Rainbow in the Dark 39: Neil Magny 2017 Topps Chrome

I haven't posted any UFC cards in over a month, so I thought I'd share a bit of a rainbow I worked on from 2017 Topps UFC Chrome. This is a product I liked a lot, and I opened several boxes of it. I also bought into a few group breaks for specific fighters and picked up quite a few cards on the secondary market.

One of the fighters I follow is Neil Magny. I like him because he fights frequently and is a pretty good all-rounder. He is also in the National Guard, which is something I identify with, as I will reach 18 years in the Army National Guard this month. I was able to gather most of Magny's cards from Chrome. I don't have scans of the base card or the base Refractor, but I have many, many copies of them both. This first one is the Diamond Refractor, which comes one per pack in a Hot Box, which falls one per case.

Next up is the X-fractor, which is a 1:24 pack pull, or one per box. Chrome is coming back for 2018, and I really should get some boxes on order. The release date is in mi-July for that.

The next tier of rarity is the Green Refractor, which is limited to 99 copies. The one I've scanned here is numbered  # 98 / 99. I think I've got a handful of these, but maybe only a couple.

Next up is the Blue Wave Refractor, which is limited to 75 copies apiece. This one is # 10 / 75. Around the time the 2018 set releases, the UFC will be coming to Boise for a Fight Night event. I am going to try to get tickets for that, as I've never been to a live UFC event. Two fighters whose cards I collect, Cat Zingano and Liz Carmouche, have already been announced for that card.

I love me some Gold parallels, and 2017 Chrome had them. This Magny Gold Refractor is numbered # 25 / 50.

The Orange Refractors are twice as rare as the Golds, with 25 copies printed of each card. My copy is  # 21 / 25. After the Orange Refractors come the Black Refractors, with a print run of only 10 copies apiece. I haven't found one for Magny yet, and for all I know they are all still sitting out there in packs somewhere. The Black Refractors can be easy to miss, because most of the cards have a dark background anyway. I pulled one in a box and almost missed it until I checked the back of the cards.

The Red Refractors are nearly indistinguishable from the Orange ones, except for the serial numbering on the back. My copy is # 3 / 5.

The Superfractor is the # 1 / 1 card that you really want from a Chrome product, but so far I have to settle for the Black Printing Plate. It would be nice to pick up the Superfractor and the other printing plates, but we'll see if they pop up for sale. With the low-numbered cards in a rainbow, you are at the mercy of the market. Someone has to pull the card and list it for sale, or you will never see it.

On the Heels of 23 Days of Pack Breaks, a Case Against Breaking Packs

I just completed posting about 23 days of pack-busting, based mostly on Cyber Week orders I made from Blowout Cards and Topps. I pulled some good cards from the break and I had a lot of fun opening so many different products, but I couldn't help thinking about the 'value' of busting boxes versus buying singles.

From a box of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome, you can expect to pull about half a base set, 8 basic Refractors, 3-4 Refractors with print runs from 75 to 99, and one Refractor parallel with a print run of 50 or less. You also get a fair number of inserts, and generally 1-2 serially-numbered inserts with print runs of 50 or 99. A box also promises two autographs, generally a base autograph and a numbered autograph, with the most common numbered autographs having a print run of 99. You also have an outside shot at getting something pretty cool, like an autograph with a very low print run or a rare Refractor or Superfractor of a star.

That led me to do a comparison based on some eBay purchases. A base set of UFC Chrome costs about $20, and so the half-set you'd find in a box will run you about $10. I got the following cards for about $10 less than the price of a box of Chrome, along with a couple fighter lots of base and inserts that I didn't bother to photograph.

First up are the horizontal cards. The two parallels at the top are Red parallels with print runs of 8. The Nurmagomedov, Schaub, and Condit parallels after that are all # / 88. Then I've got a Carla Esparza parallel # / 227 and a nice older Brock Lesnar base card. After that I've got a relic card of Carlos Condit and a base autograph of Jared Rosholt. With just these ten cards, I feel like I'm already approaching the average value of stuff I would pull from the typical box of Chrome. All I would really need is another autograph and a nice low-numbered parallel. I've still got four photos to go.

Those three Green Refractors at the top have print runs of 99, while the Orange row on the bottom are limited to 25 copies each. Esparza and Magny are fighters I collect. Shevchenko is a pretty good card, and I was mostly chasing low print runs with the bottom guys.

