18 March 2024

A Couple Blaster Boxes of 2024 Topps Series 1 Baseball

I've opened a couple of 2024 Topps Series 1 Baseball blaster boxes over the last few weeks. I figured I'd hit the highlights from them in one post rather than trying to squeeze two posts out of a couple blasters.

 
My official first card of 2024 Topps was...Spencer Torkelson. I really like the design of this set. The colorful foil really pops in the right light, and I think most of the elements are well-placed and easy to read. I'm sure the graphic designers of the world could pick it apart, but to a layman like me it's a fun set design, and that's all I really want from a baseball card set.


The backs are fine, with plenty of information and stats. I can't find anything to complain about with the card backs.

This photo is kind of washed-out, but it's a selection of some of my favorite horizontal cards from the selection I had on-hand. I had to include the Miguel Cabrera farewell card, along with a couple of young stars in Corbin Carroll and Bobby Witt Jr.


And here are some of the vertical cards I pulled from my blasters. I had to get a couple of Astros in this post, Chas McCormick with a nice action photo and Hunter Brown to show the Future Stars design. I figured the Jasson Dominguez and Julio Rodriguez cards probably warranted posting as well.


I got a handful of these shiny blue holiday parallels. Nothing that lit my collection on fire, but here they are. This is a parallel I could see myself trying to build a set of if card prices were at 2014 levels rather than 2024 price points.


I got one Rainbow Foil card and one Easter Egg parallel across the two blasters. I guess the season-themed parallels are pretty fun as opposed to the standard different border colors of most years.


The first blaster yielded this /999 Blue Sparkle Angels team card. This is another set that would be considered for a set build at 2014 prices and print runs. It would have been achievable then. Now, not so much.


This flowery Jhoan Duran parallel is /50 and came out of the second blaster I opened. I doubt that most blasters drop a numbered card, but I got lucky and pulled one from each of the blasters I opened.


Stars of MLB is the most common insert in the boxes. I pulled quite a few of them, and these are the four best by my reckoning. I'm always happy to add another Yordan Alvarez card to my collection.


Each blaster box also dropped one Stars of MLB Chrome card. These are the two I got. Corbin Carroll is a pretty good pull, I suppose, although his card doesn't qualify for the coveted RC shield this year.


These 1989 Topps throwbacks are pretty cool, and I got a couple of good players from them, with Nolan Ryan in an Astros uniform and Bo Jackson running hard. 1989 Topps is one of the first sets I remember from my youth, so the design hits the nostalgia button for me.


I got a mix of other inserts from the set in my boxes. I reckon the Shohei Ohtani and Ichiro cards are my favorites here. The Mike Schmidt photo is pretty cool, too, with the old-school uniform on display.


Finally, I got a couple of Home Run Challenge cards. I typically don't scratch the codes and play the game of trying to pick a home run date for the players, but maybe I'd consider it if I pulled doubles of a card.

That does it for a quick rundown of 2024 Topps Series One Baseball. It marks the official start of the 2024 baseball year for many collectors, and I think Topps did a good job of designing the cards for this year. I probably won't open a ton of this stuff, as I prefer to just buy a factory set and grab an Update set on eBay each year, but I could see myself sampling a bit of basic Topps this year when I find it on the shelves at retail.

17 March 2024

A Second Box of 2023 Panini Chronicles Racing

I mentioned in my last post that I'd opened a couple boxes of 2023 Panini Chronicles Racing. It's probably my favorite racing product to open because of the variety of designs and the checklist's focus on stars and rookies. I always know I'm going to pull something for my collection.


Here are four of the base designs that I liked from the box. Danica Patrick has long been the most numerous racer in my collection, and Brittney Zamora has been my non-retired collection focus for the last couple of years. Luckily they both make appearances in most products, so I always have new cards to chase.


These are four more of the base designs. I haven't counted the base designs yet, but there are quite a few Panini brands represented in the checklist. Thunder and Luminance are a couple of my favorites. Luminance has a very Stadium Club feel to it.

 

In addition to a lot of base designs and plenty of hits per box, this product also drops a lot of parallels on you. The basic parallel in Hobby boxes is the Blue /199. It's a good-looking color. Pulling a couple of Hailie Deegan Blues in this box was pretty good. She's one of the better sellers in the current crop of young racers.


My Immaculate pulls were both pretty low-numbered, with an /25 and an /51. I assume that all of the Immaculate cards are serially-numbered, based on my small sample size. The big names came in the Red parallels for me, with a Jimmie Johnson /99 and a clear Kevin Harvick /100.


