Cyber Week Breaks: Day 23 - Spoiler-Free Star Wars

Today marks the end of my Cyber Week Breaks. It's been a lot of fun, and I got some cool cards out of it. This evening after work, I went to see Star Wars: The Last Jedi with my eldest son. I thought it was pretty good. There are a couple of characters who I'll need to track autographs down for when I get a chance. Today's breaks include the last pack in my 2016 Topps Star Wars Masterwork box and my last box of 2016 Topps UFC High Impact.

Here are the base and parallels from the Star Wars Masterwork pack. Nothing too crazy here. Supreme Leader Snoke represents the newest films, while Greedo and Wicket come from the original trilogy.

Between the two trilogies falls the Great Rivalry of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Maul. That's the base Great Rivalries insert card for them. After three autographs, my last hit in the box is a medallion. At least it features Leia, a character I've got a pretty bog collection for. It's the base medallion, so there aren't any serial numbers or anything. Kind of a ho-hum way to close out the box, but that's kind of what you have to expect from these things.

Closing out the break is a Valerie Letourneau Femme Fighters insert and a Jared Rosholt autograph. The Letourneau is a double from the break, but doesn't have the damage that the first one did. The Rosholt is new to my collection. At this point in the break, getting a new autograph is good enough for me.

Those were the last two packs in my Cyber Week Break. I guess it's not too bad that they got me through 23 days of posts. I know some bloggers can stretch just one box of cards out that far, but I don't have that kind of control. Even making these breaks last this long was a chore for me.

Cyber Week Breaks: Day 18 - Lounging Around

I still haven't seen the new Star Wars movie, but at least I have Star Wars cards to open and look at. I feel like a bad fan, but I just have a hard time getting out of the house to see a movie. Maybe I'll try to go next Tuesday after work, when they have the $5.00 tickets. Other than that, today has been a pretty lazy day for me. I did some cleaning and some napping, and that's about it. Today's break is a pack of 2016 Topps Star Wars Masterwork and a pack of 2016 Topps UFC High Impact.

Here are the base and inserts from the Star Wars pack. I got some pretty decent base cards in here, with Luke Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, and a Blue parallel of C-3PO. The Momaw Nadon card is an Alien Identification Guide insert, and my copy is a Canvas parallel, numbered # 64 / 99.

My hit from the box is another autograph, this time a Rainbow Foil parallel of Keisha Castle-Hughes as Queen Apallana, numbered # 44 / 50. She didn't actually sign any base autographs for the set, so this is her most numerous card in the autograph set. I don't recognize her as an actress, but she's apparently been nominated for or won quite a few awards.

I got a decent Femme Fighters insert out of the High Impact box, but then I pulled yet another Al Iaquinta autograph. That's the 4th one from this break. It would be really nice to have a little more variety in my High Impact autograph pulls. I wonder if this will be the last one, or if I still have a couple more tucked away in the remaining 3 packs?

Cyber Week Breaks: Day 12 - Star Wars Masterwork and UFC Chrome

I didn't post yesterday. I was busy (taking a nap) and didn't feel like posting. Today's packs were a mini-box of 2016 Topps Star Wars Masterwork and 8 packs of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome. Pretty fun stuff. Let's see what the pulls were.

Here are the base cards from the Masterwork pack. BB-8 is a fun one to get. That Mace Windu is pretty cool, too. It's a Blue parallel, which as far as I know without looking it up is the most common parallel.

I also got a Great Rivalries insert, highlighting Finn's battle with FN-2199. This box also had a base autograph in it, an on-card signature of Rocky Marshall as Colonel Datoo in The Force Awakens. The base cards in this one were pretty good, and the insert was okay. The autograph was all right, and certainly better than a manufactured relic.

Not a lot came out of this batch of UFC Chrome. There was a John Lineker Gold parallel, numbered # 43 / 50, and a base autograph of Eddie Alvarez. Not too bad. I like all the colorful Refractors I've been pulling out of this product.