That Gold Smolka card is limited to 50 copies. The Blue Wave Esparza and Magny have 75 copies each. Then I've got a bunch of unnumbered stuff, like a Hot Box Refractor of Magny, an Xfractor of Holly Holm (seeded at the same rate as the Blue Wave # / 75 cards), a couple of base Refractors, and a handful of base cards represented by the Magny in the lower right. At this point I feel like I have blown way past the value to be expected from a box of Chrome, but there's more.

The three Cris Justino cards in the upper left are all Refractor versions of the inserts, limited to 99 copies. The extra sparkly one in the upper right is a Pulsar Refractor, limited to 50 copies. I would probably only get 1 or 2 of these in a given box of Chrome, and I got all four here. Justino is one of the more popular fighters in the product at the moment, given her relatively recent entry to the UFC and her dominance in her fights to date. I also have a couple of autographs from various products, as well as a couple of nice high-end relics of Nurmagomedov from 2017 Topps UFC Knockout.

Finally, I have another Red parallel, this time one limited to 25 copies from 2017 Topps UFC Knockout. I also have a Blue Justino # / 99 and a couple of Green # / 215 parallels. There are a few more numbered parallels along the bottom, as well as a die-cut Magny insert.

There are obviously reasons other than dollars and cents to open packs and boxes instead of buying singles, but I find that it sometimes helps me to do a little exercise like this to remind me that when comparing card collecting to real life, busting wax is more like a lottery ticket while buying singles is more like buying shares in an index fund. There is a chance that the lottery ticket will pay off big, but oftentimes the more boring option gives a better long-term return.

Cyber Week Breaks: Day 20 - Chrome, a Familiar Signature, and Shiny Football Cards

I've seen quite a few memes mentioning that if you're still not back at work, you're at the point where you don't really know what day it is. I am kind of at that point. Due to our schedule at work, I was able to take three days of leave and end up with ten days off in a row. Pretty good stuff, but I don't know how I will be able to go back after all this time off.

Today's is the last day in the Cyber Week Breaks that features all UFC cards, in the form of 8 packs of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome and another box of 2016 Topps UFC High Impact. I added some football cards from a 2017 Donruss Optic Football group break to the end, so there's something for folks who aren't fight fans.

The last batch of Chrome packs dropped more serial-numbered goodness on me, along with my final autograph. The Karolina Kowalkiewicz is a Green Refractor, numbered # 72 / 99. The Luke Rockhold insert is the Refractor version of his Top of the Class card, numbered # 77 / 99. The Johny Hendricks Gold Refractor is numbered # 39 / 50. The Rashad Evans autograph is a base version, so it doesn't get a number.

Hey, it's another Al Iaquinta autograph! At this point, I'd be pretty happy with literally any other signature out of a High Impact box. The Carla Esparza Femme Fighters insert is a double for me, but that's okay. I like the Bruce Buffer cameo in the background.

I bought into a case break of 2017 Donruss Optic Football. The teams I wound up with are the Broncos, the Falcons, and the Cardinals. There were a bunch of base cards in the package, but I only took pictures of some of the Prizm parallels. There are a couple of base designs up there, as well as a Gridiron Kings card of Devonta Freeman and a 1981 Tribute card of Julio Jones.

I did all right as far as serial-numbered cards and hits go. The card on the left is a Black Prizm parallel of Carlos Henderson's Rated Rookie autograph, numbered # 01 / 25. The middle card is another Carlos Henderson card, this time his Rookie Patch Autograph card, numbered # 01 / 20. The last Broncos card is a Blue Prizm parallel of Von Miller's Gridiron Kings card, numbered # 072 / 149.

I got a couple more Blue Prizm parallels for the Cardinals and Falcons, a Chad Williams from the base set and a Matt Ryan from the 1981 Tribute set. I also got a Haason Reddick autograph and a Gold Prizm parallel of Carson Palmer, which is a pretty good card. I think I just now realized that it's a Carson Palmer card and not a Kurt Warner card.

The Williams card is numbered # 082 / 149, and the Matt Ryan is numbered # 140 / 149. You can see the card backs here, although I didn't take a picture of the back of a Gridiron Kings card. The Reddick autograph isn't numbered. The Carson Palmer Gold Prizm is numbered # 07 / 10. 

I got some pretty decent cards in this break. I don't follow the NFL this year as closely as I have in other years. There has been a lot of drama in the league and the Broncos fell behind pretty early in the year, so I didn't have a lot of incentive to keep up. I don't even know if I watched a single game this season. I guess there is still time, but I have other things to do.

Cyber Week Breaks: Day 19 - R2-D2, Chrome Rondas, and Bowman's Best

For today's breaks, I opened the last 8 packs of Topps Star Wars: Jedi Legacy and 8 packs of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome. I also decided to post the results of a group break I was part of for some 2017 Bowman's Best. That will be down at the bottom.

