2014 The Year in Review

I figured I'd start the new year with a look back at my State of the Blog address from last year and the goals I put out to see how well I did.

If you're like me and don't remember what I wrote you can see the full post here.

I have to say off the bat I did terrible keeping to my collecting resolutions.

My first goal was to buy less unopened product and to just buy complete sets.  Well that didn't happen.  I managed to put together a full Series 1, and I'm still working on Series 2, Update, Topps Football, Allen and Ginter and I also am attempting Topps Prime, because I found some hobby boxes cheap.  And for some reason I started putting together the Donruss set, but never bothered opening any Series 2.

2.  Add some of the 1909-1911 T206 Brewers cards to my collection.  My actual goal was to try and add just one.  And I failed.  I haven't acquired any.

3. Post more.  Well seeing as this year I posted the fewest times since I started blogging I can say this was a huge fail.  I have lots of good excuses.  Work, baby, lack of cool products to blog about, but in the end I just didn't do it.

4. Stay the course.  I don't know what kind of goal this was, but it was pretty easy.  I kept on doing what I was doing, although just not a lot of it.  We saw a few great bloggers hang up their keyboards last year and I'm just glad to say I'm still here for now.

5. Put together a Topps sampler album.  This is still something I really want to do, I just never got around to it.  I lost all my collecting space when my son was born so what little space I've been able to keep in the house is pretty full, but I will probably carry this one over for this year.

6. Bring my total Robin Yount collection up over 1000 items.  Finally something I can hold my head high for.  The fact that it took me almost all year to do and that Robin had almost 300 new cards issued for him this year is besides the point.  I was able to jump over 1000 items and I'm not stopping.

7. Lose 30 pounds.  Ha that didn't happen, but I didn't gain 30 pounds either, so I'm even.

All in all I think I did pretty terrible with my goals, 2 out of 7 is less than 30%, but such is life.

2013 Year End Review

The past few years I have, like many bloggers, put up a list of goals. Some call it their New Years Resolution. Me I call it my State of the Blog address.  So in preparation for the 2014 address it's time to take a look back at the goals I set for myself and see how I did.

1.    I'm going to try and pair down my overwhelming inventory of cards I don't want.  By selling, trading and even giving them away and in the process picking up stuff I do want and making room in my man cave.

Well I did manage to trade some stuff away and I sold some on ebay, but to be honest this really didn't happen. This is pretty evident since I've been boxing up stuff to store and make way for our baby coming early next year.
Strike one

2.    Continue working on organizing and inventorying my Brewers team sets and cards and start working on organizing my Packers cards.  I made a lot of progress this year and I've almost completed all the Topps team set issues from 1971 to present and most of the traded and update sets as well.  Once that is done I want to focus on getting all the Fleer, Donruss, and Upper Deck flagship sets done and then I can start seriously working on all the rest.  For the Packers who have a lot more years of cards to acquire and some really expensive ones on the older end I'm not so worried about those.  I'm going to concentrate on working my way backwards through the years focusing on Topps first.

Well I can say while I've kept up with my Packers want list actually organizing my Packers team sets didn't go anywhere.  I'm happy to say that I have just about every Topps Flagship Brewers team set done, except for a few of the rarer early 2000's traded set cards I need.  And I still need to start focusing on my other issues.  I also still have a big box of random Brewers cards I need to go through.  So I'll have to call this one a draw.  Ball one.

3.   I would like to put together the oldest Milwaukee Brewers team set.  The 1909-11 T206 Milwaukee Brewers Minor League 4 card set.  I don't care what back the cards have, but I would like to have a decent condition copy.  Why spend the money on it if it's just going to have been an old spoke bait card?   And I would love if I could get all 4 cards for under $100 bucks total.  Impossible? Maybe, but I love a challenge and I'm patient.  

Well this one is a total fail. I didn't pick up any of the four cards in the set. I did make a few attempts at bidding on some on ebay, but never did win any.  Strike two.

4.  More trading!!  This year I was able to get about 30 trades done.  That's chicken feed for some of you guys, but for me it was almost a three fold increase from the last year and this includes the 4 months I pretty much was unavailable for trading so I'm very pleased. And I worked out some great trades, had a few people solicit me, and over all I'm really happy with what I got.

