I'm back again, for now but not for long.

Whew that was a long trip.  10 days above the Arctic Circle.  And I get to go back on Monday.  But I'm back for now.  What I want to know, who went to the National and where are the posts!  I've seen a few but with me gone 10 days I'm not sure who all went.  So if you went and posted about it leave a comment cuz I'd love to read about the experience.

On a side note, before I left, Bosco's the Comic/Card store, one of the two LCS card shops I frequent had a coupon for a under 80 dollar box of Ginter, so I ran down to get a box.  I could have bought two a day for however long the coupon was good for, but I had promised I wasn't going to buy anymore, especially since my first box was so awesome.  But for 79.99 I couldn't resist picking up one more box to help fill in some holes in my set and pick up some SP's and a few doubles for trading and of course a few cool inserts.  Well I have to say I was more than happy I picked the box up, you'll have to wait I haven't scanned the hits yet, but lets just say this will definitely be my last box unless they start going for under 50 bucks.  I'm not pressing my luck again, especially with all these boxes where all the hits are relics.  I still need to collate my 2011 Football set to see if I need any to complete my set and I want to try and put together the bowman mini insert set, at 144 cards this might take a while.  Dennis I'll let you know but don't wait for me.

And on top of it all while I was gone my Brewers have taken a 5 game lead in the NL Central.  The Cheese Stands Alone!!!!!  Wow could we actually win a pennant this year?!!! Could 2011 be the year for Wisconsin sports?  And hot damn there's going to be Football!!!!

Anywho, leave me links to your National Posts.  I'm leaving town again early Monday and won't be back till sometime around the 24th or 25th so the Crack will be silent.  Keep up the good work everybody!!!

CB out.

Guess who's going to the National??

Not me.  I've been reading all these posts of all you guys heading to the National this week and well I'm jealous. Mainly because if life hadn't led me to Alaska, I'd still probably be in Wisconsin and heading to the National this week.  I've had my fun in Chicago.  As seen from some posts earlier this year, but in college I drew comics with a group and we headed down for the Chicago Comic Con, this was back in 1997 and the first year Wizard took it over.  I have to say for a star eyed comic lover it was geekdom probably only surpassed by the San Diego ComicCon.  You hear stories about the fat nerds who cart around a long box full of comics to get autographed strapped to a luggage cart slurping a jolt cola, but until you see hundreds of them all walking around and staring at the one hot girl dressed as Princess Leia in a slave girl costume, well you get the idea.  It was here that we set up our table and tried to sell our independently made comics to the masses, and you know what.  No one wanted any.  They were all there for Todd McFarlane, Alex Ross and all the other big names back then.  I have to admit once I realized I probably wasn't going to sell any of my, now looking back, shoddily made comic, I ventured out and embraced the geekdom.  I found Kurt Busiek sitting all by himself at the Claypool Comics stand with no line and proceeded to have him autograph a couple issues of Marvels and then make a complete ass of myself.  I also discovered Terry Moore and his awesome comic Strangers in Paradise. A hell of a nice guy and a great artist and writer all rolled into one.

Sorry I'm rambling, what I'm trying to say is that that experience is what I image the National would be only with sports cards.  I'd probably be the one with a monster box strapped to my back and notebook full of want lists  combing the quarter and common boxes filling holes and longingly looking at autograph pavilion wishing I could afford a couple of autos hoping to catch Bart Starr coming out of the bathroom.  A slew of my favorite athletes will be signing this year, two have the same last name, Jackson, Bo and Reggie and one rhymes with mount. Actually after looking at the Tristar ticket page most of the Packers signing were on the Superbowl XXXI team and all are pretty affordable, and Paulie Mo is going to be there.  I think the best part about looking at the auto line up is what the stars WON'T sign.  If I were an evil man I'd have to see if I could had to that list.   Mr. Blyleven will not sign "Where's Ernie"
I couldn't find a great itinerary for the show other than the Tristar auto schedule, I'm sure it's on the website if I dug deeper, but I didn't.  What occurred to me was it would be hard to go to the show everyday.  5 days walking around would get old.  I would think the last two days of the show would be the days to go to get the good deals. Although there are great signers all week. I realize they are the weekend days, but it got me thinking.  Here in Anchorage we have a 2 day beerfest and the second day is usually the day to go because the vendors fill you glasses up fuller to make sure they get rid of all their product.  So would that same mentality transfer over and would dealers give better deals on the last couple of days so they didn't have so much stuff to haul back to their shops?  I'll let you experts who have gone to multiple Nationals and who go to this one shout it out.

Well I'm off to finally take my folks to the airport, it's been a long two weeks and hopefully write a trade post before I fly out for work tomorrow. 

On a completely different side note. I swore I wasn't going to buy anymore A & G but one of my LCS's just posted a coupon for a box of A & G for under 80 bucks and well I think I'm going to have to get me one.  I realize that it's highly unlikely I'll be able to beat my first box and that's ok.  I figure I'll hopefully be able to whittle down my need list and the SP to a reasonable amount and maybe pick up a few cool hits.

