Some Box Breaks and Other Things

A while back I wanted to bust some packs, so I ordered some boxes of my favorite products of the last year or so from Blowout Cards. It feels a little weird that I don't have any baseball product in this order, but I've sort of moved into only buying singles and sets for that sport. I collect a relatively small number of baseball players, so the likelihood of pulling something that fits into my collection is slim. I tend to enjoy all kinds of stuff from racing, wrestling, and UFC, so the randomness of box busting is a little more collection-friendly for me.

There's the lineup of boxes. For wrestling I got a blaster of 2017 Topps WWE Women's Division, a hobby box of 2018 Topps WWE Women's Division, and a hobby box of 2019 Topps WWE Road to WrestleMania. For racing I got a box of 2018 Panini Victory Lane and a box of 2018 Panini Certified. I also got a box of 2018 Topps UFC Chrome. The pictures below are not really in order, so anyone who can't handle chaos should probably take off, eh.

Here are a couple of card from the Victory Lane box, an insert parallel of Alex Bowman and a Engineered to Perfection triple relic of Denny Hamlin. I guess this is as good a place as any to repeat that I have a mild interest in Hamlin cards because I worked for his sponsor, FedEx, for a couple of years.

The blaster of 2017 Topps WWE Women's Division turned out to be a pretty good one, with a Blue parallel of Lana and an autograph of Nikki Bella.

These breaks were pretty heavy on the Alex Bowman cards. These cards all came from 2018 Panini Certified. I got that Red Certified Signatures Alex Bowman autograph with two relic swatches, a Gold All-Certified Team insert of Kyle Larson, and two different versions of Bowman's Skills insert.

Here are some Red and Gold parallels and hits from the Certified box. I bought the Certified stuff hoping to get a Hailie Deegan autograph, but that didn't happen for me.

Here are the last couple cards from the Certified box, a couple of basic relic inserts featuring Jamie McMurray and Chase Elliott.

Here are the hits from the 2018 Topps WWE Women's Division box. I got a Silver parallel of Rusev kicking Elias in the face, which kind of makes up for the fact that there aren't any Women's Division wrestlers on the card. That Carmella autograph is a testament to the fact that female athletes don't always have great penmanship. I am always happy to get another Naomi card, even if this is just a manufactured relic.

I got a # / 25 parallel, a Kofi Kingston autograph, and a Titus O'Neil manufactured relic out of the 2019 Topps WWE Road to WrestleMania set. You may recognize Kofi Kingston as the current WWE World Heavyweight Champion.

The UFC Chrome box was a fun break, as usual for this particular product. These insert Refractors are of the # / 50 variety.

These are some of the more colorful Refractors in the box, an Orange # / 25 of Lyoto Machida and a Green # / 99 of Chuck Liddell. 

The box was a hot box, meaning that every pack contained one of those Refractors with the crazy patterned background shown on the Rose Namajunas and Holly Holm cards. X-Fractors and Blue Wave Refractors both come one per box, but X-Fractors are unnumbered while the Blue Waves are # / 75.

Each box of UFC Chrome has two autographs (unless you get a hot box with an OctoFractor), and I did pretty well here. The Claudia Gadelha signature is a base autograph, while the Amanda Nunes is an Orange # / 25.

Back to racing with some more Victory Lane stuff, including a Justin Haley autograph, a nice Chase Elliott auto-relic, and a dual relic of Justin Allgaier.

I pulled two # 1 / 1 cards in this break, and they both came from the Victory Lane box. One is a Yellow printing plate featuring none other than Dale Earnhardt Jr. The other is a Prime Patches card of Jamie McMurray, featuring the series sponsor patch from his firesuit.

Here's a bunch of other stuff I've picked up over the last couple of months. These two autographs were fun finds for me. The Josh Reddick comes from 2012 Topps Mini. It was hard to find autographs in these Mini products, so it was cool to see one in the wild. The R.A. Dickey card is a wrapper redemption autograph from 2013. I don't recall seeing many of these out there, either.

I was glad to add another Jake Butt card to my collection. I believe this one comes from 2017 Panini Unparalleled. The Charlotte Flair signature is a Silver parallel from 2019 Topps Road to WrestleMania. I like the design of that set's autographs, so I was happy to get one of the Queen.

Here are a couple of redemptions that came in from Topps. One is a UFC Museum Collection autograph of Maryna Moroz, which I believe is the first Moroz signature in my collection. The other is a Vanessa Borne card from the 2018 Topps WWE Women's Division set. Again, I think that might be my first autograph from her.

These cards were COMC purchases. Up first is an Octane Autographs card of Bubba Wallace from 2018 Panini Victory Lane. The other is a Green autograph of Naomi from 2018 Topps WWE Undisputed. The parallel coloring bleeds into the photographs on this set, leading to some weird situations, but in this case the green matches well with Naomi's gear.