Well I did manage over 20 trades this year, which certainly isn't more trading than last year, but I did trade some more. So I'm calling this one even. Most of my trades came earlier in the year, since my late spring, summer and early fall was spent working away from home.  I did manage a flurry of trades at year's end to bump my number up a bit, but I probably could have done better.  I'll say that this is Ball two!  Count's even.

5. More contests?  Maybe. I still plan on doing the Super Bowl and World Series contests.  The additional playoff game this year really screwed up the window for getting a World Series contest together and factor in  a couple of the pennant races weren't decided to the last game of the season, well it makes for exciting baseball, but gave me a lousy lead up time to the contest.   Still I'll see what I can do.

This one's a wash too.  I still have my both my annual Super Bowl and World Series contests and I have my next Super Bowl Contest coming up.  More contests? Nope, but I didn't have any less.  Ball Three, counts full.

6.  I've been bitten by the minifigure bug and you best not get to close, I hear it's contagious.  Anywho at the end of 2012 I started yet another blog, The Minifigure Collector, mainly because the page on this blog that I had dedicated to Legos and minifigures wasn't cutting it.  So if your at all interested in that kinda stuff check it out.  My goal there is to keep tweaking it into a great little fan site. 

Well hell finally something I actually did.  I find myself falling in love with Legos all over again.  I bought quite a few sets this year and after seeing some of the previews of next year's sets I'll be picking up a few more. I really love the Marvel and DC Super Heroes line and the old universe Star Wars. I've found that it's really just as cheap to buy a set then try and pick up the minifigures separately, and to be honest while Legos aren't cheap for the price of a blaster of cards you can get a nice set and you don't feel like you got ripped off when you don't pull anything.

I'm still tweeking the blog, but overall I've had fun writing and building with my renewed hobby.  Plus I can justify the hobby by saying that I'm just stockpiling Lego's for my kids and holding on to them till they're old enough to play with them.  Easy single to left field, runner on First!

7.  Keep my set collecting in check.  Another hold over from last year, but a good one that will probably be in my State of the Blogs for the foreseeable future.  The sets I'll be going after are Topps Baseball Flagship and update, Topps Football, Topps Allen and Ginter and maybe Gypsy Queen, but I see that they are bringing back the SP high number cards.  I think I'll forgo Heritage this year, as 1964, while not a bad looking set is not one of my favorites and putting together the SP part is a bitch.  I'll try and stop buying so many random packs and put that money to just picking up team sets and individual cards I want. 

This is another goal that I can probably say I did all right on. I put together my Topps Baseball and Football flagships, started my Allen and Ginter, but only got one box so that's way behind.  Didn't do Heritage or Gypsy Queen, but did pick up a box of Heritage against my better judgement and I paid for it, by not getting anything worth a darn in it.  I also, against my better judgement started a Score football set. I was able to pick a hobby box up for almost as cheap as it use to be.  I had better cards come out of the Score rack packs than the hobby box.  Anywho I'm calling this one a successful bunt, runners on first and second.

8. Writing more and better. Good luck with that.

Ahhhh, emmmmm, well I'll let you be the judge of that. I still find I write quick and still make middle school grammar mistakes and hit the Publish button up there way too fast before rereading my post.  

I'll call this a outfield pop up, one away.

9. Continuing to work on my vintage 1963 Topps baseball set.  Slow and steady.  Maybe saving up for the big one to add to the set.  You know who!

I know I probably picked a few 63's up this year, but I really didn't add too much to the set.  Foul tip.

10.  I  finally made myself pick up the brush and pens and start drawing and painting again.  While I had tried to make myself do something everyday last year, that didn't work out, so now I'd just like to be productive and maybe get to the point of showing some of my stuff in a professional show.  I've retooled the 13 Tenets into more of a showcase from my studio than a rant blog and I like where it's going.

I'm happy to say that while I didn't do a ton of drawing I did pick up my pencils and pens and get a few things done. Check out my art blog 13 Tenets of Cynicalbuddism to see what I did. It helped that I had a few commissions from friends and some wedding presents and other gifts to do.  While I like being able to draw what I like, it's also nice to have a goal and a theme presented to you.  Single to left, all runners advance, bases loaded.

