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.

Target Does Right by the Little Guy - 2018 Bowman Mega Box

I stopped at the local Target last night to see if they had any Bowman Mega Boxes. I checked the card aisle and the toy section, and they didn't have them. I almost skipped going today while I was out on errands, but I decided to at least give it a shot. There wasn't anything in the card aisle, but as I approached the toy aisles I saw a small crowd gathered. Target had actually posted an employee near the Mega Box display, and he was rationing them out with a limit of four per customer. I saw one guy who looked like he might be looking to fight the Target worker, but he eventually took his four boxes and moved on. I asked for three boxes, and the employee handed them over. I also told him that I appreciated what they were doing, and he said that they try to do that if they feel a product is hot and likely to be cleared out and scalped by resellers. He said that if I have friends who are looking for Mega Boxes, they have some more in the back, and they can go and ask for them. If you're in Nampa, Idaho or thereabouts, they had Mega Boxes as of noon today.

Here is what the box looks like. The box is bigger than a blaster, with fewer packs, and it's a bit cheaper than a blaster. The real draw here is the 2 Mega Box exclusive Chrome packs.

Here are the odds and whatnot from the back of the box. You've got your usual assortment of inserts, parallels, and autographs.

These were the highlights of the regular Bowman packs from my first box. Nothing too crazy here.

Here are the highlights from the initial two packs of Mega Box Chrome. The Green parallel of Heliot Ramos is # 09 / 99. 

Here are some highlights from the regular Bowman packs in the second box I opened. I should probably be showing off more prospect cards, but I don't know any of those guys. Kyle Tucker is one of the hotter prospects the Astros have coming up. I just learned that the Astros released one of my PC guys, Jon Singleton, after he tested positive on another drug test and earned himself a 100-game suspension. He wasn't likely to make the big-league roster again anyway, but getting suspended again for drugs isn't the way to make yourself attractive to any other teams out there. I'm guessing that this might really be the end of the line for him when it comes to baseball.

There was some color in this Mega Box. The Jorge Mateo Gold parallel is # 16 / 50, while the Purple #Trending insert of Sixto Sanchez is # 150 / 250. Ronald Acuna and Royce Lewis are some pretty good base pulls.

The last box I opened gave up some Astros, Vlad Jr., one of the Braves' hot players, and some other stuff from the regular packs.

The inserts from the Mega Box packs weren't that interesting (to me), but I did get Kyle Tucker, Shed Long, and Adbert Alzolay from the base cards.

This wasn't an earth-shattering break, but I was glad to have a chance at opening a few Mega Boxes. I thought it was pretty cool of the local Target to ration them so that more people could have a chance, although not everyone at the store today felt the same.

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.

No Bowman, and Spring Cleaning

Today was my scheduled off day from work, so I took some time to look for 2018 Bowman cards at the local retail stores. I hit three different stores, and wasn't able to find any of the product. There weren't display boxes out or anything, so it probably hasn't been stocked locally yet. I finally decided on a hanger box of 2018 Heritage and a bag of Skittles, and I headed for home, picking up an order of Super Nachos from the local taqueria. They taste so good, but the serving size is huge and I am paying the price now for eating them all. I don't have the iron stomach I did fifteen years ago. After I got home, I decided to clear out the center console of my car. That's where a lot of my retail breaks end up if I don't pull anything particularly noteworthy.

There was a variety of stuff in there from three different sports. I decided that I wouldn't let these pack breaks go to waste, so let's take a look and see if I pulled anything of note.

Here are the most interesting (to me) cards from the Heritage stuff. Marwin Gonzalez was the only short print. It's surprising that I am showing off two Brewers, but I like Eric Sogard and Josh Hader is on three of my fantasy baseball teams this year. He's got 31 strikeouts in 15.1 innings so far this year, and 3 saves to boot! The Stanton and Lindor inserts are pretty cool, too. Gerrit Cole is an Astro now.

You know the Donruss Optic break was bad if the only card I have to show is a base card from one of my team's Divisional rivals. The Broncos were a train wreck last year. I hope they can find a few more wins in the coming season.

The WWE Women's Division packs are always fun, although I probably have about ten base sets by now. I've busted a lot of this product.

What I don't have a full set of is these rivalry inserts, which are exclusive to the rack packs. I picked a couple of the better ones I pulled to show off.

Road to WrestleMania isn't one of my favorite products, although I should like it more. The WWE is all about the story, and Road to WrestleMania tells the story of the promotion for each year. Maybe I should give the set another try. That Macho Man card is pretty sweet, with cameos by Jake 'The Snake' Roberts and Ricky 'The Dragon' Steamboat. 

Most of my favorite cards from the Rookies & Stars pack were inserts featuring retired players. In this case, it was Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson. I pulled a punter card, so I had to show that off, too. Kickers and punters don't get enough cardboard love.

I didn't find any new Bowman today, so I'll have to show off some old Bowman. Alex Bregman is manning 3rd base for the Astros, and Daz Cameron went to the Tigers in the Justin Verlander trade. Max Kepler is playing every day for the Twins. Half of his 20 hits on the year have gone for extra bases. Fernando Tatis Jr. is one of the value pack-exclusive parallels. He's only 19 years old right now, and is featured on most Top 10 Prospect lists.

There was also a value pack of Topps Chrome among the packs in my car. The Youth Impact insert of Blake Snell was the most colorful thing in the break. Carlos Gomez isn't my favorite player, but he was the only Astro among the cards. The other Pink value pack parallel of note was Wade Davis.

There were basketball cards in there, too. I tried a rack pack of 2017-18 Panini Status. It's a shiny and colorful product that picks up fingerprints easily. This pack should have gone to Cards on Cards, as both the inserts I pulled feature Trail Blazers. I guess I'll have to set them aside for the next package that goes his way.

That does it for the packs in my car's center console. There wasn't anything world-shattering in them, but I guess they weren't too awful. Hopefully I'll be able to find some 2018 Bowman in the next couple of weeks.