Box Break 2012 Topps US Olympic Team and Hopefuls

I haven't broken a box in a while.  A long while actually. I ended up at Don's Sportcards the other day to see if I'd won his monthly drawing.  He was giving away a box of 2012 Chrome Football.  I obviously didn't win, because I would be featuring that break instead of this one.

I was perusing the wares and drop boards and noticed he had a bunch of boxes for super cheap.  There was a lot of hockey, but also a couple boxes of Topps Olympic cards from last year.  I had resisted buying any because to be honest hobby boxes were really expensive.  Talking to Don he said he wasn't going to get any of it, but had a few people interested in it so he bought a couple of boxes, the ones now marked down to a reasonable price.  So I snagged one of the boxes and when I go back if the other one is still there and cheaper I might snag that one too.

In my honest opinion this was one of Topps best releases last year.

You've all seen the cards I'm sure.  They make for great TTM fodder, plus you get 3 hits per box, at least!!

Let's go through the motions of it though.

Here is the base card.  A nice clean design that takes a Sharpe very well, I've had a few successes TTM from of the extras from a blaster.

There are also three tiers of parallels, bronze, silver and gold.

The golds are 1:4, Silvers 1:3 and the Bronze 1:2, but is seemed like you got at least one if not two of these per pack.

There is also the Games of the XXX Olympiad insert.

These too would look great auto'd..

The other base insert is the Heritage of the Games.

You get one commemorative (ie Manupatch) card per box.

Henry here won gold in 2008, but failed to make the Olympic team in 2012 and after losing his 2012 Olympic Trials removed his shoes and threw them into the crowd officially retiring.  Nice patch card though.

Tony was the captain of the 2012 US Men's Water Polo Olympic team.  Sadly they didn't medal in London.

Natalie only got a Bronze in London last year as part of the 4x100 freestyle relay and didn't actually swim the final, but she has earned 12 medals, tying two others for the most medals won by a female US athlete and she won 6 medals in Beijing in 2008.  And I have to say this is a terrible picture of her, because she is quite good looking woman.

But wait what's this I beat the odds!! Yeah the packaging says you get at least 1 relic, 1 auto and one commemorative card.  But ain't it sweet when you get more than that?!!

Juan is origianlly from Columbia, but now plays for Chivas USA in Los Angeles.  Sadly the US Men's Soccer team didn't qualify for the Olympics, but his is a sweet silver parallel auto numbered to just 30 and a great bonus auto.  Not as good as a Michael Phelps would have been.

Over all not a bad box for under 40 bucks.  I haven't collated the set yet, but from just leafing through the stack I know that I should have most of a set and quite a few doubles.

2012 Topps Update Baseball Box Break

So I didn't find any Update at Bosco's last Wednesday so I headed over to Don's my other LCS in town and found he had a couple Jumbo Boxes so I picked one up.

Box Label

 Back are all your favorite inserts from Series 1 and 2, Golden Moments, the 87 mini's, Golden Greats, Gold Sparkly inserts, ect. But this go around we have a new insert and the return of the numbered gold parallels.

So each jumbo pack contains 3 gold parallel cards along with the sparkly golden parallel.  You get 2 golds from the Series 1 or 2  and then one from the update set.

The new insert is Blockbusters. Commemorating the biggest baseball deals of all time. And there are relic and auto versions of some of these cards too.  Here's a sample.

I won't bore you with the other inserts we've already seen, except for this one.

I was really excited to see Yount in to one of the inserts this year.  Sadly there are no relic or auto parallels of this card to chase, but since I haven't added a new Yount to the collection in months, it's a nice surprise to actually pull the one insert I really wanted.

I did get two black parallels as well and it's nice when one of them is going into my team sets.

I also found one SP photo variation.  I need to go back through my cards to see if anything else came out.

And the best part about the Jumbos is the 3 hits, even if one of those is a manurelic.

Back for round three are the ring cards.  And these still are pretty awesome.  Got me a Gehrig.  Not too shabby.

Next up another card for one of my PC's

I still like the big guy and collect his cards, but to be honest I've not been going after them the way I use to. Still a nice All Star Game card with Princey.

And the Auto.

A Golden Debut card of Tyler Pastornicky.  I wasn't familiar with this kid so I had to Google him.  Tyler played in about 76 games this season, only about 50 as a fielder.  He was sent back down to the minors and June and then called back up near the end of the season.

I also didn't get any Presidential Predictors.  I'll have to dig back through the stack to see if I missed them.

Overall not a bad box, but not spectacular.  I'm happy I got a couple of hits that I want to keep. But for the most part it's standard flagship Topps.  I did get a full set and about 50 extras so that makes me happy. I did put the hits on ebay so my wife wouldn't kill me. But if somethings don't sell I'll offer them up to trades.

Last day to strike Gold!!!!!

Just a friendly reminder that if you have 2012 Topps Baseball Series 1 wrappers you need to have them in the mail and postmarked TODAY!!!
Send your wrappers to:

Gold Rush

PO Box 2008

Duryea, PA 18642


And have a great Leap Day!!

Winning.

