A Couple Blaster Boxes of 2024 Topps Series 1 Baseball

I've opened a couple of 2024 Topps Series 1 Baseball blaster boxes over the last few weeks. I figured I'd hit the highlights from them in one post rather than trying to squeeze two posts out of a couple blasters.

 

My official first card of 2024 Topps was...Spencer Torkelson. I really like the design of this set. The colorful foil really pops in the right light, and I think most of the elements are well-placed and easy to read. I'm sure the graphic designers of the world could pick it apart, but to a layman like me it's a fun set design, and that's all I really want from a baseball card set.

The backs are fine, with plenty of information and stats. I can't find anything to complain about with the card backs.

This photo is kind of washed-out, but it's a selection of some of my favorite horizontal cards from the selection I had on-hand. I had to include the Miguel Cabrera farewell card, along with a couple of young stars in Corbin Carroll and Bobby Witt Jr.

And here are some of the vertical cards I pulled from my blasters. I had to get a couple of Astros in this post, Chas McCormick with a nice action photo and Hunter Brown to show the Future Stars design. I figured the Jasson Dominguez and Julio Rodriguez cards probably warranted posting as well.

I got a handful of these shiny blue holiday parallels. Nothing that lit my collection on fire, but here they are. This is a parallel I could see myself trying to build a set of if card prices were at 2014 levels rather than 2024 price points.

I got one Rainbow Foil card and one Easter Egg parallel across the two blasters. I guess the season-themed parallels are pretty fun as opposed to the standard different border colors of most years.

The first blaster yielded this /999 Blue Sparkle Angels team card. This is another set that would be considered for a set build at 2014 prices and print runs. It would have been achievable then. Now, not so much.

This flowery Jhoan Duran parallel is /50 and came out of the second blaster I opened. I doubt that most blasters drop a numbered card, but I got lucky and pulled one from each of the blasters I opened.

Stars of MLB is the most common insert in the boxes. I pulled quite a few of them, and these are the four best by my reckoning. I'm always happy to add another Yordan Alvarez card to my collection.

Each blaster box also dropped one Stars of MLB Chrome card. These are the two I got. Corbin Carroll is a pretty good pull, I suppose, although his card doesn't qualify for the coveted RC shield this year.

These 1989 Topps throwbacks are pretty cool, and I got a couple of good players from them, with Nolan Ryan in an Astros uniform and Bo Jackson running hard. 1989 Topps is one of the first sets I remember from my youth, so the design hits the nostalgia button for me.

I got a mix of other inserts from the set in my boxes. I reckon the Shohei Ohtani and Ichiro cards are my favorites here. The Mike Schmidt photo is pretty cool, too, with the old-school uniform on display.

Finally, I got a couple of Home Run Challenge cards. I typically don't scratch the codes and play the game of trying to pick a home run date for the players, but maybe I'd consider it if I pulled doubles of a card.

That does it for a quick rundown of 2024 Topps Series One Baseball. It marks the official start of the 2024 baseball year for many collectors, and I think Topps did a good job of designing the cards for this year. I probably won't open a ton of this stuff, as I prefer to just buy a factory set and grab an Update set on eBay each year, but I could see myself sampling a bit of basic Topps this year when I find it on the shelves at retail.

Cyber Week Breaks: Day 8 - 2017 Topps High Tek Baseball

One of the big-ticket items on my Cyber Week order was a box of 2017 Topps High Tek Baseball, the patterned acetate offering with a new packaging scheme for this year. While the previous incarnations held just a few cards per box with one guaranteed autograph, this version has 40 cards in a box and promises two autographs. I scanned the cards in based on their background patterns, with the most numerous in the box first. I would imagine that the collation in my box does not necessarily match the collation in the overall print run.

These all have the same background pattern, but my scanner likes to add some variation in the coloring. Not a lot stands out to me in this foursome, but I do like that jersey Moncada is wearing. There seems to be a decent mix of rookies, veterans, and retired players in the checklist.

I also pulled four cards of this pattern. I think I read somewhere that the patterns are broken out by positions, so you have two different sets of patterns. One of them has pitchers, catchers, and outfielders (PCO); the other has all other infielders (AOI). That seems to hold true throughout the cards in this box. This pattern is probably one of the more common PCO patterns.

This group of four cards belongs to the AOI group, and is again probably one of the more common patterns. That's a young-looking Jeter there in the bottom right.

This last group of four is another PCO group, with Kluber making his second appearance in the box. I also like the Ichiro and Trout cards, with Roger Clemens rounding out the group.