Well until next time CB out

2011 Topps Football Jumbo Box Break and Review, or I'm Back for Now.

Wow it's been awhile.  I guess that's happens when you get married and have a ton of family in from out of town.  Yep sorry ladies I'm a taken man now.  Only 38 single years for me. 

Anyway.  While I was out showing  my and the wife's family a good time around the state, fishing, site seeing, ect, Topps Football came out.  So yesterday I had the opportunity to finally pick up a jumbo box.

Lets check out the this years base design.  Again Topps pretty much uses the Baseball layout.  There are a few minor differences though.  Around the team logo the teams division is on the bottom.  And players that made the all star team get a cool foil stamp.  There are also foil stamps for rookie of the year, MVP, and Superbowl Champs.  Here we have Clay "the Monster" Matthews tackling  Kolb.  Is this the tackle that took him out for the season and put Vick in? 

I have to say that the photography is awesome, just flipping through the cards as I ripped I noticed how great a lot of cards looked.

Here we have the back.  Another minor difference from the baseball design is that where the team logo is the baseball set had a picture of the player in it.

On to the parallels.  Gold cards were falling1 in every 2 packs of jumbo.  Which differs from baseball that were falling 1 to 1.

And I hit one black parallel as well.

Remember the base card I featured with Matthews tackling Kolb? Well here we have Cole tackling Rodgers.  Kinda neat.  I almost want to put this in with  my Rodgers cards.  Oh and both the Gold and Black parallels feature gold foil instead of the silver.
I'm a little bummed Topps decided not to carry over the Diamond Parallels to this set.

On to the inserts.



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 First off I'm going to say that I really like all  insert offering this year, well maybe except for Toppstown.  I like these game day cards.  They remind me of the old Gameday Tall Boys from the 90's.  These cards are simple and well done.  I might have to try to put the set together.

The Superbowl Legends Giveaway cards.  I think these are much nicer than the MCG and DCG baseball cards.

Topps for some reason the last couple of years has been on this duo card kick. Paring players together for some reason or another.  This year we get players that play or played on the same team, which for me as a team collector is great, and the layout is a lot nicer than the Legandary Lineage from Baseball.

Toppstown.  Nuff said there.

If you read my blog at all you know I'm a oddball mini fan.  So without a doubt my favorite insert this year are the bowman mini's.  I'm probably going to have to try for this set.

Here's a look at a back.

Now on to the hits.  I'll say that there was nothing super spectacular but at least all the hits were in the box.

First we have a Gameday auto of Bilal Powell.

And a Game Day Auto of Jimmy Smith.

My best hit was this Torrey Smith Rookie Patch. Yes I know it's from the Rookie Premiere and not game worn but a nice looking patch.

Well over all a nice looking set this year.  I like the inserts they all have a nice design and I've seen some pretty cool hits on other blogs and messages boards.  I haven't collated my box yet to see what I need.  I'm hoping that I get a full set out of the Jumbo like I did for baseball.

Well I'm heading out of town for 10 days on Tuesday into the wilds of Alaska for work and then back out for another 10 day trip at the end of the month.  So needless to say August is shot for me if you are trying to get a hold of me.  But I'll be around.  I have a few trade posts I need to finish and I went on another vintage wax binge.  All I can say is 92 Stadium Club Baseball for 6 bucks a box, all three series. 

Until next time CB out.

Old School Finale( At least for now): 1992 Pinnacle Jumbo Series 1

Another purchase from Trade night. This is going to be a let down after my last post and box break but I already had the images scanned so...

 I got this box for under 10 bucks, I know 92 Pinnacle Series 1, ung.  But each pack had 3 inserts, plus there were also the Shades and Icon sub-sets in this release that were actually kinda cool, there was also the Sidelines sub-set that was not.

This box was of course the Jumbo box, but back in 92 they called them Super Packs!  Hard to believe that the retail price for this box back in 92 was over $70!  Do the math, 24 x 2.99 = 71.76.  Wow.  Needless to say I got a lot of 92 Pinnacle for my dough.

Here we have the base design.  Not terrible.  This was Scores "Premium" brand at the time. 

The back. Good old Paulie Mo. Again not terrible, especially when you see some of the other offerings from 92.  Of course if this design had been put out today I'm sure it would be unabashedly adorned with foil, lenticular optics and super rare colored and numbered variations. 

There is at least one decent rookie in series one. 

I did manage to pull two of these so that was nice.  I do believe this is the highest book value card in the entire set.

There were a couple insert sets available depending on what type of pack you bought.  With jumbos you get 3 Team 2000 inserts per pack.  The whole 80 card sets will set you back about 3 dollars today.  There were also 3 sub sets in the set itself.

My least favorite like I said above was the Sideline insert.

