Gint-a-Cuffs VIII: Pack 18

David Ortiz: +3 (Black-Bordered Mini +3)

Jon Lester: +2 (The Numbers Game +2)

Pack Total: 5.00
Running Total: 83.00

Average Per Pack: 4.37
Box Pace: 109.21

Pack of the Day 128: 2 Packs of 2016 Topps Series 1 Toys"R"Us Edition

My twin sons turned five just over a week ago, so we took them out to dinner and then to Toys"R"Us to purchase some stuff with their birthday money. They chose a couple of LEGO kits and some Hot Wheels stuff. While they were doing that, I was looking for the trading cards so I could grab a couple packs of 2016 Topps Series 1 with the exclusive Purple parallels.

I grabbed two packs. There wasn't anything of interest in the regular packs, so I just scanned the Purple Toys"R"Us cards for this post. They are pretty cool, I guess. I got a couple of decent names in my packs, with Jose Abreu and Max Scherzer probably being the best of the bunch. Matt Kemp takes a fairly distant third place, with Erick Aybar following just over the horizon and Martin Maldonado and Travis Jankowski getting participation trophies.

There's not much more to say about these. They're a fun novelty but I can't see myself chasing any more of them. I'm just kind of waiting on 2016 Topps until the factory sets come out. I'm a little bit excited for Heritage, which released today I believe, but I usually just pick up that set once prices come down on it. I'd like to bust some packs of something this year, but my other collecting priorities always seem to push that down the list. I'm not sure Heritage is the thing that's going to jump up to the top.

I was on the news today as a bystander. Well, my car was. I was in the car, but you can't see me. I was on my way home from work and I saw that traffic up ahead was slowing down. Then I saw a police officer standing on the other side of the highway trying to throw a spike strip across the lanes. Pretty soon after that a pickup truck came down the highway with three or four police cars in pursuit. The truck drove around the spike strip and then the police cars went around the spike strip. A little ways back the police nudged the truck and it wrecked. When I went home and saw the news the video from the traffic camera picked up right as I was driving past. That was pretty cool.

Gint-a-Cuffs VII: Pack 10

+2 Starting Points
+2 A&G Back Mini

Pack 10 Points: 4.00

Box Running Total: 53.00

Per Pack Average: 5.30

Box Pace: 132.50

Seeking Redemption 11: Jose Abreu 2014 Topps Heritage High Numbers Real One Autograph

Back in February I opened up a box set of 2014 Topps Heritage High Numbers and wound up getting one of the bigger hits as the promised autograph, a redemption for a Jose Abreu Real One autograph. The turnaround on the redemption was pretty quick, and I had the card in-hand by early April. It's a nice enough card, but I don't PC Abreu and I put it up on eBay to see what I could get for it.

After a few offers and some back and forth with some potential buyers I sold the card and shipped it off to a new home. I don't really consider myself a card flipper or an investor, but this was a good chance for me to recoup the money I spent on the box and then some.

Pack of the Day 92: A Box of Stadium Club

I opened this box of Stadium Club so long ago that I don't even remember what was in it. I'll scroll down as a I type, and it will be like opening the box all over again. I hope I pulled something good!

So far the base cards are looking pretty good, with an Astro, both of last year's top Rookies, Tony Gwynn, an autograph-signing card, and a decent celebration shot.

I got a couple of horizontal Rainbow Foil parallels. One is the David Ortiz selfie shot with the President. The other is another card featuring someone touching Adrian Beltre on the head, which is something he famously does not like at all. That makes it extra funny.

The third Rainbow Foil is Tony Gwynn. Not too shabby. The Gold parallel in the box was Jason Heyward. I don't have much to say about it except that it's a decent photo.

I got a nice Justin Verlander Foilboard parallel, numbered # 04 / 25. These fell about one in four boxes, so they were pretty tough to get.

The Field Access inserts were one per mini-box, but I pulled an extra one because the Clayton Kershaw is a Rainbow Foil parallel. I don't really have a lot of Andrew McCutchen cards, but I consider him to be a borderline PC guy. I like that Nolan Ryan card quite a bit.

The Kershaw is numbered on the back, with this being copy # 62 / 99. These fell about 1 in every 8 boxes, so again this is a pretty tough card to pull.

The rest of the inserts were all base versions. The George Brett was a double for me, as I pulled that card in another box. Actually, going through my scans tells me that this might be the third one I pulled from a box. Those Beam Team inserts are pretty cool. I like the Triumvirate cards, with their little interlocking gimmick. The die-cut on those Future Stars cards makes them really annoying to line up with other cards on the scanner or carry in stacks with other cards. The same thing goes for the Legends and Triumvirate cards. I've pulled the Wil Myers card at least twice so far.