I only pulled one group of three cards, which included Mike Trout's second appearance in the box. I guess I should try giving cutesy names to all of the patterns, but I think I tapped out my brain power coming up with the PCO/AOI designations. I'd honestly just like to figure out how rare each tier is and call them PCO 1, PCO 2, PCO 3, and so on. That's a lot easier to remember than Tek Prism Clockwise or some other name.

Each of these patterns had two examples in the box. It was nice to see Jim Thome in here, as well as a couple of star Astros. So far I am pretty happy with this product's player selection.

There are three patterns that had only one example in the box. The Bryant is a nice pull. Even though he got a little overshadowed this year by the hot new rookies, he still put up a 6.1 WAR season and got a decent share of MVP votes.

You supposedly get four of these Blackout parallels per box. I guess maybe that solves the question of which patterns are the 'base' patterns for each group. The pattern on top must be the PCO base pattern, with the pattern on bottom being AOI base. These are some pretty nice cards, too, especially the Aaron and Koufax up there.

You also get one of these second-tier patterns of the Blackout parallel per box. I got lucky with mine and landed another Altuve card for my collection of Astros cards.

There were four serially-numbered parallels in my box of High Tek. The top two cards appear to be the basic version of parallel, probably a Diffractor of some kind. The Kluber (his 3rd appearance in this box) is numbered # 007 / 250 and the Bogaerts is numbered # 101 / 250. Then there are a couple of colorful parallels, a Blue and a Green. The Pedroia is numbered # 42 / 75, and the Clemens is # 07 / 99. Not too bad, although this is a bit too much AL East content for me.

You get two promised autographs per box. Mine are both base versions, and I assume there are also parallels out there. Both of these are decent pulls, the Lindor probably more than the Fulmer. Lindor's signature is a little more faded than I'd like, but that seems to happen fairly often with these acetate cards.

What's this? My box had a third autograph inside. This Ben Zobrist autograph is a parallel of the TwiliTEK insert. I guess maybe this spot would normally be occupied by a regular insert card, but I got lucky and pulled a third autograph from the box. This is a pretty good one, numbered # 10 / 50.

This was a pretty fun break, although it's a bit pricey to bust a box of this stuff. Moving up from a handful of cards to 40 cards in a box really feels like an added value when opening this product. I am happy that Topps listened to the consumer on this one and boosted the number of cards per box. This set is really about collecting pattern variations, and it was harder to do that a few cards at a time. As it is here, High Tek is a little over my price range for box busting, but if they dropped an autograph and $20-30 from the price tag I would find it very hard to resist.

Contested Shots 20: Announcing the Winners of My Contest

I've been trying to get to this for most of the day, but it seemed like things kept coming up. I recently announced a contest on this blog for a couple of 2012 SEGA Card-Gen doubles that I'd picked up, an Ichiro and a Yu Darvish:

The Darvish comes with a card case. These card cases (with cards inside) were prizes for the Card-Gen arcade game, redeemable by presenting a card from the machine to the arcade attendant.

According the contest rules, an entry was gained by commenting on the contest post and stating which card you would prefer to win. After the entry period, I would randomize the entries 4 times on Random.org. The person at the top of the list would get the prize of their choice, and the person at the bottom of the list would get the remaining prize.

Here are the 11 entries I received before closing things down, as well as the selection each entrant made:

The Lost Collector - Ichiro

cynicalbuddha - Ichiro

Al Kawamoto - Ichiro

defgav - Ichiro

arpsmith - Ichiro

Sports Card Collectors - Ichiro

Mark Hoyle - Darvish

Angus - Ichiro

John Hazen - Darvish

R Laughton - Ichiro

Tim B. - Ichiro

And now it's time to announce the winners! Here are the results after four randomizations:

Mark Hoyle was the lucky person at the top of the list. He bucked the trend and picked the Yu Darvish card and case as his prize, which means last-place winner cynicalbuddha also won his selected prize, the Ichiro card. I will be in touch soon to get shipping information. Congratulations to the winners and thanks to all for taking the time to enter the contest!

Contested Shots 18: A Contest for the New Year

I've won a few prizes in contests over the last year and I've been the target of generosity from other bloggers, so I thought it was about time to hold a contest of my own and give back a little bit. I've got some prizes that I think are pretty desirable. This is a pretty simple contest. All you have to do to enter is state which prize you prefer in a comment on this post, and you're entered. I'll close it down in a week, so on the evening of January 8th at some point. After that I will randomly sort the names on the list 4 times and assign the prizes based on the list. The first name on the list will win the prize they have expressed a preference for, and the last name on the list will win the prize that remains.

