these cards for under $2 each.  That total doesn't include the shipping, but even then these cards were still steals.  

Jimmy really didn't have that great of a year after he got his first win when he got called up.  He ended up going 2-9 in 12 games and finished with a 4.93 ERA.  But he's the only rookie Topps or Panini bothered to feature in most of their products this year.  That's one of the bad things about being a Brewers fan we really get no love in the card market.  

But this Rookie Inscriptions card is so cool in hand.  I'm sure glad I didn't pay $200 for a box of this, when I can pick up cards for about $2 a piece on ebay.

I also picked up this Immaculate Swatches card.  

And I also picked up a Rookie Auto from Topps Chrome

Lets hope Jimmy has a better year next year.

2 Blasters of WWE Heritage Break

I tried yesterday to find a hobby box of WWE Heritage, but to no avail.  I still have to stop down at my other great LCS, Don's Sportcards, but I hit up Bosco's first thinking if anyone would carry a box or two of WWE Heritage Hobby it would be Bosco's, nope.  So I ended up stopping at Wally World and they had blasters and rack packs.  I opted for the 2 blasters mainly because you get a relic per box  and for the same price You would get the same amount of cards but aren't guaranteed anything in the rack packs, although you probably get one of every insert in a rack pack.  Not that I won't pick up a rack pack or a hobby box now if I can find one.  Anyway...I don't really follow professional wrestling much anymore. As a matter of fact I only recognized a handful of names of the current stars.  But back in the 80's growing up I was a huge WWF fan.  I would watch the shows even thought the stars fought nobodies and I would make sure that I had my Saturdays cleared when the Saturday Night Main Event would come on on NBC instead of Saturday Night Live.  So half of this set is for me.  Plus it's on old school cardboard.  No gum though. And of course this isn't the first Heritage WWE set that Topps has put out either, but I don't ever remember seeing the mid 2000's releases and those sets were based on classic Topps baseball designs not Topps classic wrestling cards.

Here's a box label for anyone who's not going to put there set in a binder.

First lets look at the base design.  It's based on the original 1985 release, there was also a 1987 WWF set, which is the one I remember collecting, so we might see a second WWE Heritage set next year if this one is a big hit.  There are 110 cards in the set. The first 55 are current stars and the last 55 are classic stars.

Here's the Rock in the current stars pile.

Really Fast 5? I think I could have picked a few other movies that were bigger blockbusters than that.

And here we have the Andre the Giant from the classic pile.  You'll notice that they couldn't use the original WWF logo since the WWF was sued by the World Wildlife Fund and they won so the WWF became the WWE.  Not really the same. I always thought the WWF had such a cool logo. And it just rolled off the tongue.

Grenoble, France huh?  Damn that would make a good trivia question.

This set has some parallels and lots of inserts, with relics and autographs.

I did get one parallel.  I'm not sure if it's retail exclusive but odds on the side of the box say they are 1:90, so a harder pull from retail.

I got a silver border Koko B. Ware card.  I remember that guy!

The backs are the same. There are also suppose to be gold and black numbered parallel cards and printing plates you can hit.


The first insert set is the Family History set.  I only got two of these so about one per blaster. I think the odds are actually like 1:6 like most of the inserts.

There is also a cool Fables Tag Teams insert.  Although looking through the checklist there are also some great Tag Teams missing.

Next up is the Ringside Action inserts set.  The largest of the insert sets at 55 total cards you get one per pack.  Here are four of my favorites.

Next up you have the Superstars speak.  I ended up with 4 of these and there are 20 cards in the set.

Next up we have Jerry "the King:" Lawler Portraits. I only pulled one of these.  There pretty neat, but not original.  There are original sketch cards in the product though.

Next up one of the inserts I will be collecting the Andre the Giant Tribute cards.  I only got 2.

And there are also stickers in the set. Another one of the inserts I will be trying to put together.

There are 18 stickers in the set and if that seems odd it's because the back of the  first 9 and the last 9  form puzzles.

The Red Bordered puzzle is Sgt Slaughter.

I'm not sure who makes up the yellow border puzzel just yet.

But my favorite insert set and the whole reason I wanted to pick some of this up is the Allen and Ginter mini inserts. Totally out of place in this set, but that's what I love about them. Plus they are just so cool.  I only ended up getting 2 from my two blasters and oddly enough they came from the same blaster.  At 1:6 odds you would expect to get at least one per blaster and I'm happy that I got my two. It's a big set with 30 cards and will probably be one I'm working on for a while.

I was also lucky enough to get one of each type of relic possible out of my two blasters.

I have no idea who Dolph Ziggler is, but I like the retro 80's card design and the big WrestleMania logo.  Really 27?  Man I can remember the original WrestleMania and Battle Royale.

I like how Topps tells me that I now OWN something.   Damn right I do.  At least for awhile.

And I also got a Randy Orton T-Shirt relic.  Also someone I know nothing about.  And I could have done a quick Wikipedia search and found something out for you, but I didn't.

Overall I really like this product.  I wish it were a bit cheaper more like the 80's releases when you could get it for a quarter a pack, but we ain't in the 80's no more. There are quite few classic stars missing, but I'm sure that's all contractual BS or something.  I love a few of the inserts. I love the classic card stock and mix of current and classic stars, even though I'm a classic guy.  And I really like the A&G inserts.  Out of two blasters I didn't have a single double card and almost put a full set together, I'm only missing 12!  You can see what I need to complete my set and insert sets on my Help me Complete a Set page.  It's right on top.  I promised Colbey I'd help out with his insert needs so he has first dibs.  The relics are up for trade for a few days and then I'm going to be putting them up on ebay to help the cause.  The Stickers, A&G and Andre Tribute cards I'm keeping.