Hollands, Anderson, and Montero were the autographs I pulled in this box. I also pulled these exact autographs in the first box of Stadium Club I opened, along with the previous doubles I mentioned for the George Brett and Wil Myers inserts. Yuck. I guess this box was a bit of a dud outside of the Verlander and Kershaw inserts and a few PC cards.

Pack of the Day 91: 2014 Topps Heritage High Numbers Box Set

The 2015 sets are rolling out now, but my mind has been on the past. Thinking about completing upcoming sets serves to remind me that each passing year adds a number of partially-completed sets to my card collection. One of the worst examples from 2014 was the Topps Heritage set, with cruddy collation and those damnable short-printed cards (SPs). I determined that since I am not extremely fond of this year's Heritage design, I would instead focus on finishing off my 2014 set. I ordered a bunch of the SPs I was missing from sellers on Check Out My Cards, but none of those appear in this post.

I had thus far avoided the Heritage High Numbers box set as an extraneous and irritating addition to an already frustrating set, but I kind of like some of the players included in the checklist. The set was packed out as a 101-card box set, with the 100 cards from 501-600 in the checklist and one autograph card. I shopped around and tried to decide whether I should order a sealed set or an opened set that had the autograph already removed. Eventually I decided to place a Best Offer with Dave & Adam's eBay store for a sealed set. It wasn't that much more than a set missing an autograph, and there was a chance I could pull something good.

As far as I know, you get the same 100 cards in every set. I don't think there are photo variations or anything tricky in the Heritage High Numbers set. I heard rumors of sets showing up with a lot of damage after the release last year, but mine arrived in great shape. I pulled a few cards and scanned them for this post. Tanaka was one of the Big 2 rookies last year, pitching extremely well prior to his arm injury. Dee Gordon had a good year for his fantasy baseball managers, stealing approximately ten thousand bases. Collin McHugh had a pretty good year for the Astros last year. Hopefully he can keep it up this year. Oscar Taveras had a promising career (and life) cut short by making a poor decision about alcohol and driving, and unfortunately also wound up killing his young girlfriend in the wreck, too. It's to bad, but it's hard to feel overly sorry for a guy who gets himself into that situation.

Doolittle had a pretty solid season in 2014, making the All-Star team, but he is injured and will miss some amount of time. The closer role is one that can be hard to reclaim if your injury replacement is lighting it up, so we'll see what role he gets this year. Billy Hamilton is the super-speedy prospect who is projected to steal approximately 5000 bases per year, but last year he got caught stealing a whole lot and had a hard time getting on base so that he could actually run wild on the basepaths. Neshek is a very good reliever who signed with the Astros and might even get a chance to close for them this year. He also is a card collector and a friend to hobbyists. Mike Morse just gets included because of his card photo, in which he is channeling the spirit of a sleepy Keanu Reeves.

George Springer is one of the Astros other hot young players, and hopefully this year the team will take some steps forward. Betances had ridiculous numbers last year, and will hopefully be able to keep it up this season. I think he is going to get a shot at the closer role with the Yankees now that Robertson has moved on. That should be a pretty good gig. Samardzija got into some sets as an Athletic after his mid-season move from the Cubs, but now he's with the White Sox. Hopefully he does well with his new team. Jose Abreu should provide plenty of run support for Samardzija's starts as he was last year's big story, mashing the ball all over the place on his way to an All-Star berth, a Rookie of the Year award, a Silver Slugger award, and a 4th-place finish in the MVP race. That's all the base cards I scanned, which leaves me with just the autograph. Unfortunately my autograph was a redemption card...

...but it was a pretty good one. I got a Real One Autograph of Jose Abreu. It's the base version rather than the photo variation or the short-printed Red Ink version, but this is one of the best cards I could have pulled from this set. It looks like there are some of these live at the moment, so I shouldn't have any trouble getting the card from Topps. I am pretty happy that my gamble to go with the sealed set paid off. I am not sure whether I will sell the card when it gets here. It might be kind of cool to keep it. I don't have an Abreu auto, and the Heritage autographs tend to look pretty nice.

That's it for my Heritage High numbers box set. I imagine I will do a post on the Abreu card whenever it arrives in the mail. Once my COMC order comes in I should be pretty close to finishing my 2014 Topps Heritage set, with just a couple more cards to locate.