April 2018 Loot Locker

I ordered another Loot Locker in April, again going for the Triple Play Baseball locker, which costs a little more than the All-Star Baseball locker and less than the Grand Slam Walk Off Baseball locker. The All-Star and Triple Play lockers have different amounts of the same products, while the Grand Slam has higher-end stuff. There are also basketball, football, and hockey versions.

As usual, the cards ship in a 400-count card box with Loot Locker branding stickers attached.

Here is what I got in my box of stuff. There were also a few pieces of candy, but I ate them before I took this picture. Every Loot Locker contains a package of Ultra Pro supplies, usually around 10 top loaders and some penny sleeves. One in five lockers contains a bonus hit of some kind, and mine was one of the lucky ones this month. It's a pretty decent hit, too, a 2015 Bowman Chrome Purple Refractor autograph of Wilmer Difo. He's been a fairly regular player for the Nationals this year, backing up second, third, shortstop, and center field. He even had a Topps Now card a couple of days ago, with a walk-off single to claim a victory over the Phillies. The card is numbered out of # / 250, and looks to be a $10-15 card on eBay. Pretty good stuff!

The packs for the month are two packs of 2018 Panini Diamond Kings, two packs of 2011 Bowman Platinum, and one pack of 2018 Topps Gypsy Queen. As usual, I like to break down the cost of the packs to see what kind of value I'm getting for my money. I couldn't find a lot of 2011 Bowman Platinum for sale, but I did find enough information to suit my needs. To come up with my numbers, I price hobby boxes on online card shops, divide by the number of packs in a box, and multiply by the number of packs in the locker. It may not reflect exactly Loot Locker's costs, but it kind of reflects what I'd be spending if I made the unlikely journey to my local card shop. I round the numbers, so some of the final math is off by a bit. Here are the numbers I came up with:

2011 Bowman Platinum: $113.33/box / 20 packs = $5.67/pack x 2 packs = $11.33

2018 Panini Diamond Kings: $75.95/box / 12 packs = $6.33/pack x 2 packs = $12.66

2018 Topps Gypsy Queen: $174.95/box / 24 packs = $7.29/pack x 1 pack = $7.29

$11.33 + $12.66 + $7.29 = $31.28

That's a pretty good value for $30 + $5 shipping, especially with the card supplies and the bonus hit. The last two lockers I priced out came in at $26.32 and $28.64, so this one was significantly higher.

Here are a couple of the key base cards from the 2011 Bowman Platinum packs. Giancarlo (Mike) Stanton is heating up in New York (bad news for my Astros), and Miguel Cabrera is breaking down but probably has the numbers and accolades to get into the Hall of Fame.

I did pull some doubles from my Platinum packs, in the form of Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins. First world problems, right?

One of the Bowman Platinum packs also contained a hit, this bat relic autograph card of Juan Miranda. It is numbered # 0704 / 1166, and features a guy who played in parts of four seasons with the Yankees and Diamondbacks. His last season in MLB was 2011.

I pulled another hit out of Diamond Kings, an Original Materials dual relic of Miguel Andujar. Justin Verlander represented the Astros in my packs, and I also got a Sepia variation of Aaron Judge, last year's Shohei Ohtani. Today was Tony Gwynn's birthday. He would have been 58, but he passed away in 2014. He blamed a chewing tobacco habit for the cancer that eventually took his life, and it looks like he may have a cheek full of chew in that photo.

The Gypsy Queen pack contained another Astro, Dallas Keuchel, and a Missing Nameplate parallel of Mike Trout. The Missing Nameplate cards are some of the more common parallels out there, but Mike Trout is still a big name to pull any parallel of.

This was a pretty solid Loot Locker for me. The pack mix was a good value, and I did pretty well as far as pulling some good stuff from my packs. The packs for May's Loot Lockers are all 2018 releases, with Diamond Kings, Donruss, and Bowman making appearances. I've just ordered mine for the month, as that's a pretty good mix of products. I'd like to see more Topps stuff because I like logos, but I doubt we'll see too much more until stuff like Series 2 and Allen & Ginter drop.