The Jedi Legacy packs contained the second and last hit of the box, and it was a pretty good one. These Jabba the Hutt's Sail Barge relics only fall about 1:14 boxes, so they are some of the hardest hits in the product, surpassed only by relic cards containing fur from Chewbacca's costume. In 2015 I was able to land the Leia version of the sail barge relic, which was one of my grail cards. I am pretty happy with this as the second hit of the box. 

The UFC Chrome packs were pretty good this time around. I got a couple of Ronda Rousey cards, a Fire insert and a Green Refractor parallel. The Green Refractor is # 45 / 99. I pulled two other numbered cards out of these packs. One is the Pulsar Refractor parallel version of Georges St-Pierre's Fire insert card. That one is numbered # 10 / 50. The other is the first autograph out of this box, a Green Refractor autograph of Robbie Lawler. It is numbered # 87 / 99. Those are both pretty good cards. I think the Lawler card is the first sticker autograph I have out of Chrome. It's cool that he signed it with his nickname, Ruthless.

I got into a case break of 2017 Bowman's Best. I don't know if it was the smartest thing to do, but I did it. I wound up with the Mets and the Royals. I actually bid on the Royals spot before I looked at the checklist, and that made me panic a bit. They don't have much in the set at all. Here are some of the base cards and Refractors I got.

I also got a couple of Mets inserts. The Dean's List inserts give grades to each prospect, according to Baseball America. The Best Cuts insert rehashes a design from 1997, and the back lists a few of the player's awards or highlights.

The topsy-turvy Mirror Image inserts show two players who have similarities to each other, and are also a little headache-inducing to look at.

You may have noticed that all the cards shown so far feature Mets. The Royals really don't have much on this checklist, but the one Royals card I did pull in the break was the best one I got. This is a Best of 2017 Autographs Red Refractor parallel of Jorge Bonifacio. It's numbered # 09 / 10 and features an on-card autograph. Pretty cool stuff.

Cyber Week Breaks: Day 17 - Playing in the Snow

Today we went out to my dad's place to make use of the snow that fell over Christmas. He strapped some seats onto an old car hood, tied the hood to the four-wheeler, and pulled the kids around in the snow. They all had a great time, and didn't want to stop. Some of their cousins were there, and I got to see my sister who is home for the holidays from some Navy training. After sledding, drinking hot cocoa, and feeding the cows, we went out for pizza. It was a pretty good day all around.

Here are my boys, shortly after their first round of sledding and just as I was about to drop my phone in the snow.

Today's packs are the first 8 packs in the last box of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome, another pack of 2016 Topps UFC High Impact, and another pack of 2017 Topps UFC Knockout. Tomorrow kicks off two days in a row with Star Wars cards among the breaks, UFC won't be the only thing on tap for a little bit. In fact, out of the six remaining days of Cyber Week breaks, there is only one more all-UFC day.

We start off the Chrome box with two box hits, a Blue Wave Refractor of Frank Mir and an X-Fractor of Jessica Andrade. The Mir card is numbered # 02 / 75, while the Andrade card does not carry a serial number.

The High Impact box had an autograph of Andre Fili and a Femme Fighters insert of Valerie Letourneau. The Letourneau insert has a pretty deep dimple along the top edge, so I'm glad it was a double and not one of the cards I needed for the set.

The Knockout boxes keep on giving with another strong pack. This one held a Knockout Relic Green parallel of Cody Garbrandt, numbered # 31 / 50. The second hit in the pack was a Knockout Autograph Relic of Paige VanZant. It's just the base version, but even her base card from this insert set is really short-printed, with this one being numbered # 20 / 35. This wasn't a bad pair of pulls, with some relatively low-numbered cards of a couple younger stars in the UFC.

Cyber Week Breaks: Day 16 - Christmas Packs

There's not really much about today's packs that makes them fit the holiday, but today is Christmas and that makes these Christmas packs. I didn't get any cards for Christmas, but I was kind of expecting that because this Cyber Week order was pretty huge.

Two of my boys went to sleep pretty early on Christmas Eve, but the other one couldn't sleep because he was too excited about Santa's imminent arrival. Then he couldn't sleep because he was stressed out that if he didn't sleep, maybe Santa would skip our house. He finally nodded off, though, and Santa dropped off plenty of gifts. I was especially proud of my sons for their gift-giving this year. We took them to the LEGO Bricks & Minifigs store this week, and they all thoughtfully picked out gifts for each other. Then this morning they were all gracious in receiving those gifts, even though they weren't the big-ticket items under the tree. Sometimes it's hard to tell if the lessons we're teaching them are getting through, but days like today give me hope for them.