Here we have Robin Yount riding a dirt bike and it's probably the best of the lot.  Other subjects include John Burkett bowling and Bob Tewksbury drawing among others.  Kinda lame.

The shades sub set is alright, but kinda pointless.

Here's Daryl Strawberry .  Neat image in the reflection of the shades.

My favorite sub set is the Idols.

Here we have Ken Griffy Jr. and Ricky Henderson.  These I get and I really like the design.

Here's Jim Abbott and Nolan Ryan.

There are a few other interesting match ups. George Brett and Wade Boggs, Ozzie Smith and Chuck Knoblauch.

So you get 3 of these Team 2000's per jumbo pack but that's still not enough to possible get a full set, plus I had multiple doubles.  I really like the design and here we see the tasteful use of some foil on the cards.

The Backs.

Here are a few more.

Over all not too bad.  Nothing earth shattering. Fun to rip though.

2011 Allen and Ginter box break and review.

Well I controlled myself pretty well, not getting sucked into trying to chase a Score football set out of boredom.  And to be honest I didn't know if I wanted to try and get sucked into A & G again this year like I did last year, but I couldn't help it.  I had to pick up some 9 pocket pages the other day and it just so happens the store got their case of Allen and Ginter in.  So I decided why the heck not, at least one box.

So here we go.

The cards.  Seems a lot of people, or bloggers, don't really like the design.  I actually think it's alright. But it seems familiar, hmmmm oh yeah

I guess I can see where the hate for the design comes from.  I've heard lots of people, bloggers, express that this is probably one of the worst designs put out by Upper Deck ever. 

Here's the backs.

Here's my box topper.

The Hometown Heroes insert, got a bunch of these.

Highlight sketches. 

Black border mini parallels.

The Ascent of Man inserts.  I really like these. The illustration is just incredible.  And then on closer inspection I noticed something.

I'm not sure how all the other cards fit together.  If they all form one big picture or if there are multiple different scenes, but still beautiful.

Animals in Peril Mini's

Portraits of Penultimacy. Hey that looks like Mike Gellner from JD's Wildcardz. I think it is.  For those who don't know Penultimate means next to last, or second banana.  That seems kinda mean of Topps.

World's most Mysterious Figures.  D.B. Cooper you have a message.

Now onto my favorite mini set and insert.

I'm a big history buff and I love these type of cards I will definitely be trying to complete this set.

And Uninvited Guests.  I'm also a big fan of all those paranormal shows.  Sure they never seem to find anything, but...

No flower cards unfortunately, I guess there about 1 per case.  I was planning on actually planting my card to see if it would actually grow.  Oh well.

Now onto the hits.

My First WTF card this year.  I didn't know the Ray's played in plaid.  Maybe a look at the back will clarify.

Travel day memorabilia?? Really?  You know what that really means?  Street clothes!  Topps is now putting players street clothes in their relics!  This is an epic fail.  Luckily I found some better goodies.

Brennan Boesch 2 color relic. OK a little better.

Jose Reyes Silk card numbered to 10!!!! The Reyes and Boesch were actually in the same pack.  Interesting, I've heard of other people getting multi-hit packs as well.

But it gets better.  When I looked at the autograph checklist when it came out months ago there was only a couple auto's I really wanted. I would have loved to get a Pacquio or LaMotta auto, but this this is the one I really wanted.

Holy Crap True Believers!!!!!! 

Man I really really want to keep this card but it's hard when looked on Ebay and his blue autos are going for around 70 bucks, his card could more than pay for the box and maybe get me another one.  But I think I'm going to hold on to it.  And I'm probably done busting boxes of A&G. After this box I really couldn't see beating it unless I got a bat knob book or something like that. 

Over all I'm going to have to give this product a Lucy.  I've been reading a lot of box breaks on Blowout card forums and there have been some really dude boxes out there.  Ones with no autos.  So my impression is definitely skewed here with this awesome box.  But I'm still giving it a Lucy.

and I think some bulging eye's just for the Stan Lee.

cb out.

Edit:  I've been mulling it over and I have to give the Stan Lee card the highest review rating ever here on Collector's Crack.  While the earlier ratings still stand Mr. Lee gets atomic, oh yes, I think it's deserved.

If you read any 2011 Allen and Ginter post make it....

my next post.

I broke down and bought a box of A&G and yes I'm going to blog about it because actually it was a pretty good box, but I haven't scanned the images yet and I'm at work so I'll probably have it up later tonight or tomorrow  morning.  In the mean time check out my need lists here or over on the side bar.  I recently update and added my 1981 Topps needs to the list.  I'm close to finishing off my 2009 Upper Deck Baseball and a few others and any help is greatly appreciated.  And I most definitely will be collecting a few of the inserts from this years A&G. 

I've been checking out the box and case breaks over at the blowout cards forums and they range from awesome to WHAT A CASE WITH NO AUTOS!!!!  I'm happy to say that the box I got had an auto. So stay tuned.

cb out