Contested Shots 32: World Series Door Prize from Collector's Crack

Cynical Buddha of the blog Collector's Crack held his 7th Annual Almost the Easiest World Series Contest on the Web last year. I guessed the right participants and the winner, but I was off on the number of games it would take, so I didn't win the contest. I did, however, win the random door prize drawing, so I got a prize package anyway. It was mailed out promptly, and I have unfortunately delayed posting about it until now, as the new baseball season is about to get under way.

First up is this winter-themed parallel from Topps' 2017 Holiday offering. I went hard after this set last year, trying to get the accidentally short-printed Cole Hamels card by busting blaster boxes. I think I opened at least 10 blasters before I gave up and bought the Hamels card on eBay.

That Jon Singleton relic card out of Gypsy Queen is a welcome addition to that player collection. He also included some shiny Astros and a retro Yulieski Gurriel insert from Gypsy Queen. The Joe Musgrove card is numbered # 032 / 250. That Randy Johnson Upper Deck Artifacts card is especially nice, and numbered # 01 / 50. There is also a Nolan Ryan phone card, a collectible that went on a pretty big run in the 90's.

The Nolan Ryan phone card is unused, but the one minute of air time expired a little over 17 years ago. Even if the minute hadn't yet expired, it might be a chore to find a pay phone to make the call from. I'd have to search for nearby pay phones on my smartphone.

Closing things out are a Harmon Killebrew / Mike Schmidt Classic Combos card numbered # 160 / 400 and a Future Phenoms relic card of Edwin Jackson, who has played for 12 different teams in his 15 season career so far.

Thank you so much for the prize package, Cynical Buddha! There was a lot of really cool stuff here, and I really enjoyed these cards! I'm sorry I took so long to post about them.

A Christmas Package from Stealing Home

I feel bad for not posting about this package earlier. It arrived right in the middle of my Cyber Week breaks. Stealing Home from the All Trade Bait, All The Time blog sent out a bunch of Christmas packages in December, and I was one of the lucky recipients of a bubble mailer full of baseball cards. He hit on several of my player and team collections.

I was happy to see a bunch of Randy Johnson cards in this package. The Big Unit just seemed like such an intense and dominating guy on the field. I really should pursue more of his cardboard. There are also a couple of Astros pitchers here, one maybe a little more well-known than the other. Goose Gossage also makes an appearance here, with a Topps Archives issue. 

Next up are some more Astros and some Athletics from a variety of years and card brands. I was primarily a basketball collector during my teen years in the 90's, so most baseball cards from earlier than 2012 or so are going to be new to my collection.

Following the Astros and A's, we have some Blue Jays content and a couple of guys with impressive mustaches. For a second I was confused as to why Franco and Aase made it into the package, but then I noticed that they are both sporting some impressive lip fur.

Closing things out are a couple of horizontal cards, a Heritage card celebrating the Astros, who would go on to win the World Series, and the other showing Eddie Murray at different points in his career, but always sporting an impressive caterpillar under his nose.

Thanks for the fun card package, Stealing Home! I had a great Christmas, and I hope that you did too!

Pack of the Day 180: 2017 Topps Holiday Box

I was at Wal-Mart last night, looking at Collector's Boxes of Topps Gallery but unable to justify $70 for one of them, when I saw some Topps Baseball Holiday Boxes next to the Gallery display. They had a more reasonable price tag, and I grabbed one of them along with a hanger pack of Topps Gallery.

Each box advertises that it has 10 packs of 10 cards each, with one relic, autograph, or autographed relic card per box. Maybe not quite as enticing as the two promised autographs in a Collector's Box of Topps Gallery, but quite a few of the Gallery box breaks I've seen haven't had autographs worth writing home about anyway.

Here are the pack odds. You are likely to find 5 snowflake parallels and a relic card in each box. Autographs fall about once every 27 boxes, and every other hit has pretty astronomical odds. There is also some No Purchase Necessary information on here for those who are into that.

The product is basically the same as the 2016 version. It takes the current year's basic Topps design and adds a snowflake pattern to the upper right corner. The card backs have different numbering. I think the checklist has 200 cards, so it's pretty much a stars and rookies kind of product. I haven't checked to see if the card backs contain different write-ups or if they are the same as the base product.

Here are a few of the standout base cards. I was lucky enough to pull a few Houston Astros from this box. I also pulled a few stars from the teams that the Astros vanquished on their way to the championship this year. Max Scherzer got included because I like him and Ben Zobrist got included because Astro Evan Gattis makes a cameo on his card.