Topps Gypsy Queen Retail, Hobby or None?

(I know, I know another Gypsy Queen post.)

I was looking forward to this product mainly because I got in on A Cardboard Problems group break.  I didn't do to bad.  I got 2 Prince Fielder Relics, the regular and framed mini, about 10 team sets, 4 paper framed cards, a bunch of minis, one black, and a few inserts. 

The Brewers team set consists of only 8 cards, I'm not sure if there are any SP Brewers cards, but from looking at the checklist I'm going to say no.  

So far I've opened 5 hobby,  10 card packs  and 5 retail rack packs, which consists of 3 retail, 6 card packs, and a bonus 3 card green framed pack and I also bought a  mini hobby bonus box out of a hobby box too.  So first lets do the math.

Just the pack math since I'm not shelling out 120+ bucks for a box of this. 

Hobby packs at both my LCS's are $6.00.

10 cards per pack = .60 per card, mini's, inserts, hits included.

Retail rack pack. Rack packs are $8.99, I've only found them at Target up here in Alaska so far.

3 Retail packs @6 cards per pack + 3 bonus framed card = 21 cards = .42 per card, mini's, inserts, hits, and bonus included.  Even if we take out the 3 bonus cards the per card average is .49, actually it's .499 so we should probably round up and just say .50 per card.  That's pretty pricey either way you look at it but retail offers you a slightly better deal especially when you figure in the 3 bonus cards.

Don't get me wrong I fully support buying cards at your LCS, but another reason to buy this product retail is the latest in Topps quality control fuck ups.  The missing auto.  This makes buying hobby packs even more of a waste of money when you consider that your odds of getting an on card auto went from 1:12 to 1:24.  As a matter of fact there are very few boxes I've seen opened, either on youtube or posted on forums or blogs that didn't have the missing auto.  So why would I blow 6 bucks a pack when the odds of me getting that auto hit doubled?  Now don't get me wrong, there are still some nice hits to be had in Gypsy Queen and the artist patch cards are hobby exclusives.  But Topps also includes some retail exclusives like the Sticky Fingers and Wall Climbers inserts and of course the bonus rack pack green framed cards.  Now the green framed cards aren't numbered like the copper framed ones, and I'm unsure if the copper are hobby only (as I found out they are not, read on).   

Now the 50 SP's in the set.  I just don't get it.  I mean I do, Topps wants to sell more cards and if you have short prints it means you need to open more packs to get them but all Topps really does here is shut out the casual set builder.  Not to mention the price point is awfully high for a casual set builder as well.  I'm glad Topps reduced the set by 100 cards but if they had just eliminated the 50 SP's the extra hundred wouldn't have been so bad and actually would have made for a nice set to build.  Why not add variants in the set.  This gives the completists something to chase and the casual set builder, which I consider myself, a chance at putting a great looking set together.  

Another thing is I don't understand why Topps just didn't lower the cost of the cases.  Again I do understand the main reason, money, or money in hand.  Topps already got there order money so why give it all back.  And it must have worked out to be cheaper to organize and mail out a replacement then just say hey knock 20 bucks off a box.   

So out of the 5 hobby packs I pulled one Auto or rather the one auto out of the box and out of my 5 retail rack packs I pulled one auto, one framed relic, one regular relic and two bronze paper framed cards and I also got 15 green paper framed cards in the bonus.

The Tomlin auto was my hobby hit.  Seems like all the box breaks I see have one of these cards in it.

The Byrd was my first retail hit.  Oddly enough in the same rack pack, I also got these two copper paper framed cards.

My relic hits...

Jayson Werth...

And the Wizard!!! Framed relic.  I really don't understand the need for two relic inserts.  I'm not sure what point they serve having a full sized card relic and then a framed mini relic in the set. 

Here is also a smattering of the Green Framed cards I got in the bonus packs.

Over all I'd have to say this is another Topps product that's better bought retail then hobby.  My reasoning is this, with the missing auto you need to buy full boxes to get the extra auto, the only real advantage with hobby is that packs have more cards so more base cards for the set, and there are a few hobby exclusives like the 1/1 artist patch cards and I think gypsy jewels (although they might not be hobby only), but the odds of hitting one of those is astronomical. The odds alone of hitting a Royal Crown jewels card is 1:6200 or so. That's about 1 in 25 cases With retail, you only get 6 cards per pack, of those one is the mini, at least one insert and most times two inserts, so you only get 3 base cards.  Now if you not interested in putting the set together it's even better.  Plus you get 2 other insert groups and 3 bonus green framed parallel cards. 

So this begs the question in my mind, with Panini and Upper Deck instituting programs aimed at helping LCS's, or at least in there mind trying to help LCS's, it seems Topps is doing the opposite.  Making retail packs the more desirable option, sending customers to Wal-Mart, Target and any other big box store that stocks trading cards. 

Of course you can say F U to Topps and just not buy any of this.  I really hate SP sets, like this and Heritage, and Topps Magic Football.  All great looking cards just a set collector's nightmare. 

Anywho most of these cards I put up on eBay already to help defray the cost of my addiction, but anything I have left over or doesn't sell  I'll offer up for trade later this week, save your Brewers parallels for me.