11.  More TTM (Through the Mail) autos!  I was really bitten by the TTM bug this year and had some great success.  I'm planning on hitting spring training hard this year and I'd like to try and do 100 TTM's with better record keeping.  And I really want to hit my Brewers TTM project hard. Some of my big names last year included, Will Clark, Dale Murphy, Randall Cobb, and Jordy Nelson. 

D'oh.  Well as you can see from my sidebar where I was keeping track of my TTM's I never got close to putting out 100. And out of the 28 or so I sent I only got 5 back. That's Spring Training and regular season. Yikes that's pretty terrible.  I am pretty happy that Topps put out some rookie and first flagship issue cards for some players I really want to try and get next year. So I doubt my goals will be so lofty, but I'll be sending some TTM's out next year for sure.

Ground ball, into double play, the side is retired.

Overall, I didn't really get much done on my collecting goals. But after actually sitting down to write this review, I realize it wasn't as bad as I had thought.  And I have to remember these are just a nice guide to what I want to accomplish.  I'll have my 2014 State of the Blog address sometimes after New Years.  Will it look like last years? Maybe, but I can guarantee that with a baby on the way some things are really going to change.

Some thoughts on 2012 Allen and Ginter

Is it too early to talk about a product that doesn't come out for another 6 months? Probably.  I had a similar Allen and Ginter post last year, but in March.  But seeing as the 2012 sell sheet is already up, why not?

I've become a big fan of A & G.  I missed the first couple of years living in the middle of nowhere Alaska, but ended up picking up a couple of boxes of 2008 pretty cheap and started trying to put that set together.  Missed 2009 and then hit 2010 hard.  I was trying to be good last year with 2011 and ended up buying 3 boxes.  But I did have great luck with my hits.

I'm an oddball lover so this set is great for me.  There are a few of you out there that don't like it for the exact same reason.  But as lover of history and mini's this is one of my favorite sets of the year.  I've, ahem, borrowed some images from the sell sheet here so let's have a look.

Here's what the base is going to look like

The base set will be 350 again with the last 50 being short printed and this year Topps actually put the odds on the sell sheet.  SP's will be 1:2 packs.  I'm not sure if this was their insertion rate as previous years. I like the base design, simple yet ornate and I think they would look awesome signed.

There, of course, are mini parallel versions and parallels of the mini parallels.

Black bordered, A&G backed, no number(numbered to 50),  A&G baseball back #d to 25, I guess this replaces the Bazooka backs, wood (#'d  1 of 1), printing plates, and cloth parallels numbered to 10 of 150 subjects.

Or course there will be the framed mini relics again.

Is it me or do the relics seem smaller?

They are also doing 1 of 1 DNA relics again.  Creepy.

Each box is suppose to have 3 hits. Which could be a combination of relics, autos, original A&G buybacks, rip cards, and cut signatures.  I heard some horror stories last year of whole cases having nothing but boxes with 3 relic cards.  Yikes.  Luckily I never personally saw one of those, but that would have sucked.

The buy back originals will be framed like the mini relics and autos, kinda like the 2002 T206 original buybacks were presented.  There will also be redemptions for Lepidoptery cards, I'm guessing like the Upper Deck Goodwin Champions Insect cards.  And books cards like this..

25 subjects all cards 1 of 1.

On card auto's like always.

There will also be red ink variations numbered to 10. and  20 cut autos added too all numbered 1 of 1.

Let's not forget the rip cards!

Inside could be an original painted card, high number 351-400 exclusive minis, or a redemption card for bats and other swag.  I've gotten a rip card the last two years and both times I controlled myself and didn't rip'em and sold them off.  While I would have loved to find out what was in there,  those cards pretty much paid for the box.

Each hobby box also has a top loader like year past. Either a N43 or a Cabinet card.

Your N43 could be just a simple base, which is most likely, or be a relic version, or an auto relic version like the example up above, or an artifact version.  I'm assuming from the sell sheet that 10 subjects will be baseball and 5 will be historical some how.

Cabinet cards will come in different flavor's as well. Most likely you'll get a Baseball Highlight or Roller coaster card, which are the base level, 5 baseball, 5 roller coasters.