I always try to get in on the free easy contests all you fellow bloggers hold from time to time.  Brian over at Play at the Plate had a contest awhile back.  I believe you had to guess what he pulled from packs or boxes or something, anyways I know I guess right twice, but only got one entry, but one was all I needed, cuz I won!!!

My prize was a blaster of 2012 Topps Series 1.  Brian asked if I'd mind he just send the cash as that would be a lot cheaper than shipping a whole blaster up to me.  And of course it didn't bother me at all.  He also sent along a sweet Yovani Gallardo relic he pulled too.

Well when I got home last night I had a nice package from Texas.  I had to take the dog for a walk, but after dinner I hightailed it right down to Target to get my blaster!  I had already bought one from Wal-Mart, so I figured I'd mix it up and see if I could pull a few Brewers red bordered cards, spoiler alert, I did not.

Here's my blaster.  I already pulled a Joe Morgan Historic Stitches card, I was hoping to get a Retire number patch card, spoiler, I did not.

Of course blaster packs come with 2 less cards

Another picture of Roy Halladay.

Here are the two Gold parallels.

I got two 87 Mini's both of which I didn't need for my set.

The funny thing about my two Gold Standard cards is not only did I need them for the set, but I also have player collections for both guys too.  

Paulie Mo in his Twins Jersey.

Reggie in his Angels.

Here are my Red parallel cards.  Colbey and Hiflew, I've put the Braves and Rockies in your respective trade piles already, so unless you don't want them they're yours.

I also got two Golden Giveaway code cards. Since I've been hemming and hawing whether or not I wanted to enter any codes this year or just sell them off, I decided to say what the hell and enter my two codes from the blaster, since it was free.  Here are my two coins.

I also got a small stack of all the other inserts, but seeing as I'm not a huge fan, I won't bore you with those either and just get to the good stuff.

Jackie!!!!!

Unfortunately there are some minor flaws with the Stitches card, you can't tell from the scan but the upper right hand corner where the patch meets the cardboard has a small crease and there's a small crease by the J in the low left.  I was hoping to pull a Reggie Jackson for my PC, but what can you do.  

Anything not already spoken for is up for trade. Let me know.  I have a few trade packages getting ready to head out to all you awesome people who helped me out with my 2009 Upper Deck set.  If I end up getting all the cards pledged I'm down to only 2 left!!!! 

Topps Wrapper Redemption - A Brief How To - plus bonus rant!

Since I posted about the 2012 Topps Gold Rush Wrapper Redemption I've had a couple of readers ask exactly how the redemption process works with the wrappers and while I don't consider myself the authority on anything really, I figure I'd make a quick post for those interested.

First, if you have wrappers you want to redeem... DO IT NOW!  The redemption window closes on Feb. 29th!!! And that date is fast approaching. 

You need 14 Jumbo wrappers or 50 regular wrappers to get a free pack of the Gold Rush cards.  I haven't heard if you could substitute a jumbo pack for a regular pack, but I'd say probably not.  You'd have to ask Topps that question.

So you have a stack of wrappers you want to send in.  Topps says they encourage you to send all your wrappers bundles at once.  The address to send them too is:

Gold Rush
PO Box 2008
Duryea, PA 18642

You have to send in the wrappers, this is totally different from their online redemption process for redemption cards you pull from products.

Second make sure you include your Name and mailing address with the wrappers. Printing it on a 3x5 index card works really well.  No need to include a letter, Topps knows why your sending the wrappers in, so a nice legible address is all you need. 

No need to worry about sending in a SASE either.  Topps will ship all packs in a bubble mailer and the package usually has delivery confirmation, at least all the fulfillment packs I've gotten from Topps have.  That way if you call in Topps they can look up where your package is. 

If your lucky you might get something like this.  But don't hold your breath.

All this being said it sucks that those that don't have access to a hobby shop couldn't participate, but I guess you always have the option of buying hobby boxes from online retailers.  Second it doubly sucks that Topps increased the number of packs you needed to submit.  Last year all you needed were the packs from either a Jumbo or a regular hobby box. This year you have to buy at least a box and a half to get in on this promotion.  I realize Topps is a business and this is a business move geared to get me to buy more packs, but this time it backfired.  I have for the past few years bought 2 jumbos and tried to complete two sets.  But since Topps decided to get greedy I only bought my one Jumbo and 4 more packs to get in the Gold Rush Wrapper Redemption.  In essence Topps and the hobby shop I buy from  lost out on about 60 extra dollars it would have got from me,

Will Topps have another wrapper redemption in Series 2 and Update?  Who knows?

But remember.... MAIL YOUR WRAPPERS NOW!!!!!  You only have a week left!!

cb out

I love Golddddddd! My wrapper redemption pack comes in.

So I post on Friday about packs being live and Saturday morning I find a bubble mailer from Duryea, Pennsylvania in my mail box.

Sadly I didn't get a autograph this year.  But they are nice cards.  Here are my five.

#2 Adrian Gonzalez

#19 King Felix

#26 Rickie Weeks' little brother.

#34 Andre Ethier

And #50 Hammerin' Hank.