Each box promises four hits, but I pulled five in each of my two boxes. Not sure if that's typical of the print run, or if I just got lucky. I pulled three autos and two relics per box, although Panini stopped guaranteeing a certain number of autographs this year. I pulled a basic tire relic of Tanner Gray and a triple relic of Austin Cindric.


The Chase Briscoe autograph here is actually an /10 Gold parallel, so it's the lowest-numbered card in my Chronicles break. I would argue that the Kevin Harvick Immaculate auto-relic is actually the hit of the break, though. It's a nice-looking card of a guy I kind of collect.

That does it for this break of 2023 Panini Chronicles Racing. It's a fun product with a lot of variety. Again, it's probably my favorite racing product to open because the checklist is full of good drivers and there is so much different stuff you can pull.

11 March 2024

A Hobby Box of 2023 Panini Chronicles Racing

I really like Panini Chronicles Racing, probably because of the sheer variety of cards you can find in every box. I usually don't get lucky and pull huge hits of big-name drivers, but there's usually a smattering of stuff that fits into my various collecting interests. It's hard (for me) to have a bad break of Chronicles Racing, as there's typically something interesting in there. That all being said, I opened up a couple boxes of 2023 Panini Chronicles Racing recently. Here are some of the cards from the first box.


Technically I guess there is a Chronicles base set design and everything else is considered an insert, but I tend to think of the whole product outside of parallels and hits as one big conglomerate set. I took pictures of some of the sets designs I like, and some cards of drivers I collect. Some standouts for me this year were the Luminance and Thunder designs.


Here are a few more designs featuring drivers I collect. I especially like the Overdrive cards. They remind me of 90's Topps Chrome.


There were plenty of parallels in both boxes I opened. Most were of the /199 Blue variety. Nothing here really fits my collection, but I do like the look of the Blue parallels. The John Hunter Nemechek Pedal to the Metal card is especially eye-catching.


Every box has 2 Immaculate cards in it, which I guess replaces Spectra as the thick cardstock special set in the product. All the ones I pulled had serial numbering, but I don't know if that's true of all of them or if I am just lucky. I also got a Martin Truex Jr. card /99 and a clear acetate Richard Petty /100.


The lowest-numbered card in the box was this Lawless Alan /25. I've never heard of Lawless Alan, but he's got a great trading card name.


The box promises 4 hits, but I got 5 in each of my boxes. It used to be 3 autographs and 1 relic per box, but they did away with the guarantees this year. I still got 3 autographs per box, but I also got 2 relics per box. It's nice to get bonus hits, but I don't know if that happens across the print run. I guess the Chase Elliott Recon relic here is my favorite hit card from the box.


As I mentioned, there were three autographs in the box. The Spencer Boyd is /49, but I think the Chris Buescher Contenders auto is my favorite of the group.

That does it for my first Hobby box of 2023 Panini Chronicles Racing. Overall this is a fun break that pays off in variety and has a rather narrow checklist of stars and rookies, so you're likely to pull something you like if you're a fan of racing.

10 March 2024

Reading Leads to a New Player Collection

I recently read Jim Bouton's baseball book, Ball Four, and of course reading about his baseball career got me thinking about baseball cards. The book itself was pretty interesting. I wonder how members of the baseball establishment felt about his revelations, and I also wonder how his wife felt about some of the things he wrote about. It's probably a good thing that he wrote it as his career was winding down, as I imagine him writing about the behind-the-scenes stuff that goes on in the clubhouse and hotels was frowned on a little bit.


Naturally I wondered whether Bouton had any baseball cards, and if so, how many are there? It turns out his basic player set in PSA numbers only 7 cards, with only his rookie card pulling relatively large money. I decided to see about grabbing all 7 over time in PSA-graded form. As can be seen by this PSA 4 example of his first solo card, I am not chasing the best set possible, just examples of the cards in PSA holders.


Here is the back of the 1963 Topps card, for completeness' sake. I generally don't collect cards of Yankees, but I'll make an exception in this case.
 


I also got his 1968 card, the last one in the run, in PSA 8 form. When buying graded cards I do a little bit of value analysis to compare what's available versus the asking price for each grade. Sometimes there are bargains to be had, especially if one is willing to venture outside of the premium 9 and 10 grades. I am just happy to get the cards, so I am willing to shop around for the best value I can find among the lower grades. Sometimes it's an 8 and sometimes it's a 4, but I am having fun chasing the set.

05 March 2024

Michael Brantley Tier One Autograph

I mentioned a couple of months ago that I'd foregone buying the Astros spot in a Topps Tier One group break and instead devoted the money that would have been spent to purchasing singles from the set. Specifically I grabbed autograph and relic cards of slugger Yordan Alvarez. I still had some money left over, and I decided to see if I could add anything else from the set to my collection while staying under budget.