I wish they'd had a roller coaster example.  There will also be super rare cabinet relics with full jersey piece of players names like last year.  Replacing the state relics cards are these..

Now onto the inserts.  These are just the inserts shown or mentioned on the sell sheet.  Every year Topps usually puts in a couple surprise sets, like last years Ascent of Man and Fabulous Face Flocculence.

There are what I really like about A&G.

There are both mini and full size inserts to deal with here.  Like last year's Hometown Heroes or the year before This Day in History the big insert set is What's in a Name?  Don't understand it yet and it wasn't explained on the sell sheet.

I tend not to go after these sets.  One because there large, this set will be 100 card, and two I'm just not interested in the cards.

However the next couple I am.

Being a big lover of history this is one of the sets I'm definitely going after.  20 cards in this one.

Another set that kinda interests me is this one...

Like I said I'm a sucker for history and the odd.

There's also two sets not pictured on the sell sheet.  One call You Have Got to be Kidding Me, unbelievable tales of history and Baseball Highlight Sketch, I'm assuming similar to years past.  All  of these sets will be inserted 1:10 packs.

There's also this interesting oddball advertised.

Of course similar to last years seed cards, no word on how many cards in this set, if there is more than one.  But these will drop one per case!

Now the mini inserts.

First up is People of the Bible.  I wonder if this is to balance last year's Ascent of Man - Darwin's theory set?  Still looks cool and I'll probably be going after most of these mini sets. This set has 15 cards.

Man's Best Friend.  I'm torn. I love dogs I'm just not sure if I want to try this one.

However one animal set I'm definitely going after is this one..

Another one I'm most likely going after as a history fan is this one..

20 cards in this one.

The other two sets mentioned but that did not have examples are Musical Masters and Culinary Curiosities. Both I think are self explanatory.  The over all insertion rate for these mini's is listed at 1:5.


And before I get to some critic's don't forget about the Ginter code.  I don't know if I missed it, but did anyone solve last years code?

Over all I like the base design.  Topps has gone back to a great simple design with an art deco feel.  And I think these cards would look great with an auto on them.  I like how the simple border design was also used on the framed relics and autos.  From years past it seems like they've kept that tropical border just changed the color scheme.  As far as the hits, inserts, and mini's go.  It's par for the course.  There are some new elements with the Colony on a Card, but pretty much is the same tried and true offering.  Lots of cool mini and full sized inserts to sate many different tastes. Plus Topps always adds a few surprises not on the sell sheet or checklist.

Impressions on 2011 Allen and Ginter

First I'm going to say sorry I haven't been posting regularly for a while.  It's lack of time and things to say and the fact I haven't really been buying much.  I'm going to a trade night tonight so I'll probably pick a few things up. 

And this is old news it's been all over the blogosphere for a few days now and I'm late to the party but what ever. 

Topps released imaged from the upcoming 2011 Allen and Ginter.  I spent way too much money on this product last year.  But I did pull some nice cards.  I can't believe I didn't rip my rip card!! It did help pay for most of the box though.  And while I have been restrained.  I decided that I would not be trying to put together a Heritage set this year instead staying with just the flagship offering, but after looking at some of these images and I'm sure Topps will put out more as we get closer to that Julyish release date, I'm tempted to maybe try again.  I managed to put together a 2010 set with the help of some trades and a great store owner.  I just about finished my Monsters of the Mesozoic mini set, stupid COMC, did put one of my cards in the package.  Whether or not I attempt the whole set or maybe just a few inserts we'll have to see.

First lets start out with the base.  We have a bordered card this year.  I've already read a few reviews that point out that this card looks like nothing put out by Allen and Ginter back in the 1880's.  Which I think is good if Topps keeps doing this well.  Topps is taking a creative license and taking a brand they built from coping classic card designs and adapting that brand with a new look, yet keeping it classic looking.  Bravo.  Finally I've been saying this for a while.  I like retro but how hard is it to make something unique with classic influences?  I'm curious to see what the backs look like too.  I think this design works well, it's simple, yet appealing and would make a nice platform for an autograph, much like the earlier sets.

