Pack of the Day 188: Two Collector Boxes of 2018 Topps Fire

I was in Target the other day, and I saw that they had Collector Boxes of the new Target-exclusive 2018 Topps Fire Baseball on the shelf. I had to give it a try.

Each box has 20 packs with 6 cards per pack. There are 2 hits promised per box, with one of those hits guaranteed to be an autograph. The store had 3 boxes on the shelf. I bought one, then went back a couple of days later and saw that one was still left, so I bought it, too.

Here are the pack odds and NPN information from the box. There are several tiers of parallel, 6 different insert sets, and a number of autograph and relic sets.

The pack design mimics the box design, with Kris Bryant being chosen as the cover boy for this product.

The base cards are certainly colorful. There are 200 cards in the base set, with a mix of stars, rookies, and retired players. In the first box I pulled 99 / 200 base cards, and in the second box I pulled 96 / 200 base cards. Even with perfect collation, you're not going to get a full base set out of two boxes.

While I did not get doubles within either of the boxes, nearly every base card in the second box was a duplicate from the first box, so now I've got 102 / 200 in the base set and a whole lot of doubles. That was kind of disappointing.

There are a number of parallels in the set. My first box yielded 8 parallels. The most common are the Flame parallels, falling at 1:4 packs. They are not numbered. The Billy Hamilton and Miguel Andujar cards are Orange parallels, which are numbered # / 299 and fall 1:13 packs. The Victor Arano card comes from the Green parallel set, numbered # / 199 and falling 1:19 packs.

The second box game me 9 parallels, with five Flame parallels, Orange # / 299 parallels of Bob Feller and Cody Bellinger, a Green # / 199 parallel of Noah Syndergaard, and a Purple parallel of Ralph Kiner. The Purple parallels are numbered # / 99 and fall 1:39 packs.

The Cannons insert highlights players with strong arms. Most of the inserts in the product are seeded 1:14 packs, so you'll get either one or two from each insert in each box.

Fired Up features players who are stars. It's a pretty colorful set. If you like Yankees, this product is good for you. Most teams have 20-30 names on the total checklist, but the Yankees have 39 cards in the checklist. The only other team with more than 30 is the Cardinals at 32. The Blue Jays and Rangers bring up the rear, with 3 and 5 mentions in the checklist respectively. Other teams with less than 10 cards in the checklist are the Brewers and Padres, with 9 each. 

Flamethrowers features (mostly) pitchers who are known for throwing the ball hard. The back of the card lists the pitcher's average fastball velocity. Chapman and Syndergaard have appropriately gaudy numbers, but I don't know if Greinke's 91 mph heat really moves the needle here.

Hot Starts inserts feature players who had a good start to the 2018 season.

These cards are called Golden Sledgehammer on the packaging, but the card numbers have a 'PP' prefix and the checklist on Cardboard Connection lists this insert as being called Power Producers. Either way, this set shows off players who hit the ball hard.

The last insert is Speed Demons, a checklist full of players who are known for being fast. Billy Hamilton shows up here, along with guys like Elvis Andrus, Jose Altuve, and Dee Gordon.

The first hit from my first box was a basic relic card of Dominic Smith. He hasn't exactly been setting the league on fire.

The second hit of the box was more impressive, a dual autograph of Oakland's Matt duo, Olson and Chapman. Between the two of them, they've got 10.6 WAR so far in 2018. The card is numbered # 07 / 20, and dual autographs fall 1:4,559 packs, or once every 228 boxes.

The first hit out of the second box was a base autograph of Paul Blackburn, another Oakland player. He's on the 60-day DL with elbow trouble, so he's not quite having the season he'd like to have. Base autographs are a 1:29 pack pull.

The second hit of the box was another tough pull, and a bonus autograph to boot. It's a Fire Autograph Patch card of Royals catcher Salvador Perez. He's been injured recently, but is still having a decent year, and has been on the All-Star squad for 6 straight seasons. This card is numbered # 09 / 25, and these are a 1:518 pack pull, or once in every 26 boxes.