That's about it for today. Since I got a couple of autographs and whatnot in this break, I skipped out on busting a pack of 2017 Topps UFC Knockout. I figure there will be posts later that might need the boost more.

Cyber Week Breaks: Arrival and Day 1

My big order from Blowout Cards arrived today, with a whole bunch of fun stuff for me to break over the next few weeks. I am really tempted to just start ripping it all open now, but this was a pretty big order and I want to make it last longer to stretch out the anticipation and entertainment value of my dollar.

Here is a picture of the order. I've got 13 boxes of 2015 Topps UFC High Impact, 4 boxes of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome, 1 box of 2016 Topps Star Wars Masterwork, 1 box of Topps Star Wars: Jedi Legacy, 1 box of 2015 Topps UFC Chronicles, 1 Jumbo Box of 2012 Topps Series 2, 1 box of 2017 Topps High Tek Baseball, 1 box of 2016 Panini National Treasures Racing, and 1 box of 2016 Panini Certified Racing. I also have 2 boxes of 2017 Topps UFC Knockout on the way from Topps and a box of Cryptozoic DC Bombshells on the way from eBay that I'll add to this pile when they get here.

I divided all of the stuff into lots for each day's breaks, but since today is the first day I made the break a little bigger than the others. I've got a Jumbo pack of 2012 Topps Series 2, two packs of 2016 Panini Certified Racing, a box of 2016 Topps UFC High Impact, a pack of 2016 Topps Star Wars Masterwork, and 8 packs of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome. I'll probably just be scanning the highlights rather than going through and scanning everything.

The baseball pack didn't offer much in the way of highlights, so this Ken Griffey Jr. 1987 mini insert is the representative from the pack. 2012 Topps Baseball has some of the uglier inserts out there, and I mostly bought the box 1) because I felt weird making a big order without much baseball representation and 2) to chase a Bryce Harper rookie card.

The serial-numbered insert from the Panini Certified packs was this die-cut Famed Rides card of Richard Petty's car. I've never been much of a Richard Petty fan, but he's pretty famous and had a lot of success in racing. This one is numbered # 065 / 199.

The other pack of Certified had this Kurt Busch autograph in it. This is the base version of his Certified Signatures card, and my copy is numbered # 038 / 139. I've actually been toying with the idea of collecting the Busch brothers now that most of my favorite drivers have retired, but I haven't quite talked myself into it yet. This would make a good start to a Kurt Busch collection. It's a sticker auto, but he has a pretty nice-looking signature.

The Topps UFC High Impact box promises one autograph, and this Joe Lauzon card was it. It is odd to me that the back of the card says it's a 2015 card, but the boxes call it a 2016 product. I guess maybe there was a delay in the release or something. Joe Lauzon autographs have a bit of a reputation for being set fillers, and I think I've probably got at least one of these already.

Each box of High Impact also promises a Femme Fighters insert. I am trying to complete the set, and I only need four more cards. Ronda Rousey isn't one of the ones I needed, but it is one of the better cards to get doubles of. My other copy is currently on the way from the COMC order I had shipped during the free shipping promotion.

I scanned everything from the Masterwork pack. The Count Doku and R2-D2 cards are base cards. The TIE Fighter Pilot is a Silver parallel, and the Yoda card is a Rainbow Foil parallel from the Force Display insert set. The TIE Fighter Pilot is numbered # 36 / 99, and the Yoda is numbered # 123 / 299.

The promised hit in the pack was this base autograph of Matthew Wood as General Grievous. I don't know what else to say about it. It's a Star Wars autograph that I didn't have yet, but it's not exactly what you dream of pulling from a pack of Masterwork. I've still got three more packs to go, though, although at least one of them is going to hold a manufactured medallion relic.

The UFC Chrome packs didn't have any of the two hits from the box in them, but I did find three serial-numbered cards. This Blue Wave Refractor of Stephen Thompson is the first. I think these fall one per box, and they are numbered # / 75. This one is # 20 / 75.