And now, the prizes:

The first prize is this 2012 SEGA Card-Gen EX card featuring Ichiro. It's a pretty cool card, and I recently acquired a duplicate copy. Unfortunately I did not acquire a duplicate of the case the card arrived in, so the case won't be included in the prize package. Here's what it looks like, though:

I was hoping that a couple more of these would come up for sale, but they haven't yet. Maybe the seller read my previous post about this next prize and caught on to my game.

This prize includes a card and a case. The card is the Yu Darvish 2012 SEGA Card-Gen EX card, which I posted about a little while ago. I picked up a second one, and someone will be winning it.

This prize does come with the card case. If you want more pictures of it, you can click the link in the previous paragraph.

And that's it. To enter, all you need to do is post a comment below, stating which prize you would prefer to win. Good luck!

Prize #1: 2012 SEGA Card-Gen EX Ichiro

Prize #2: 2012 SEGA Card-Gen EX Yu Darvish w/Card Case

2016 Topps UFC NOW - UFC 205 + A Holiday Surprise from Topps

I got my Topps UFC NOW bundle of cards from UFC 205 a little while back, but haven't found time yet to post about them. I've got a lot of drafts in my queue, and I am trying to prioritize packages I've received from other bloggers over stuff from corporations and eBay sellers, but I also want to get some of the older stuff cleared out. It seems like half the time I am struggling to find material to post, and the other half I am considering posting twice a day so I can get to all of the many things I want to post about. I suppose I'm doing all right if that sort of problem appears on my list of worries.

UFC 205 was a pretty big deal, earning 5 Topps NOW cards. Card 205-A went to the big headline of the night, which was Conor McGregor winning the Lightweight belt in a dominant and rapid victory over Eddie Alvarez. The victory gave him both the Lightweight and Featherweight belts. After he held the belts for a couple of weeks, he gave up/was stripped of the Featherweight belt, which went back to Jose Aldo. Him winning the two belts was pretty impressive, but the UFC probably saw that there wasn't any more money in keeping two belts tied up by one guy, and gave back the belt to the weight division Conor was least likely to fight in again. That is my take on it, at least. This card had a print run of 474 copies, the 2nd-highest UFC NOW print run to date, trailing only McGregor's card from UFC 202.

Although Conor McGregor led the hype train that was the first UFC event in New York, the rest of the card had some good moments. Maybe the weirdest moment was at the end of the Tyron Woodley - Stephen Thompson fight for the Welterweight title. The bout was initially announced as a victory for Woodley, but then Bruce Buffer issued a correction, stating that it was instead a draw. Woodley looked confused and angry, and I really thought he was going to go after Buffer or anyone within reach. Luckily, someone explained to him that he would be allowed to keep his belt with a draw result, and he calmed down. The print run on this one was 108 copies.

Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Karolina Kowalkiewicz went the full five rounds in their battle for the Strawweight title. Jedrzejczyk was in control throughout, but Kowalkiewicz threatened a couple of times, especially in the 4th round, and gave it her all. She just couldn't beat the champion. I was kind of surprised that this one didn't sell more copies, but it came in just ahead of the Woodley card with 111 copies sold.

Yoel Romero's flying knee knockout of Chris Weidman was absolutely nasty. It was the kind of knockout that makes you jump out of your seat, but also wonder if you're a bad person for getting excited about this sport. Romero's upcoming title shot against Michael Bisping should be a good fight. This card got the smallest print run for the event, with just 82 copies ordered.

Finally, the fight between Raquel Pennington and Miesha Tate got a card. Pennington got the victory by decision in a very close and not particularly exciting bout, and then Miesha Tate stole the thunder by announcing her retirement during the post-fight interviews. This card got 103 orders, which is more than I would have expected for a Pennington card. I think Topps put these ones up for pre-order, so a number of copies may have been sold to collectors anticipating a Tate victory.

This was a pretty good UFC event, with plenty of big names on the card and a healthy dose of action. The upcoming UFC 207 promises to be a pretty huge event as well, and it will ultimately be judged by how the Amanda Nunes - Ronda Rousey fight plays out. I'm looking forward to it. A fighter whose cards I collect, Neil Magny, is also on the card for the Preliminaries, so I will be tuning in hoping for a victory out of him.

I've seen these popping up around the blogs, and I also received a Topps NOW holiday card. Rumor has it that anyone who directly ordered a card through the website during the 2016 season got one sent to them. You're probably out of luck if you only purchased them through re-sellers, although there are plenty listed on eBay if you need your fix. The greeting card is shown above...

