2011 Topps Diamonds and Royals

Do lack the bling?  Do you like huge rings like your class ring only with the Topps Logo and diamonds?  This is old news I'm sure you've heard but Topps had Josten's make 60 diamond rings for their anniversary and they want you to jump through the hoop to get it.  You know Josten's they probably made your class ring from high school.  They made mine. Anyway, I guess when you redeem the Diamond Giveaway cards you get a change to "dig" for diamonds and the goal is to collect 60 virtual diamond rings to win a real one.  Plus Topps is giving out 10 rings to random HTA stores and one to Beckett.  Also you'll unlock a Topps card that I'm assuming is like last year that you can trade or pay to have shipped to you or die cut diamond cards or diamond embedded cards.  We'll have to see I'm not sure when the site is suppose to be up officially.  Since last years MCG site took awhile to work all the bugs out when it was unveiled I'll probably wait to redeem my codes.

Other old Topps news, Topps will be making a Royal Nuptials card for Kate and Prince William.  Joy.  Now I'm going to buy some of that for sure.  Whatever.

Is anyone really excited about maybe getting one of these Topps Rings?  I can say no, no I'm not.  I wonder how much those diamonds are worth?  Does anyone read the Topps Blog anymore?  or the news at the Topps website?  I'll be honest this is the first time I've read either in a while.  I was looking for the official launch date of the TDG which I realize is on the back of the giveaway cards but I don't have any with me at work and I was curious. Someone chime in and tell me.

2011 Topps: I like it!

Sorry this post will be a little lame.  No scans yet.

I went to trade night at Bosco's which is the big comic book store that has a sports card shop attached last night.  It just so happened to be a pretty big night.  They had had a baseball promotion going on all winter giving away an Upper Deck Yankees Master set.  If you bought a box of baseball you got and entry  Every week they picked a winner for a Yankees relic card and if you won you got entered into the Master Set drawing that was last night.  I wasn't overly impressed with the set but the box was pretty kick ass.  I wasn't in that drawing but it brought out a huge number of people.  Add to that free pizza and soda and deals and you can see it's not a bad night.  Add to the fact that it was also release day for 2011 Topps Series 1 Baseball Hobby and it was a pretty good night all around.  I got there just in time to see that they had 2 Jumbo boxes left, and seeing that they were going for about 20 to 30 dollars cheaper than Blowout cards prices I decided to pick up both.  I've been buying 2 jumbos for a few years now and for my money the Jumbos are the way to go.  And I got a case hit out of one of them. No not an inscribed 60th anniversary auto, I wish but over all I did pretty well.  I'm hoping that I can make some of the ching I spent back on the hits.  It'll soften the blow of buying 2 jumbos at the same time.  I was planning on scanning everything last night but ended up working on taxes and financial stuff instead, so tonight I'll get it all organized and hopefully I might even collate my set and have extras to offer, and I think I'm only going to be collecting the Kimball Champions inserts this year (you know I love the mini's).  I tried and am still trying to complete a master set of 2010 and that might be a lost cause.  So that means I'd be willing to trade a lot of the inserts for Kimballs if you have any extras or are looking to get rid of any, I'll have that need list up tonight as well.

 Out of the 2 Jumbos, no damaged cards or missing hits.  As a matter of fact I got both autos, 2 relics, 2 glove nameplates, a variation and a silk card so I count that as 8 hits.  Plus the reason I love jumbos is one of each insert per pack so I have got 20 Kimball's, 20 diamond sparkles, 20 giveaway codes, 20 ect ect. 

Some thoughts.  The diamond cards are a nice touch.  While I don't think we need a third parallel set they are a nice addition and everyone is right they look pretty cool.  I wanted to be the only one who said these things suck, but they don't.  I think Topps could have gotten rid of the gold or black and just numbered the diamond cards. 

I like most of the inserts too, hell I even like the foil board Ticket to Toppstown cards. Does anyone remember the first year Topps put these out?  They were terrible.  No player on the card just Ticket to Topps Town and a code, boring.  At least now they are semi collectible.  I think the Diamond Duo is my least favorite but at least better than last years Legendary Lineage.  I don't even mind the Topps 60 reprints.  Silly, but I don't hate them.  Mainly because I pulled the one Yount in the set in the second pack, but not an original back. 

I haven't seen any diamond glint parallels either, but I didn't look  that hard now I have to go back and sort through 2 jumbo boxes worth of cards to see if I got any of those.

I also got lucky and snagged a bunch of extra wrappers from some guys who were just going to throw them away.  I'm not sure if they realized there is a wrapper redemption going on.  I didn't tell them either, I know I'm a bad man. 

Like I said kinda lame post.  I'll have pictures up tomorrow, promise.  I'm also looking forward to A Cardboard Problems group case break later today.  I'm in for the Brew crew.  And oddly enough one of my hits was a Prince Fielder Bat card.  I'm hoping for a Princey auto and some shiny, or maybe a Braun glove, that would be sweet!!!!


cb out

It's official the Packers have the Zoo animal vote!!!

As if I needed any more proof the Pack are going to win on Sunday, Texas zoo animals predict the Packers to win.  And we all know that animals, especially caged zoo animals know things they aren't telling us.

Last week a coati named Cody in at the Ft Worth zoo picked the Packers.  A coati is a type of raccoon.  And we all know how reliable their predictions are.  And you think that would be enough but NOO!!!