Next up we have the mini encased on card autos.

Looks like Topps has a great line up of athletes.  I surely wouldn't mind pulling a Jake "Raging Bull" LaMotta Auto.

This one is a little disturbing though.  Where did they get the hair?

Fairly typical relic insert pretty much looks like the last few years here.

I will say this card looks awesome.  But why Mauer and Posey together?  Because their catchers?  I would say that if the patch and bat knob had been for the same player or maybe teammates this card would have been stronger.  As it is it would have made two great separate cards.

The Hometown Heroes replace last years This Day in History cards.

And two other interesting inserts

I love history and especially military history I might have to go after these Floating Fortress cards.  These are not mini's either.

There were a few other cards no pictured but listed on the sell sheet, Step Right Up, carnival cards, The Ascent of Man, cards you put side by side to make a mural, and original sketch cards.

Nope here are the mini's.

Besides the standard issue parallel minis from the players and the parallels of those with black borders and different backs we have these offering for this years mini inserts.

Cards that grow??  Almost as good as cards you spit on.  Topps had those too remember.  I've decided that if I acquire one of these cards I am indeed going to plant it and see if it grows.  You have my word!!!

Next up is a set I probably will go after much like last years dino cards.

Uninvited Guests are paranormal cards!!! If there's things I like 1. would be the mini's 2. dinosaurs and 3. ghosts.  I'm a big fan of the stupid ghost shows on the Discovery Channel, SciFi, and the Travel Channel.  It must be from watching Ghostbusters a million times.

We also have endangered animals.  Meh.

Portraits in Penulimacy.

Cards about the also ran's of history. Hmmmm. Maybe

And the Worlds most Mysterious Figures. Hey now here's another set I might try for.

I'm not sure if some of these will be strictly hobby and others retail, but it seems like a nice diversity in the mini sub sets again this year.  And there are definitely a few I'm going to try and collect.

Lastly we get to the Box Loader previews

The pretty standard cabinet card.

The N43 box loader with relic.  Imaging no relic and you have the base version.  I wouldn't mind this card to add to my Brewers and Braun collection.

But if I pulled this bad boy or something comparable I'd probably drop a load in my shorts.  Wow this would be an incredible pull. 

There will also be all 50 states that I guess are die cut and can be put together to form a big map of the US.

Of course there are the 1 per case rip cards and other goodies, plus Topps 60 cards which I'm curious how they are going to do those cards in A&G.

All in all, I think Topps is going to have a great product here, as long as, quality issues don't come up.

 I think there might be a little something for everyone here. 

cb out

2011 Topps Review and 2 Jumbo Box break

Hey did you know Topps Series 1 is out?  Yeah I know it's a little over due and I'm probably the 1,000,000th post on the subject but screw it.  This post is going to get heavy.  But it'll have lots of pictures so bare with me.  I was going to post the results of my two Jumbo boxes and do a fairly painful analysis of this years product and put it out as two separate posts but screw it.  I'll get to the hits eventually but first some insights, comparisons, and thoughts about this year's Topps set verses the last couple.

First lets check ou this years design.  I like it.  I really do.  Nothing too fancy.  I was kinda hoping for less foil, but this actually works pretty well.   The players names are large enough to read. Nice logo, position is out of the way, and out of the 800 or so base cards I got, I only noticed one foil defect, and it wasn't that bad.  I also had no damaged cards in any of the packs, so I'm pretty happy about that as well. And lots of throwback jersey's this year too.  Like the one Mr. Braun is sporting.

Speaking of the logo, Colbey over at Cardboard Collections mention this a few days ago but the logo has a 3D effect going on.

It's probably hard to see from a scan, but in hand it's noticeable.  It's not Avatar eye popping 3D, but the shading and graphics due lend to a nice optical illusion, and yes Colbey I think Topps planned it that way.



On to the back.  Nice symmetry, a cute little photo in the left hand corner, and a nice BIG number in the right hand circle.  This is a big point of contention with me.  I hate it when Topps makes it's card numbering small and hard to see.

This is what I'm talking about.  This is 2009's backs.  That number is teeny tiny and for a set collector collating a set a pain in the ass.