Outside of all the base doubles, these were a pretty fun break. I feel like you get a decent value in a box for your money, compared to products at a similar price point. The card design is fun, and there are plenty of shiny parallels and inserts.

March Loot Locker

I ordered another Loot Locker in March. Just like in February, I ordered the Triple Play Locker, with a little extra stuff compared to the basic All-Star Locker. In addition to baseball lockers, they offer basketball, football, and hockey lockers. The draw with Loot Locker over a repack box is that all of the packs in Loot Lockers are from Hobby boxes. For people who don't have a local card shop, or people whose local card shop isn't all it could be, this is a decent alternative to a monthly card store trip to pick up a handful of packs and supplies.

The cards ship in a 400-count box, so even the packaging is useful to a card collector.

You get a couple pieces of candy, as well as some top loaders and penny sleeves.

This month's packs included 2 each of 2017 Panini Optic, 2018 Panini Donruss, and 2018 Topps Gypsy Queen. According to my calculations, my February Locker included $28.64 in packs. My method is just to take the box prices from a major card retailer's site, divide them by the number of packs in a box, and multiply by the number of packs in the Locker. Let's see what I counted up for this month's packs:

2017 Panini Optic: $89.95 / 20 = $4.50 x 2 = $9.00

2018 Panini Donruss: $87.95 / 24 = $3.66 x 2 = $7.32

2018 Topps Gypsy Queen: $119.95 / 24 = $5.00 x 2 = $10.00

$9.00 + $7.32 + $10.00 = $26.32

That really feels like it's a pack shy of what I'd expect from this box. The value on last month's box felt about right. This one has $2.32 less in calculated value, and it really felt like there was less there than last month's box did.

Another pack of Donruss would have been very welcome here, but an additional $3.66 might push this too high. Their model has been to include three products in each Locker, but I calculated about $1.50 for a Hobby pack of 2018 Topps Series 1 last month. That could close the gap without going over. Maybe last month just gave me an inflated sense of what I could expect to get in a Loot Locker.

I obviously don't know what Loot Locker's costs are on these things, so I can't really say what a true reasonable value band is for the included packs. They have to include the cost of the cards, supplies, shipping, candy, packing peanuts, ink and paper for shipping labels, payment processing fees, website hosting, labor, the cost of prize packs for the randomly-inserted extra packs, taxes, and maybe a little profit.

Not much came out of Gypsy Queen. I guess the J.P. Crawford Fortune Teller insert was the biggest hit. I also got a Lance McCullers Jr. base card for my only Astro of the entire break.

I got a couple of nickname variations, a Diamond King of Bryce Harper, and a shiny Stat Line parallel of Buster Posey numbered # 102 / 228.

The Optic packs didn't yield a whole lot of interest for me. The highlights were probably a Prizm Diamond Kings card of Dexter Fowler and a Prizm card of Ryne Sandberg.

That does it for this Loot Locker. It was kind of a disappointing month. It felt a little light on packs, and the packs I got didn't yield much of interest to me. The lack of exciting pulls probably accentuated the feeling of disappointment. I'll probably keep ordering Loot Lockers, but I may try dropping down to the All-Star Locker at some point. I like what Loot Locker does, and I think they provide a good service to collectors without card shops to visit. I feel like it's good to support them where I can.

Pack of the Day 179: A Blaster of 2017 Topps Archives

Well, the Astros pulled it off and put the Dodgers away in Game 7 of a tight World Series. I was able to watch the game since I didn't have to be up all that early this morning, and it was really nice to see my favorite team celebrate their franchise's first title. 

I picked up this blaster of 2017 Topps Archives several months ago, probably soon after the product released. I don't even really remember what I pulled from it at this point, so it's like I get to break it open again!

The side of the box has all of the odds on it. The NPN contest expired a couple of months ago, so that information isn't of much use to anyone. 

I pulled a couple of Astros among the base cards, Evan Gattis and Ken Giles. I also got Frank Thomas showing off the 'big body-little head' look and Johnny Cueto showing his bubble gum bubble skills. 

My horizontal pulls included two of the Astros' playoff heroes, Alex Bregman and Jose Altuve. I also got some nice-looking cards of pitchers and a manager. I wish today's card sets included more manager cards. 