I got the expected 5 snowflake parallels, which are just like the base cards except that they have glitter affixed to the snowflake portion of the card. I guess Yu Darvish is the best pull I had on that front. In the bottom right is my relic card, featuring World Series MVP George Springer. Not a bad box for an Astros fan. The only disappointment with the relic card is that the relic doesn't fill the window. There is a distinct gap at the bottom of the window where the fabric doesn't reach the edge. I'll probably wind up buying another box or two of this in an attempt to complete the base set.

Houston Astros 2017 Topps Now Road to Opening Day Team Set

Early this year, Topps rolled out the 2017 Topps Now Baseball program with a bang, releasing Spring Training sets for all 30 MLB teams. I guess the official name for the sets is Road to Opening Day. The MSRP on the 15-card sets was $50, if I recall correctly, and there were also sets available for $100 which contain one randomly-selected autograph card from the team. Anyone who purchased a Topps Now card through the Topps website in 2016 received a Mike Trout card in the mail with a coupon code for 25% off these sets. I used my 25% off code to buy the basic Astros set, the one without the autograph. In all, the print run on the Astros set was 142 autograph sets and 37 regular sets, for a total of 179 sets in the print run.

If the team you purchased is in first place in their division at the All-Star break, you get a bonus card for that. You also get a bonus card if a player on your team throws a no-hitter or hits for the cycle during the 2017 season or playoffs. I guess I've got a pretty good chance of getting a 1st-place bonus card for the Astros, since they've got an 8-game lead on the Angels and Rangers right now in the AL West. In fact, all four of the other teams in the division are clustered together, with records below .500 and 8.0-10.5 games behind Houston. A lot can happen in two months, though, so I can't be certain of the Astros holding that lead.

Like some people have mentioned in blog posts that I can't relocate at the moment, the 2017 Topps Now cards are pretty standard glossy trading cards, but the backs have a holographic sheen to them. There are some team sets with some pretty cool non-standard photos on them, like Yoenis Cespedes in one of his cars (a Polaris Slingshot, I believe), but the Astros' photos are pretty basic baseball pictures, with Evan Gattis in catcher's gear being about as exciting as it gets. It is a pretty cool card. So far, the back of the card is pretty accurate. Gattis has appeared in 25 / 39 (64.1%) of the Astros' games, splitting time between the DH and catcher positions. His stats have been pretty good, but it's got to be hard to be held out of the lineup so much.

Here are some of the other big names in the set. Dallas Keuchel has been excellent this year, and hopefully he will keep that up. Carlos Correa took a while to get going, but he's rounded into form recently. Jose Altuve has been good, as has George Springer. Alex Bregman and Yulieski Gurriel have been decent. The three signers for the Astros autograph sets are Correa, Bregman, and pitcher Joe Musgrove. I'm guessing there will be a lot more Musgrove signatures than there will be Bregman or Correa.

Here are the rest of the cards in the set. Lance McCullers has been right up there with Keuchel in carrying the pitching rotation, although Charlie Morton has more wins than McCullers does. The bullpen has been pretty good to great, with a lot of strikeouts. I was happy to get a card of Josh Reddick in an Astros uniform, as he's a guy I've been collecting for a while, since his time with the A's.

These Topps print-on-demand and online-exclusive cards are more expensive on a per-card basis than most of their traditional pack-based counterparts, but I can't help picking some of them up from time to time. I've mostly stayed away from the daily Topps Now cards this year, though, as there are just too many of them. I can't even keep up with the Astros in the set, let alone all of the other stuff that comes out. I was happy to get this team set, with cards of the new additions and the holdovers who are piloting the team to a great start so far.

Contested Shots 24: Bowl Game Pick'Em Winnings from Cards on Cards

I love participating in fantasy sports leagues and pick'em contests. I've nearly always in some kind of league. Right now I've got 4 fantasy baseball teams and I'm involved in 2 NASCAR leagues. It's just part of the fun of watching sports for me. The Cards on Cards blog runs quite a few contests each year for a variety of sports, including a college football bowl game pick 'em contest that draws quite a few entries each year. I enter most of the contests. Sometimes I do well, and sometimes I 'win' the last-place prize. This year I wound up winning a prize in the Cards on Cards Bowl Pick'em contest. I missed first place on points, but I got the most correct picks and that was enough for me to be announced as a winner. The Cards on Cards contests also tend to be pretty generous with the number of winners. You should probably give the blog a follow and enter some of them.