2011's back also put the numbering space right in the middle of the back of the card, as opposed to the last few years that had the space in the bottom left hand corner.  See above.  I still wish they hadn't gone to the printed numbers I miss the gold stamped numbers, classier.

All in all I really like the look of the base cards.  Now on to the inserts.  Oh boy.

This has been the biggest complaint I've seen around the blogsphere about the set.  Mainly that this years inserts are pretty much carbon copies of last years.  Unfortunately, that's pretty much true.  But there are a few nice inserts.

First I'll start with the Topps 60 reprints.  This is pretty much a carbon copy of the Yo momma cards or Cards your mother threw out from last year.

Here we have my first 2011 Yount card.  A reprint of his 1976 sophmore card.

Here's what the back's look like.

There are also Topps: The Lost Cards that look just like this set with almost identical backs.  I got a few of those too.  But didn't scan any. Sorry. Imagine an old baseball card that didn't exist. 

There are also original backs with these inserts, like the Yo Momma cards. I got 3 out of 20 jumbo packs so I hit about 1:7 packs or so.

Here's a look at those.

Pretty much the same as last year.  And to be honest I'm tired of all the reprint cards.  I will not be putting this set together, but if anyone has an original back Yount,  I'd be willing to trade for it.

There's also another reprint set this year and this one I do kinda like.  It's the vintage reprint set.

I got 11 out of 20 packs.  These are kinda neat. I think I like them more because the have a cardboard back.

I'm not sure what the CMGR prefix means, maybe Cards Your Grandma Threw out?  No that doens't work who knows? Looking at the selling info I see this listed as Reproduction cards.  OK, that doens't help either.

Now we get to my favorite insert in the series.  The Kimball Champions.  I love mini's and I love the retro insert.  I loved the Turkey Red inserts from the last two years as well.  These cards are pretty nice.

Just to show a nice grouping off.  I'll be collecting this set for sure. Everything else probably not.

I'll have a want list up pretty soon so if you have some you'd like to trade for let me know.

Next up probably the most hated of all inserts Ticket to Topps Town.

I'll be honest I don't hate theses cards.  I haven't hated Topps Town cards at all since they started putting players on the cards.  Do you remember when Topps Town came out in 2008 what the cards looked like.  No player just ToppsTown on one side and the code on the back.  I couldn't find one to scan and I couldn't find one on the Internet to post sorry.  Every year these cards get a little better.  This year they look like Panini make them with the shiny foil board.  I didn't see any gold variations in my packs and I'm not sure if they have one this year, anybody?

Let's take a quick look back at ToppsTown over the years.

2009

2010

See they keep getting a little better.  At least with a player on the front they are somewhat collectible.

I think my least favorite set this year are these pointless cards



Diamond Duos.  And there parents the Legendary Lineage cards from last year were very unpopular with me.  OK, the Boggs/Youkilis card I can see, but the Maddux/Hellickson?  Really what do these two have in common.  Hmmmm maybe it'll tell me on the back.

Oh Hellickson watch Maddux play. Dumb.  Pointless.  Most of these are like this with very thin association with the duo, even with players that played on the same team. Oh and there not numbered there lettered. Topps this is terrible, now I need a checklist, do you have one up at your website?  No, nothing from most of last year either?  Great.

Next we get to a insert that seems to get a lot of hate, but not by me.  I get why this insert is here and it ain't that bad. And with only 10 card in the set it's small and fairly hard to hit. 

Why it's the history of Topps!!.  20 jumbo packs 5 History of Topps cards.  At least Topps didn't put out 3 history sets this year. Remember last year with the History of the World Series, History of the Game, and Tales of the Game.  Jeez, talk about redundancy.  I get why these are here though.  Topps is celebrating 60 years so why not a Topps Retrospect.  I think I like the look of the backs better though.

They've got a comic book feel.

Lastly we get to the Topps 60th anniversary cards.

Here's a trio of Yanks for you.

I kinda like these cards they have a nice look. I'm not jumping up and down with glee for them but they're not terrible.

I think that wraps up all the regular inserts.  Now we get down to my Jumbo break.  All the above 2011 cards were part of that break plus many, many more.  I'm just showing samples of the inserts you don't need to see all 20 Kimball's or Topps 60, Reprints, ect.