Among my inserts there was another Astro hero, wearing the uniform if his previous team. Justin Verlander was a huge part of the Astros' playoff run, and I don't think they would have won the title without making the move to acquire him.

My other inserts included some other guys, too. I don't really care one way or the other about Jeter, so the whole insert set devoted to him doesn't do anything for me. 

The final scan from this blaster break shows the blaster-exclusive coins I pulled. I did all right on them, getting Bryce Harper and Aaron Judge. At the time I opened this blaster, I looked up the Judge coin on eBay and it was selling for about half the price of a blaster.

I like the idea of the Archives product, but nearly every time I open some of it, I come away wishing there was a little more in each box. 

2017 Topps National Baseball Card Day Set

August 12th was Topps' proclaimed National Baseball Card Day, and people who visited card shops on that day could get packs from a special set Topps created for the occasion. I didn't visit my local shop on that day, as my local shop is inconvenient to visit and I have a hard time justifying the markup they charge over internet prices. I also get a weird vibe from the owner that I don't like. The best thing about visiting the local shop is petting the dog, but sometimes the dog bites me.

Anyway, I bought a set of the 2017 National Baseball Card Day cards from an eBay seller. There are 30 cards in the set, one for each team in Major League Baseball. There were also stadium giveaway sets and autographs seeded randomly in packs, but I only picked up the base set. Carlos Correa was the Astros' representative in the set.

The checklist contains an assortment of veterans and rookies. I picked a few of them to scan here. Most of these guys have completed their season for the 2017, hoping for a better run next year.

The representative from the Angels, Mike Trout, wasn't available from packs. You had to spend $10 on Topps products at the card shop to get this card. I got it as part of my eBay purchase. This is a pretty neat little set. I sometimes feel guilty for shopping online instead of supporting the local shop, but maybe if I fit in better with the owner and clientele I would feel more motivated to pay the premium for their products.

Some of My Favorite Cards from 2017 Topps Stadium Club

I can't stomach the current box prices on most new baseball products, so I've been buying retail and singles. I do really like the Stadium Club offerings that Topps has been putting out, so I picked up a complete set on eBay. I shuffled through it and pulled some of my favorite photos to scan for a post. I sometimes let negativity take over my posts, so I thought with this post I'd focus on something positive. I like the card stock and glossiness of the Stadium Club cards, and the photos are awesome.

Here's the front and back of Paul Goldschmidt's card. I like that a poster with his likeness on it appears in the foreground, with the actual player as more of a background element. There are a ton of pictures in this set that could be used for various mini-collections around the blogs, like players signing autographs, turning two, players blowing gum bubbles, and awards on cards.

I tried not to pay attention to player names when selecting cards for this post, just focusing on photos that jumped out at me. Plenty of big names from the past and present still managed to find their way in, but that's mostly because there were a lot of big names in the checklist. That Tim Raines card has already been featured on a few blogs, and I think Night Owl highlighted the Rod Carew card a while back (actually, he complained about which version of the card he pulled).

I love that Denard Span photo. I don't know what that grimace is all about, but it's a good photo. I like the picture of Aaron Judge standing for the anthem. There are some other good pictures here, including a bubble gum photo, Bryce Harper holding Katie Ledecky's medals, Mark Trumbo signing autographs, and a couple of uniform variations.

There's some good stuff here, including Evan Longoria with a football, some comedy from David Ortiz and A.J. Ramos, and a really nice photo on the Jonathan Lucroy card in the upper right.

I'm closing out this post with a few more vertically-oriented cards that caught my eye. Highlights here include a couple of bubble gum pictures, another interview about to be interrupted by pies, a catcher's mask close-up, and a dramatic shot of Joey Votto getting ready to do some damage to a baseball.

That's my quick round-up of the photographs that jumped out at me from this year's Stadium Club set. There are plenty of gems that I left out, and probably some I just plain missed as I flipped through the stack. I really like what Topps has done with this particular product line, and I am looking forward to seeing which pictures get chosen for 2018. It would also be pretty cool to see a Stadium Club product release for the UFC, although that may be a pipe dream.