What I came up with was a Michael Brantley Prime Performers autograph. The first one I ordered never arrived, so eventually I opened a case on eBay and got my money back. Then I found another one for about the same price and ordered that one, and it arrived as scheduled. I don't believe I had a Brantley autograph in my collection yet, so this fills a nice hole in my collection, as Brantley was a key member of the team for a few years, although injuries robbed him of a lot of time on the field.

04 March 2024

The Other Half of a Blaster Case of 2021 Panini Chronicles Racing

I'm back with the second half of a blaster case of 2021 Panini Chronicles Racing. I talked about the base cards in the last post, so I'll forego that discussion and get right to the hits and parallels.


This half of the case game me a ton of numbered Spectra inserts. The top row are numbered /99 and the bottom row are numbered /49. Brittney Zamora and Danica Patrick are two racers I collect specifically, so it was nice to pull so many of their cards in this bunch. The Brittney Zamora parallels are both nickname variations.


The William Byron Pinnacle parallel here is numbered /99 and the Austin Dillon Obsidian card is the lowest-numbered card in the whole break, at /25. The Obsidian parallels can be hard to spot, but the pink foil gives this one away.


Chase Elliott features on this Blue Pedal to the Metal insert parallel, the last numbered parallel in this half of the break.


Similar to the last post, most of the relics and autos don't really fit into my specific collecting interests. I guess my favorite card here is the John Hunter Nemechek relic. Chronicles Swatches are the basic relic you're going to find in most Chronicles blasters.


I've still got three pictures to go here and I've pretty much run out of things to say. All of the stuff that fits into my collection happened in the first photo. I guess maybe the several-year layoff has given me a bit of blogging rust.


I guess the Kevin Harvick card here is my favorite of the bunch of dual relics. It's kind of a boring card, though, as the black firesuit and tire swatches blend into the background of the card.


Just like in the last half of the case, this half produced 8 relics and 2 autographs. The autographs in this batch are Matt DiBenedetto and Sheldon Creed.

Overall this was a fun break, but probably not worth the price of admission. I'd argue that busting packs, especially retail packs, is a sucker's game on most days. You really are better off buying singles and sets on the secondary market, although that is much less fun than rolling the dice on ripping packs.

03 March 2024

Half a Blaster Case of 2021 Panini Chronicles Racing

I mentioned a while ago that I ordered a couple of blaster box cases as part of a big card order from Blowout Cards. The first I already showed off, a case of 2018 Donruss Racing. The other case was 2021 Panini Chronicles Racing. A blaster case is 20 boxes, so this post will cover the first 10 blasters.

 
By my count, there are 17 different base designs in the Chronicles set. It makes for a lot of sorting. Technically I think the Chronicles are the base set and the rest are inserts, but either way there are 17 different designs. I got nearly complete sets of most of the 20-cards checklists, and partial sets of the bigger checklists. Scattered throughout are Green retail-exclusive parallels. This is a stars and rookies product, so the big chase is whoever your favorite driver is, as long as they are a star or rookie.


Blue parallels are /199 and cover most of the base designs. I pulled Ryan Blaney, Austin Cindric, and Kyle Weatherman. Not much else to say about these, as none of them really fit into my collection.


This Tyler Reddick Spectra parallel is numbered /99. Spectra is one of the bigger checklists in the product, so I didn't come close to completing it. There are parallels and nickname variations as well, which make it even harder to complete.


I was happy to pull a numbered Dale Earnhardt Jr. card, as he is one of the drivers I collect. Even better is that he is featured in his National Guard branding. I spent 20 years with the National Guard and retired last year, so I like this particular branding scheme.


The Jet Black Materials and Newly Minted relic sets feature multiple swatches per card. The Austin Dillon card has firesuit and tire, while the Paul Menard adds sheet metal to the mix.


Status Swatches are one of the basic relics you'll pull from this product. I wouldn't say I collect Ryan Newman, but I've gathered a handful of his cards over the years. With this being a 2021 product, many of the photos of current drivers feature masks prominently.


Chronicles Swatches are the basic hit you find in blasters. I pulled Ryan Preece, Erik Jones, and Aric Almirola. Two tires and one firesuit relic. Again, not much among the hits that fits into my collection specifically, although I cast a pretty wide net when it comes to collecting.


Each lot of 10 blasters gave up two autographs, with this half of the case yielding Michael Waltrip and Anthony Alfredo. Again, not anything that fits into my collection specifically, but nice to add a couple of names to my collection that I don't think I had autographs for yet.

That does it for the first 10 boxes of the case. As far as my collection goes, the best cards were probably the Dale Earnhardt Jr. parallel /99 and some of the Green retail parallels of various drivers I collect.