But lets start with the parallels.  This year we have quite a few  if you count the ultra rare platinum cards, printing plates and canary diamonds, which I didn't get any of, and of course the new unnumbered diamond parallels.

DIAMONDSSSSSSS!  Now imagine I'm Mumm-ra from Thundercats saying that.  Very, very shiny.  I think Topps could have done away with the gold parallels and just numbered these bad boys.  Sorry the scan cut off the bottom it's hard to fit 20 cards even on a large format scanner.

The golds.  All numbered to 2011.

And one black numbered to 60.

It seems I got the Orioles box, three of my hits were Orioles and yes I consider this black parallel a hit.  One out of 20 packs.

I also got one variation.  Yastrazemski!!! Nice.

On to the relics. Each Jumbo boasts1 auto and 2 relics, but they consider the manufactured glove cards relics as well, even though they are not, I digress.

Nice, an Express relic.  I have no problem getting a jersey or pants piece,  kinda looks like a pants piece, from a pitching legend.  Nothing better than to watch a Rangers game and see Nolan dozing off now a days.

My one Brewer's relic.  The fat veggie himself  Prince Fielder.  I'm glad he's coming back for at least one more year.  I'll probably end up getting one of these from A Cardboard Problems group break but I don't care.

On to the autos.

The second of my Orioles hits.  Tillwho? 

Hey I know who this guy is.  Sweet.

Hey it's another Orioles pitcher who I don't know.  And the third Orioles hit between the two boxes.  But I do believe this is a case hit. I really like the silks it's a cool insert and being numbered to 50 doesn't hurt. Oddly enough this card was in the same box as another "case" hit.

The gloves.

These cards have been getting a little heat.  I guess rightly so.  I mean these cards aren't even numbered.  Last year all the hat patch cards and bat barrels were all numbered no higher than 99.  This year the Manuglove leather brown nameplates aren't even numbered.  I actually like the look of these though, I sure Topps had these mass produced over in China for pennies.  I'll agree the stitching seems silly.  I would have rather had the leather stamped or even better had the names burned in.  Now that would have been cool.

I do like the black parallels with the white stitching.  This worked well for the bat barrels in last year's Update Series and it works pretty good here.  It's a nice contrast.  Plus these are numbered.  I guess there's a super rare Gold nameplate version.  I'll have to look around ebay later to see if any of these have hit.

I'm pretty happy that both my glove cards were well known players.

All in all I'm pretty happy with what I got outta these boxes.  I got the black Price glove in the same box as the silk so that was a pretty sweet box.  I'm not opposed to trading for any of the cards here, but I do plan on putting most of this on ebay once the initial flood ebbs in a week or so. So if you have something kickass to offer make it quick and please don't ask me what I want for them, make an offer that's how trading works.  The gold and diamonds I'd love to trade for gold and diamond Brewers cards and I'm looking for Kimballs as well, I'll have the list up tonight.

There are also Twinkle variations as seen from postings around the web.  I spent a good portion of last night looking through my base cards and didn't come up with a one.  I would assume they would be inserted in the middle with all the other inserts and parallels, like the Yaz variation was. 

Over all not a bad flagship offering this year.  I like the base and some of the inserts.  Others not so much.  I'll give it a B for what I pulled.  We'll have to see if I can make any money back on the hits to help offset the high price of the boxes.  I think I got a fairly good price at least on release day.  I'm sure if I waited a month or so prices might come down but with Blowout selling boxes for about 135 a pop my LCS did all right by me. 

I haven't collated my set yet. I'm sure I've got at least one complete from the two jumbos maybe close to two.  There seems to be a lot of players in Series one with multiple cards in the base.  Like Strasburg, Holliday, and Rodriguez to name a few.

I'm going to give this a cynicalbuddha rating of .....

Level 3 Whaaaaa baby,  there's some good stuff in here, worth a few packs and the holy grail for set collectors so buy a box.  Maybe wait till the newness and crazy prices come down, but a nice set design and some cool stuff inside, it would have been awesome to pull a 60th personalized auto card or 1/1 but I'm not Beckett.






Comments always welcome. Did you hit anything good?