...and down here is the trading card that was enclosed. It's got some of the most popular subjects from the 2016 Topps NOW set sharing one piece of cardboard. Most people seem to agree that Kris Bryant, Ichiro, and David Ortiz deserve a spot on the short list for this card, but question the inclusion of Yankees rookie Gary Sanchez. All I know is that people on the Blowout forums were going nuts for his cards every time another one was released. They couldn't get enough of this guy, and that is probably why he is included here.

This was a pretty cool move from Topps, and makes up somewhat for the practice of charging cardboard-addicted collectors to the tune of $9.99/card for their Topps NOW fix throughout the baseball season.

Black November, Epilogue - 2016 Topps Update Series Hobby Box

After rolling the dice on a few products from the Blowout Cards Black November sale, I also picked up a box of a current product, 2016 Topps Baseball Update Series. With the smaller checklist this year, I felt that my odds of completing a set from one box were pretty good. If I hadn't felt that way, I would have just bought a set and skipped the box.

David Ortiz is the cover star of the product. Each Hobby box promises one Autograph or Relic card, so we'll see what comes out of this one.

The pack design replicates the art on the box. Each box has 36 packs, with 10 cards per pack (packs containing a special card may have fewer than 10 cards).

Here are the pack odds and the NPN information. As usual, there are plenty of parallels and inserts to chase.

I was able to put together a complete 300-card base set from this box, as well as pulling 22 doubles. So the collation was pretty good. I selected a few of my favorite photos to scan for this post. Common themes for my favorites were All-Star uniforms, UPF (Ugly Pitching Face), glorious manes of hair, and fielding photos with interesting background scenery like advertising signs or greenery.

Panoramic ballpark shots also made my favorites list a couple of times, along with hat tips. As with any baseball set, there were a lot of standard throwing/hitting torso photos, but there are some gem in here. I do kind of wish for a set with regular rectangular borders, but that's not the direction these things are trending in right now.

I got three coupon cards. The front highlights the existence of the Topps website and their social media pages, while the back offers 50 cents off on various Topps retail products. I just counted up the cards from the box, and apparently these don't count as part of the 360 cards in the box. They are extras, so they don't replace a base card or insert from the pack you find them in.

There were six Gold parallels in the box, all numbered out of # / 2016. I guess for me, the Edwin Encarnacion All-Star and the Tim Lincecum are the highlights here.

The box contained three Rainbow Foil parallels. Bartolo Colon's Home Run Heard 'Round the World is probably the highlight of this bunch. The Mark Trumbo card is nice, too.

I also got a pair of relatively scarce parallels. The first is a Rookie SP photo variation of Mallex Smith. I believe the pack odds are reversed on the SP cards, as the Rookies appear to be much easier pulls than the All-Star SPs. The second is a Negative parallel of Kirby Yates, a pitcher for the Yankees.

I pulled 5 cards from the Ichiro Chasing 3k insert set, which highlight Ichiro's hits on his quest to reach 3000 MLB hits, a feat he accomplished on August 7th.

I pulled six inserts from the 3000 Hits Club insert, which has a checklist full of players who reached the 3000-hit mark during their MLB careers.

I like the Topps Fire insert set, which is modeled on the design of the 2015 Topps Fire Football product. It is a pretty busy design, but it actually feels like a legitimate insert set. I pulled some good names, too, in Carlos Correa, Clayton Kershaw, Kris Bryant, and Josh Donaldson.

I got six of the First Pitch insert cards in the box. I had already purchased a full set of these cards online, so these are all doubles for me. I'll probably have more to say about them when I post about the set as a whole.

I got five of the Team Franklin inserts in the set, which feature players who use Franklin-branded batting gloves. Topps could have done a lot more with this concept, most significantly by including a parallel version with glove relic swatches embedded.

Finally, here is the hit of the box, a Scouting Report autograph of Tigers pitcher Michael Fulmer. This was a decent pull for a box of a basic Topps product, as Fulmer had a very good season. It is unfortunate that this card came out of the pack with fair-sized ding in the corner. You can kind of see it in the card-back scan as a touch of white in the upper right.

That's it for this box and for this order from Blowout Cards. I got about what I expected from this box of cards. I am glad that I was able to complete the Update Series checklist from one Hobby box. The 4-product break overall had some highs and lows, with the Cal Ripken Jr. # 1 / 1 from 2016 Topps Archives Signature Series really moving this break from not-good to pretty-good.