The first card out was this giant Nolan Ryan card from the 1980 Topps Superstar 5x7. This is a set I wasn't familiar with (it came out the year before I was born), so I had to do some research to figure out where it came from. It's a pretty cool piece of cardboard.

There were plenty of basketball cards among the stacks of team bags in the mailer, with a mix of new and old cards. Mostly I scanned newer cards, though. I like Dwight Howard, but it sure seems like he has a hard time being a team player. James Harden has flourished this year, with a new-look lineup based around his skills. Patrick Beverley has been a big part of the Rockets' success this year, and Sam Dekker has looked pretty good in the limited time he gets on the court. Dekker is a high-energy guy, but sometimes it seems like he is pushing too hard. I guess being a fringe bench guy would push anyone to try really hard, because you only get so many minutes to play your way into another contract.

The bulk of the package was tons and tons and tons of Houston Astros cards, taken from many different eras. I tried to scan at least one card from every set represented in the package, but I might have failed. At the very least, I tried to make sure most of the notable players got into a scan. 

That Carlos Correa in the upper right corner is a Heritage Chrome parallel, numbered # 001 / 999 (the first one in the print run!). I always forget that Miguel Tejada spent time as an Astro. I always think of him as an Oriole, even though he spent more time with the A's than the Orioles. I think it's because many of his better seasons were in Baltimore, and that would have been right when I was drafting him heavily in fantasy baseball leagues.

Some of the current team's core can be found along that top row up there, with some big names from various other eras scattered throughout the scan. A.J. Reed down at the bottom is part of the convoluted mess that the Astros have at first base. He is currently getting some seasoning down at AAA.

A lot of these cards are from the time when I was out of collecting (roughly 2000-2013), so many sets that might be familiar to other collectors are new and wonderful to me. I am always jealous of people who can look at a card design and remember what year it's from. I usually have to do a little work, unless it is a product I've seen a whole lot of cards from.

These cards were in top loaders, and represent the premium cards in the package (along with that serially-numbered Heritage Correa from a few scans ago). The George Springer card is another Heritage Chrome parallel, numbered # 360 / 999. The Hunter Pence comes from the 2007 Fleer Ultra set. It's hard to believe that all the major sports just have one licensed card producer these days. I'd rather have 30 products divided among several manufacturers than 30 products put out by one card maker. But the leagues don't seem to care how I feel. That Tracy McGrady card comes from a Panini Adrenalyn XL game, and it appears to be a fancy foil card of some kind. The Luis Scola card from 2008-09 Bowman Draft Picks & Stars is pretty rare, numbered # 30 / 50. For a while he was one of the Rockets' better players, but he also got a pretty late start in the NBA and was never going to be the guy to bring them to glory. He was a pretty solid contributor, though, based on my unreliable recollection.

This was quite a prize package. I am envious of bloggers who have their lives together enough to run leagues, host contests, make frequent trades, and post excellent content. I am barely able to keep up with my posting, and my trading/sorting/contest efforts could be saddled with labels like 'unfortunate' or 'sadly lacking.' Thanks for the prize package, Kerry, and especially thank you for running so many entertaining contests! I like participating in your leagues even when I don't win.

Pack of the Day 155: A Hanger Box of 2017 Topps Series 1

Last night after work I stopped at Wal-Mart to get some hearing protection for my kids (Monster Jam is today! Woo!). The Wal-Mart I stopped at was not the same one I usually visit, so I went way out of my comfort zone and asked an associate where the cards were. Not wanting to sound like a loser, I told her I was trying to find Pokemon cards for my kids. That was a lie.

This is what I was looking for. 2017 Topps Baseball Series 1. I debated between the blasters and the hanger boxes. The rack packs and regular packs showed obvious signs of having been molested already by pack searchers, so I ignored them. Not because of the hits, but because pack searchers in my area tend to damage the cards while trying to detect the hits. Ultimately I opted for the hanger box.

Here are the odds for hanger boxes, as well as the No Purchase Necessary information.

