Cyber Week Breaks: Day 4 - Star Wars, UFC Chronicles, and Retail Baseball

Today's scheduled breaks from the big order didn't generate a whole lot of excitement for me, so I'm including scans of some retail baseball I busted last week to make things a little more interesting.

First up is the highlights from 8 packs of Topps Star Wars: Jedi Legacy. This box promises 2 hits, with one of them being a film cel relic. We got that hit out of these first packs, with a Darth Vader film cel. The Green parallel at the top left is a variation that falls one per box, and the Magenta parallel below it is either 3 or 4 per box. I can't remember. I don't find this product all that exciting, outside of the autographs and movie prop relics, so hopefully the second hit in the box is something enjoyable.

I also opened two packs of 2015 Topps UFC Chronicles. These come in a jumbo pack format, with 10 packs per box. Each box promises 2 autographs and 3 relics. That Frankie Edgar relic is the first hit of the box. The Gold Ben Rothwell card is numbered # / 88, the Black & White Jordan Mein is # / 188, and the Silver Ronda Rousey isn't numbered, but is probably still the best parallel of the bunch.

I also got a couple of decent inserts from these packs, with a Paige VanZant Climbing the Ranks card and a Ronda Rousey Victorious Debut insert. I also got the first autograph of the box, a base auto of Scott Jorgensen. It was probably about this point where I began to regret buying this box instead of another box of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome.

I picked up some retail cards on a shopping trip. These were my reward for catching and disposing of 5 mice in our basement, so my wife didn't have to look at or deal with them. I grabbed one of those value packs of 2016 Topps Chrome from the clearance bin. The highlights were a Kris Bryant Pink Refractor and a Byron Buxton Future Stars insert. Not the greatest break, but the Bryant is nice. 

I also picked up another box of 2017 Topps Holiday Baseball. I got a couple of nice Dodgers among the Metallic Snowflake parallels, Yasiel Puig and Cody Bellinger. I also got the same George Springer relic I pulled from my last box of this stuff. The relic on this one also does not quite fill the window. Maybe this card design just has an awkwardly-shaped window.

There was a blaster of 2017 Bowman Platinum hiding in the back of the shelf, and I grabbed it. I got an Aaron Judge insert, a Clint Frazier insert, and a couple of Astros among the base cards. I also finally pulled an autograph out of this product, a base auto of Will Benson of the Indians. Maybe even better, I pulled a Black parallel of Pirates prospect Kecin Newman, numbered # 06 / 10. That's a pretty good break when it comes to retail.

That does it for today's cards. The Cyber Week stuff for today wasn't great, but that's to be expected at times when busting a large amount of stuff over time.

A Vacation Blaster of Bowman Platinum

I opened a blaster of 2017 Bowman Platinum while I was in San Diego way back at the end of July/start of August. I talked a lot about it when the product was new, so I'm just hitting the highlights of the blaster today.

These are the shiny blaster-exclusive parallels. Cody Bellinger is the big pull here, and I like getting that Joey Votto card, too. I think Votto would have been a pretty huge star if he played in a bigger market or on a better team. 

Here are the inserts from the blaster. That Jackie Bradley Jr. is an Orange parallel, numbered # 20 / 25. All of the others are shiny and colorful basic inserts. I don't have much else to say about this blaster. Today was a long day at work, and after I came home the dog (got himself trapped in the fenced garden) and the kids (fighting with each other, stalling at bedtime) have taken what was left of my energy. I hope that tomorrow will be better, but I am assuming that things will be bleak until after Saturday, when the fiscal year ends and I hope to take a couple days off from work.

Pack of the Day 169: Blasters of 2017 Bowman Platinum

My wife and I got away on Friday and went to dinner at a Hawaiian place that opened up recently near our house. The food was pretty good, and it was fun to hang out with her for a while without our kids whining at us the whole time. After that I mentioned that I wanted to check out a Walmart nearby, as I hadn't checked it for Bowman Platinum yet and I'd seen a post somewhere about some stores seeing restocks on the product.

They had three blaster boxes on the shelf, and I grabbed them up. I found some more blasters at our 'home' Walmart on Saturday. I didn't take all of them, though, I just grabbed a couple and left a few on the shelf for the next guy. You can see the pack odds above for these.

Here are some of the notable base cards I pulled from the break. No Aaron Judge this time, but I did get two Cody Bellinger base cards, as well as some of the guys who have driven the hobby in recent years.

This Josh Hader Green parallel was the only colorful base card parallel I found in the break. This one is numbered # 09 / 99.

Each blaster contained a pack with four of these special foil parallels. I grabbed a handful of them to scan. I guess maybe Andrew Benintendi, Dansby Swanson, and Gleybar Torres are the hot pulls here.

These are the Bowman's Next Generation inserts I got from the break. The Nick Senzel is a Green parallel, numbered # / 99. They are seeded at 1:263 packs, so a fairly tough one to get.

I think I did all right with my Platinum Presence inserts, with plenty of big names like Trout, Seager, and Bryant. That Anderson Espinoza card in the lower right is an Orange pull, numbered # 21 / 25. Platinum Presence Orange parallels are seeded 1:1,040 packs, so this is again a pretty tough card to get. Hopefully Espinoza develops into a big-time player.

Aaron Judge didn't completely escape my grasp in this break, as I pulled his Rookie Radar insert, along with a couple of Astros and a couple copies of Christian Arroyo's card. I am probably done with Bowman Platinum for good now. I am disappointed that I didn't pull a single autograph out of any of my rack packs and blasters, but other than that I pulled some colorful parallels, some nice inserts, and rookie cards of some of the hottest players in baseball.