The other two big pulls were Refractors from insert sets. This Joanna Jędrzejczyk comes from the Fire insert, and is numbered # 89 / 99. I thought this was a pretty decent pull.

The next Refractor was this Museum Collection parallel of Dominick Cruz. I'm not a huge Cruz fan, but he's still one of the bigger names in the sport. Even without pulling a hit, I still feel like UFC Chrome is a fun product to break. The autograph checklist isn't all that strong, but I still feel like you get a decent amount of fun stuff for your dollar. I didn't scan any of the other inserts or base Refractors I pulled, and this was just 1/3 of a box. I thought about ordering a half case or full case of the stuff, but I wanted to leave room in the order for a little more variety in my break.

So that's Day 1 of the breaks. I have my spreadsheet broken out into about 25 days of stuff to open, so there will be plenty more. Tomorrow is one of the bigger days, as I'll be tearing into that box of National Treasures Racing.

A Postal Relic from a Galaxy Far, Far Away

I disappeared for a few days there. It was unintentional, but I just didn't get around to posting. Wednesday was my birthday, but it was also the day before I left the office for a while, so I stayed a little late and tried to get some things caught up. My dad stopped by my office and dropped off a birthday card. My family had steak for dinner and my wife and kids sang to me.

Thursday was Thanksgiving. Three of my sisters live in the same town as me, and my other sister drove out with her family, so we got five of us together with my mom and assorted spouses and children for dinner. I think we had 10 adults and fifteen kids in attendance. My little brother couldn't make it down from college to be with us, but I guess five out of six isn't bad. We dressed in matching attire that was appropriate for the holiday.

Friday I had some cleaning up and some packing to do, and I also had some Black Friday deals that I wanted to check up on. I wound up spending a little more than I planned on (one order from Blowout Cards, a couple of sketch commissions, a board game expansion, something for my kids, a COMC order, some Japanese wrestling cards), but I wound up deciding not to buy quite a few things, too. A couple of those decisions not to buy were pretty painful, but in the end there isn't anything that I can't buy later if I really really need it.

Saturday was my day to do all the packing I didn't get around to on Friday, and on Sunday I got in my car to make the several-hour drive to Utah for some work training I've got to do. On the way down, I stopped to see my grandparents for a couple of hours. At some point in the journey I had a headlight go out, so visibility got pretty sketchy for the last little bit. I got to my lodging site just ahead of a snowstorm, and by Monday morning everything was covered in several inches of nasty, slippery snow. My room is just a few minutes from the classroom, so I was able to make it to class on time (after sliding most of the way off the road to avoid a collision and missing a turn because my car just wouldn't go that direction). Several of my classmates were quite late and class started late, which made for a very long day. After class I tracked down a new bulb for my headlight and spent about thirty minutes swearing in the parking lot as I tried to contort my hand into a position that would allow the bulb to clip in. Eventually I got it all put together and headed back to my room, passing a couple of nasty wrecks along the way. I hope the weather improves from here on out, although I am grateful that the snow waited at least until I got here.

When last year's Topps Star Wars Masterwork set came out, one of the cooler inserts was the Stamp Relic cards. I never was able to track down the Leia one, but I did manage to get the Luke Skywalker card. This year I hunted down the Leia version. I actually missed out on the base # / 249 version, but a couple hours later I got this Silver # 14 / 50 card for the same price I had bid on the base. I can't complain too much about that. This year's version looks a little better than the previous set, as it features a photograph on front in addition to the stamp. All of last year's cards just had the stamp on them, if I am remembering correctly. The other difference is that last year's cards used USA stamps, while this year's cards use Royal Mail stamps.

The card backs aren't much to look at, but who looks at card backs these days, anyway? I'm glad I was able to add this card to my collection from the 2016 Topps Star Wars Masterwork set. One of the things I didn't quite pull the trigger on for Black Friday was a box of this product. It sure is tempting, but even at the sale price it's a pretty spendy gamble.