Today's breaks are 2 packs of 2015 Topps UFC Chronicles and 8 packs of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome. I decided to add another pack of 2017 Topps UFC Knockout to the break as well, because it's Christmas and a Christmas break deserves some hits. 

The Chronicles packs featured a handful of parallels and another buyback. None of them are extremely exciting to me. The Gold is # / 88, the Black & White is # / 188, and the Green is # / 288. I have toyed with the idea of building a complete set of the Black & White cards before, but the checklist is huge and it would take a lot of effort to do it.

Here is the non-horizontal parallel I pulled from the packs. It's a Green # / 288. Again, Jared Rosholt isn't really a guy I collect, so this card doesn't do a whole lot for me.

The Topps Chrome packs yielded a couple of box hits. Both the Blue Wave Refractors and X-Fractors are seeded one per box, but only the Blue Wave Refractors are numbered. The Jessica Aguilar card is # 49 / 75.

The Knockout pack was pretty good. The first hit was this Demian Maia Tier One relic card. This is the base version of his card, numbered # 07 / 99. He's a pretty popular fighter who has been around for a long time and won a lot of bouts.

The second hit in the pack would have been even bigger a couple of years ago, before he got over-matched by Mickey Gall, but this Red autograph parallel card of CM Punk is still a pretty good pull. These Red cards are pretty rare, and this one is numbered # 06 / 10.

Cyber Week Breaks: Day 14 - Baseball Hits, a Green Cyborg, and a Wrestling Mail Day

Today's breaks went pretty well, as I opened 3 packs from my 2012 Topps Series 2 jumbo box and 8 packs of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome. I also got a couple of autographed pictures in the mail from a wrestler, so I'll show those off at the end of the post.

I got two of the three hits from the jumbo box in this batch of packs. First up is this Golden Moments autograph of Jarrod Parker. He had a couple of good years for the Athletics in 2012 and 2013, but then injuries and surgeries kind of knocked him out of the loop. It looks like he pitched a bit in the minors in 2015, but that's about it. I don't know what he's up to now.

The second hit of this batch was a manufactured Team Rings relic card featuring Pirates great Roberto Clemente. Manufactured relics aren't really my thing, but this is a nice-enough card as far as looks go. It is thick and heavy enough that you could probably carry is as a self-defense bludgeon.

The UFC Chrome packs I opened were pretty good to me, dropping several serially-numbered cards on me. The first is this Green Mirko Cro Cop Refractor, numbered # 94 / 99. Colorful Refractors are still fun, even after many years of Topps using the same formula for Chrome parallels.

Next up is the Refractor version of Tyron Woodley's Tier One insert. This shiny card is numbered # 91 / 99. I think the inserts in this product are pretty nice for the most part, and the Refractors are even better.

Slotting in between the Refractor inserts and the Superfractors are the Pulsar Refractors, like this Arianny Celeste Top of the Class card. This is a nice, shiny card, and features one of the more popular subjects featured on UFC cardboard. This one is numbered # 04 / 50.

Closing things out with another Green parallel, here's a Green Refractor autograph of Cris 'Cyborg' Justino. She is an absolute juggernaut, and she'll be fighting Holly Holm pretty soon. I was pretty happy to pull this card, as Cyborg hasn't been in the UFC all that long and her cards are riding high on the wave of novelty. It is cool that the UFC is opening up more weight divisions for women, so that more fighters have the opportunity to fight at reasonable weights.

I got a couple of autographed photos in the mail today from Jazzy 'Alpha Female' Gabert, who is a wrestler/MMA fighter out of Germany. I've written before about collecting some of her Japanese trading cards from her tours with the Stardom wrestling promotion, but lamented that the product didn't feature her autographs. I reached out on Facebook and purchased a couple of her photos directly. She signed them, along with some motivational inscriptions. The one on the left says, "Believe in yourself and in your dreams," and the one on the right reads, "Today you are a FIGHTER, tomorrow you are a WINNER! #BeAlpha" Pretty cool stuff. She was pretty popular during the WWE's Mae West Classic tournament, and there seems to be a decent number of people clamoring for her to get a contract with NXT or WWE. I don't know if that will happen, but it would be cool if it did. I wouldn't mind getting a few Topps cards with her on them.

That's all for today. We finally got our tree set up and our gifts wrapped under it, so I guess we're ready for Christmas now. The kids are pretty excited, which is fun to see.