This Dallas Keuchel base card was my first 2017 Topps baseball card. Not bad, pulling a card for my favorite team as the first one of the year. I wonder which finger that is poking out of his glove? I hope he's not flipping me a stealthy bird there. I don't mind having the players' social media info on the back of the cards, but I do miss the full career stats. I know I can go and look them up online, but often while flipping through my cards, I will stop on an unfamiliar face or a guy who I wouldn't normally think to look up and see what their stats have to say about them. Cutting the career stats down to 5 years leaves an incomplete picture, and I hope they come back for 2018.

There are some decent photos in this set. I was glad to see Evan Gattis come out of my stack of cards. As far as the design goes, I like it better than I thought I would. I think I prefer a full border for the flagship set, but this design isn't going to make me boycott the product for the year. It takes up a lot of space at the bottom of the card, though, and from what I pulled it looks like you're not going to see much of what's going on below knee level in the action shots. I personally like to see the dirt and the grass and the bases and such. The nameplate and logos look pretty good. The team names in-hand are more readable in-hand than they are in this scan.

I didn't pull the Kris Bryant #1 card that was voted on by fans, but I did get a League Leaders card with his picture on it. Topps brought back #7 in this years set, after retiring it for many years in honor of Mickey Mantle. There a Facebook Live video on the Topps Facebook page yesterday where Sooz busted a couple boxes of cards and mentioned that Topps wanted to bring that card number back and celebrate all of the exciting young players in the game.

Gary Sanchez was an obvious choice to fill the #7 spot, as he is the most popular young Yankee in card collecting circles at the moment. I hear that Corey Seager is pretty popular out on the West Coast, and Gregory Polanco's card had probably the best action photo in the box.

There were some decent horizontal cards in the mix, as well. I think that Jonathan Lucroy card was the 2nd-best photo in the box, with Votto coming in from the left side and almost matching the lean angle on the border graphic. The Addison Russell card is an example of an already-good card that would be made great by having less bottom border, as you'd be able to see the rest of the base runner. 

I've got a few more nice photos to show here. That Denard Span is especially nice. Most of the logos wound up looking pretty good on this design, but the Cleveland logo needs a little more contrast to keep it from getting lost in the nameplate.

I didn't pull any parallels from the box. I will probably have to track down at least one so that I can see what they are all about.

That Joc Pederson card is the first insert in this post, although it was the last card in the box. It's from the 1987 Topps Baseball insert. It's printed on slightly rougher stock. I don't have an actual 1987 card on my desk right now, but in the video above Sooz does a feel test between a 1987 insert and the real deal, and she says they nailed it.

Here are a few more inserts that I pulled from the box. Al Kaline is a Legend insert. That Mike Lowell MLB Network insert is the rarest pull of the box, as they are seeded 1:5 hanger boxes while the other inserts are all listed at 1:2 hanger boxes.

I think the 5-Tool insert is my favorite insert design in this product. The checklist is surprisingly large, at 50 cards. I might have to look into getting the full set. My favorite ongoing insert is First Pitch, and I already have the 20-card set on order. When it comes to First Pitch, you are just about as likely to pull a card with a Cubs logo as you are to pull anything else. The Cubs have a whopping 8 cards in the set, or 40% of the checklist.

I think the Award Winners cards are retail-only inserts, with Silver Slugger Award Winners being exclusive to hanger boxes? That's what I gathered from the packaging. I got a pretty good group here, with Yoenis Cespedes and Miguel Cabrera being Silver Sluggers, and Terry Francona and Mike Trout filling out my pulls.

I am pretty happy with this year's flagship baseball set. My main complaint is the stats on the back, but I think the cards look pretty good in-hand. The photos are pretty good, and the backs are colorful. There are some good inserts, and I am happy to see First Pitch back again. I thought I might dislike the design, but I think it looks pretty good in-hand. My only complaint is that the bottom border sometimes interferes with the photos. I'll probably go the factory set route as far as building the base set, but I'll probably pick up a little more Series 1 at retail and a little Series 2 when it releases, as well as a set of Update when that comes out.

Gint-a-Cuffs VIII: Pack 21

I couldn't help thinking that I'd seen that Ted Williams card previously, and sure enough, I pulled the same one from Pack 7. While looking into that, I also saw that the Bob Feller Baseball Legends card from the previous post was another double from the Baseball Legends insert. I haven't noticed any other doubles yet, but they could be there.