Yesterday Jenny the elephant at the Dallas zoo also predicted a Packer win by stomping on a watermelon with the Steelers logo on it. 

And not to be out done an orangutan in South Carolina also picked the Pack by picking a Packers T-shirt over the Steelers.  Totally scientific.

I don't know why the Steelers are even going to show up with the zoo animal vote so stacked in favor of the Packers!! 
But it doesn't matter the only animal I would take advice from is dead.  Paul the Octopus is gone and I'm not even sure if soccer predictions translate over to American football. 

On a more serious note Topps Series 1 is coming out "officially" tomorrow.  I know that there is already a bunch of stuff up on ebay and the it was out a little early in retail.  Not up in Alaska though.  I've got a trade night tomorrow and I'm praying that they actually get their shipment in so I can bust a box of jumbo.  I've been so good and haven't busted a box in months.  I will put the results up here for all to see.

cb out

Attention all Angels, Padres, White Sox and Giants fans you are needed for a Group Break

Well I'm in the Group Break over at Cardboard  Collections.  I do believe this is my 3rd break with Colbey, and I'm working on another trade with the man.  Well worth you time if you like a break that's a little different and cheap.  After I paid my 9 bucks!! That's it and it includes the shipping people.  Colbey asked if I knew anyone that regularly picked up the Angels, Padres, White Sox, or Giants.  And I don't have trading buddies with those teams but I figured I'd help out by re-pimping the contest with an APB to the above fans. 

Get yo butt over to Cardboard collections fool!!!

There's still a bunch of other teams too.  Pick up one, hell pick up two for a discount!!  The sooner you pay the soon we get to see what we get. 

Cheap Break over at Cardboard Collections!!!

Down on your luck?  No cash for your habit?  Well Colbey over at Cardboard Collections is holding another one of his poor man's group breaks.  For nine bucks for most teams, some are even cheaper, that includes shipping, you get to pick your team, well what's left. He's breaking 3 boxes of fairly cheap but not unattractive boxes.  Well at least one box is cheap, the others maybe not so cheap. I don't know.

A great way to get some players and teams you collect and you might even get lucky and get a hit.

Check it out.

Yo this contest has been pimped.  Got a contest? Want it pimped?  Hell I'm sure I want to enter if it ain't to difficult.  Let me know, drop me a line, leave a comment.  I ain't too proud to pimp another man's contest.

Some things Topps could learn from Panini

For all the crap I, and you out there, give Panini for a lot of it's products I firmly believe it's a card company that gets it, at least with customers.  While we bitch about their over use of foil board, lack of inspired designs, and some of the terrible insert designs, there are things that Panini has started doing that I never thought I'd see from a trading card company. 

First lets start with Panini's website.  It's up to date, easy to navigate and  you can find checklists from the most recent products. As a matter of I wanted to see how up to date there checklists were so I went looking for the Patches and Plates checklist and guess what?  It's there. And P&P came out this week!  The last checklist Topps has up is for 2010 Platinum Football which came out this time last year.  Not only that but Panini maintains a blog,   The Knight's Lance, which is updated almost everyday,  Topps not so much.  And Panini has been using their blog to reach out to customers, consumers to Topps.  And Panini has been showing transparency by posting videos of their production techniques, how they do quality control, showing off teaser photos and other drool gallery stuff, and showing off there signing events.  None of which we have ever seen from Topps.  Will we ever?  Probably not.  And that's unfortunate for Topps because if you look at how Panini has embraced it online media outlet and seen the goodwill it puts towards it's customers and collector's you see exactly what's missing at the Topps Company. 

I'm not going to get into the whole controversy over Panini's redemption debacle.  I think that's been dissected and ranted about enough.  I will say that Topps not addressing  it's quality control issues or reassuring it's "consumers" has been one of the biggest points of contention with me this last year.  I find it disheartening that Topps had to hire a guy specifically to hand nothing but complaints and quality issues.  I am glad he's there but I would think that tightening the QC a little might save more money and face down the road.

QC at Topps has been a hot topic as of late.  Head over to the Priceless Pursuit and The MojoBeard for some heated debates on Topps, Quality control, boycotts and the like.

Jordy Jordy Jordy

I've been working my way around my blog family posting various things.  I finally found some time to scan a bunch of stuff.  And I just got a nice rookie card lot of Jordy Nelson in the mail yesterday.  In my opinion one of the most underrated players on the Packers Superbowl team this year.  He's really stepped it up with all the injuries this year and it's nice to see Jordy coming into his own. Once relgated to punt returner he's moved right in to #2 reciever very well.  I've been snatching up auto's and jersey cards for cheap all year. 

The framed UD Masterpieces is a blue parallel numbered to 150.  Plus in the lot was two super shiny chrome rookies and two UD star rookies, one first edition, and an SP.

Here's a look at the backs.  I'm expecting big things from this kid in a few weeks and next year.

I guess I can officially say I've started my Jordy Nelson super collection and I don't expect prices on his cards to stay in the dumper much longer.   Just look at Rodger's prices going through the roof.  I picked up a bunch of base and inserts for Rodgers a few months ago from my LCS.  Don had packs of 25 cards for 5 bucks and I ended up picking up all three Rodgers packs.  I'm glad I did.  Seems cheap now.

Enjoy your Thursday.

cb out.