This year's Topps Heritage set included box toppers featuring Topps staffers. I had to chase this one down on eBay because it pictures Sooz, one member of the A Cardboard Problem blog team and an active member of card Twitter.

I was one of the people who ordered one of the tablecloth relic cards from Manny Machado's press conference. The backlash against this card was so furious that I had to get one for my collection. I love things that other people hate, and the laugh I get from seeing this card in my collection is well worth the price.

The Alex Bregman card is a replacement for a damaged Bregman relic I got in the mail after buying a 2018 Topps Holiday box that was missing a hit. Attached to the card was a sort of passive-aggressive note reminding me that the damaged card was not folded in half when it was shipped. That was kind of the point. I was disappointed in the packaging. Poor packaging tends to lead to shipping damage. The other card is a replacement for a damaged Sandy Alcantara card I pulled from a rack pack of 2018 Topps Fire.

I was chasing a Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat card from 2018 Topps WWE Legends set, and I was pretty happy to get this Bronze autographed relic. I also picked up a Diamond Dallas Page autograph.

I also got this cool Alundra Blayze Hall of Fame Ring relic autograph card. This is the Gold version of the card, so it is limited to 10 copies. In the same group of auctions I picked up this Paige VanZant signature from Leaf.

That about does it for this bunch. Although my production of blog posts has slowed to a crawl, I am still actively collecting. I am trying to get back into the swing of my hobbies, but there are a lot of things competing for my attention right now and I spend most of my time feeling worn out.

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 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.

Museum Collection Mania

I think I've mentioned once or twice that I went a little overboard on 2016 Topps UFC Museum Collection. It just appealed to me, and I picked up quite a bit of it. This is going to be a picture dump, because I scanned a lot of stuff, but I don't have a lot to say about it at the moment because I want to get this written and posted so I can go to bed.

I kind of wanted to bust a box of the product, but I never could bring myself to pull the trigger on that. I did pick up a fair number of group break slots, though, which brought me a fair number of cards for certain fighters, like Rafael Dos Anjos here. Those are his base and Gold parallels. The Gold is # 05 / 75.

Cris 'Cyborg' Justino has finally been brought into the UFC, and I am pretty sure the new Featherweight division for women was created to give her a place to play, although Germaine de Randamie and Holly Holm are going to kick the division off in a couple of weeks, with the winner presumable getting Cyborg's next fight. I got her base and Bronze card here. The Bronze is numbered # 108 / 135.

I also got Cyborg's Gold parallel ( # 45 / 75 ) and this Rashad Evans Bronze parallel ( # 084 / 135 ), probably from the same group break.

I think these single-swatch Meaningful Material cards came from a mixture of group break slots and eBay purchases. I guess the foil color is different on these, which is pretty much the only difference I can see between parallels. It's pretty subtle. The Justino card is # 06 / 50, the Rafael Dos Anjos is # 01 / 10, and the Daniel Cormier is numbered # 12 / 35.

I think most of these Primary Pieces quad relics came from a single eBay lot. I got a good deal on it, maybe because it came from overseas. I think there are many bidders who have qualms about bidding on stuff from across the ocean. There are a couple that I purchased separate from that lot, though, probably the higher-numbered of the Stipe Miocic cards and the Carla Esparza. I can't read all of the serial numbers, but I'll give a go at saying what I've got here. The first Miocic is # xx / 99, the second one is # 10 / 10, the Chris Weidman looks to be # 04 / 25, the Carlos Condit is # xx / 99, and the Carla Esparza is # 69 / 99.

These Archival Autographs are all base versions. I am pretty sure the Antonio Silva card came from the previously-mentioned overseas lot. It is numbered # 40 / 99. The others were probably separate purchases, although at least one of them might have come from a group break. Anyway, the Jim Miller is # 02 / 99, the Julianna Pena is # 11 / 99, and Cat Zingano is # 13 / 99. Miller, Pena, and Zingano are all PC fighters for me.

These are all single-relic Signature Swatches cards of varying rarity. As opposed to the on-card Archival Autographs, these are all sticker autographs. Again, the parallels seem to be mostly denoted by small shifts in foil color. The Julianna Pena is # 107 / 149, which I believe is the highest of the print runs on these. The two Cat Zingano cards are # 07 / 25 and # 09 / 25, and the TJ Dillashaw card is # 02 / 25.

This Ovince Saint Preux card came from a group break. It is one of the dual-relic Signature Swatches cards, and is numbered # 04 / 25.

Closing things out, I've got a few triple-relic Signature Swatches cards. The Julianna Pena cards are numbered # 25 / 25 and # 23 / 50. The Anthony Johnson card probably came from the overseas lot, and is numbered # 134 / 149.

I would still like to open a box of this someday, but I just know the box I get will have three scrubs for hits and I will feel bad because I could buy three really nice hits I actually want for the price of the box. With new baseball cards coming out now, I imagine the urge to break a box of this will subside as it is pushed off my radar by newer releases.