Ted Williams: +2 (Baseball Legends +2)
Dallas Keuchel: +6 (My Favorite Player Mini +5, My Favorite Team Mini +1)

Pack Total: 8.00
Running Total: 100.00

Average Per Pack: 4.55
Box Pace: 113.64

At the Trade Deadline 43: I Got Zippy-Zapped

A few days ago I got an unexpected bubble mailer in my mailbox. That's not entirely unheard of, but I am always suspicious that maybe I ordered something and forgot about it. I opened it up and found a familiar phrase on a card taped to one in a stack of several (re)packs of cards. I'd been Zippy Zapped!

Zippy Zapping is the calling card of the aptly-named Zippy Zappy from the blog Cervin' Torren' Up Cards. He's been pretty active on the Zippy Zapping front lately, as there have been quite a few reported Zippy Zappings around the blogs over the last week or so.

There are a few things you can almost always find in a typical Zippy Zapping. One of the main things is prospects. He is a fan of the Long Staten Island Yankees, but he carries a vast knowledge of the farm systems of most teams in baseball. I spend a lot of my time after receiving a package from him doing research, as I don't know nearly enough about even my favorite teams' prospects, let alone the prospects in any other system. I didn't scan all of the cards he sent, but I looked at a few lists of the Astros' top prospects and made sure to scan some guys from the Top 10. A.J. Reed is the up and comer who is rumored to be waiting in the wings if Jon Singleton can't get his bat together pretty quickly. Singleton is one of the guys I collect, so I am hoping he can hit well enough to keep Reed in the minors for a while still. 

Carlos Correa was last year's darling, playing his way to the AL Rookie of the Year award. Zippy Zappy included some nice cardboard of the young shortstop, including some prospect cards, a nice Diamond Kings card I hadn't seen yet, and his Heritage card from the 2015 High Numbers set. I haven't started a Correa PC yet, but I probably should. I guess I prefer to collect prospects like Singleton who haven't lived up to the hype. Their prices are lower.

These 2014 Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects Black parallels were all in sleeves with tags priced in Japanese Yen. I am pretty sure these parallels are from the Asia-exclusive version of the product, which includes several color variations not available in your standard Bowman product.

These brightly-colored parallels are all serially-numbered, with that Vincent Velasquez Prizm Draft card being an eBay 1 / 1, numbered # 001 / 100. It's the first one in the print run, yo! The other guys feature more pedestrian serial numbers. Velasquez is the only name I really recognize in this group, although Joshua Magee seems like I remember him in some back part of my brain.

Probably to keep my head from exploding at the sight of so many prospects, Zippy Zappy also included a number of cards featuring old guys from the Astros franchise, like Bagwell, Berkman, Qualls, and Tejada. There were others, but I have become a lazy scanner in my old age. My main memory from this group is drafting Tejada in fantasy baseball for a couple years after he was useful. I do a lot of dumb things in fantasy baseball, but luckily other players also are irrationally attached to players who have outlasted their usefulness or are prone to chasing prospects too early. Everyone has a weakness.

And here are some guys who contributed to the Astros' big run last year. I especially like seeing the progression of Keuchel's beard. I think Evan Gattis is still my favorite Astro, even though I don't really collect his cards like I should. It's hard to divert myself from my Singleton collection even to chase my favorite player on the team. I've gone too far down the rabbit hole.

Another Zippy Zappy signature is SEGA Card-Gen cards from Japan. The video game associated with these cards was discontinued, though, so these have all but disappeared from the usual acquisition channels. Zippy Zappy himself has announced that his supply is drying up. These are some of my favorite cards, so I am extremely grateful that he sent me three of them from his diminishing inventory. The 2010 and 2011 sets are not well-represented in my collection, so I was very happy to get two cards from 2011 in Wilton Lopez and Carlos Lee and a card of star pitcher Roy Oswalt from the 2010 set.

I didn't scan everything that Zippy Zappy sent, but I did scan a little of everything he sent. I am super grateful for the packages I receive from other bloggers and I do my best to pay it forward in the packages I send out. Zippy Zappy is one of the bloggers I am indebted to, as he has dropped some really nice cardboard bombs on me. Thank you!