Cyber Week Breaks: Day 19 - R2-D2, Chrome Rondas, and Bowman's Best

For today's breaks, I opened the last 8 packs of Topps Star Wars: Jedi Legacy and 8 packs of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome. I also decided to post the results of a group break I was part of for some 2017 Bowman's Best. That will be down at the bottom.

The Jedi Legacy packs contained the second and last hit of the box, and it was a pretty good one. These Jabba the Hutt's Sail Barge relics only fall about 1:14 boxes, so they are some of the hardest hits in the product, surpassed only by relic cards containing fur from Chewbacca's costume. In 2015 I was able to land the Leia version of the sail barge relic, which was one of my grail cards. I am pretty happy with this as the second hit of the box. 

The UFC Chrome packs were pretty good this time around. I got a couple of Ronda Rousey cards, a Fire insert and a Green Refractor parallel. The Green Refractor is # 45 / 99. I pulled two other numbered cards out of these packs. One is the Pulsar Refractor parallel version of Georges St-Pierre's Fire insert card. That one is numbered # 10 / 50. The other is the first autograph out of this box, a Green Refractor autograph of Robbie Lawler. It is numbered # 87 / 99. Those are both pretty good cards. I think the Lawler card is the first sticker autograph I have out of Chrome. It's cool that he signed it with his nickname, Ruthless.

I got into a case break of 2017 Bowman's Best. I don't know if it was the smartest thing to do, but I did it. I wound up with the Mets and the Royals. I actually bid on the Royals spot before I looked at the checklist, and that made me panic a bit. They don't have much in the set at all. Here are some of the base cards and Refractors I got.

I also got a couple of Mets inserts. The Dean's List inserts give grades to each prospect, according to Baseball America. The Best Cuts insert rehashes a design from 1997, and the back lists a few of the player's awards or highlights.

The topsy-turvy Mirror Image inserts show two players who have similarities to each other, and are also a little headache-inducing to look at.

You may have noticed that all the cards shown so far feature Mets. The Royals really don't have much on this checklist, but the one Royals card I did pull in the break was the best one I got. This is a Best of 2017 Autographs Red Refractor parallel of Jorge Bonifacio. It's numbered # 09 / 10 and features an on-card autograph. Pretty cool stuff.

Cyber Week Breaks: Day 11 - Knockout Steps in Again, and Hulkamania Runs Wild

Once again, I have a break that needs a little something extra to make it worth posting about. I guess if I were a better writer, I could make a good post out of anything, but that's just not going to happen today. The packs that were scheduled for today were 8 packs of Topps Star Wars: Jedi Legacy and a box of 2016 Topps UFC High Impact. I am adding a pack of 2017 Topps UFC Knockout to the post, too, as well as a surprise item that appeared on my doorstep this morning.

Not much came out of the Jedi Legacy packs. I guess the highlights were these die-cut inserts that fit together to make a circle. I think there was a promotion when this product was released that allowed collectors to obtain a disc card that fit in the middle when the puzzle was complete.

These Magenta parallels aren't that rare, but there wasn't much else to go with. I think you get four of these per box.

The High Impact box had a Felice Herrig Blue parallel in it, a Julianna Pena Femme Fighters insert that I already have at least one copy of, and an autograph of Al Iaquinta that I also pulled a copy of on Day 7 of Cyber Week Breaks.

With those breaks out of the way, here are the hits from the pack of Knockout that I opened. First up is a Fight Mat Relic of Ronda Rousey. Her last couple of fights didn't end well, but she is still pretty much responsible for the rise of women's MMA into the limelight. I am not certain, but this might be the first Rousey hit I've ever pulled. This is the base version, and it is numbered # 16 / 99. The mat relic piece is supposedly from UFC 157, where the first UFC Women's bout was held. That fight involved Rousey and Liz Carmouche, with Rousey coming out on top.

The next hit is a Fearless Fighters Autograph Copper Ink parallel of Matt Hughes. These are pretty tough to come by, as the Copper Ink autographs only fall 1:77 packs, or about 1 in 20 boxes. This one is numbered # 08 / 10. This box of knockout has been pretty amazing so far. It will be fun to see what else comes out of this product for me. And now it's time for the bonus item!

This is a terrible cell phone picture, but I couldn't scan this thing and it came rolled up in a tube and won't lay flat for a photo. Hulk Hogan's official storefront, Hogan's Beach Shop, was clearing out some stuff and I grabbed this poster featuring his signature x2, once as Hulk Hogan and once as Hollywood Hogan. He also added some nice inscriptions to the poster, with my favorite being the '12x Champion Brother!' on the right. It also included a Certificate of Authenticity with a little story about Hulk's rise to fame. I've been thinking about buying an autographed tear-away shirt from the shop for a while now, but I couldn't pass up an opportunity to get two signatures on a poster for the price of one. I'm pretty happy with this piece.

Also, Hulk Hogan retweeted my Tweet about the poster, so that's pretty awesome.

Cyber Week Breaks: Day 4 - Star Wars, UFC Chronicles, and Retail Baseball

Today's scheduled breaks from the big order didn't generate a whole lot of excitement for me, so I'm including scans of some retail baseball I busted last week to make things a little more interesting.

First up is the highlights from 8 packs of Topps Star Wars: Jedi Legacy. This box promises 2 hits, with one of them being a film cel relic. We got that hit out of these first packs, with a Darth Vader film cel. The Green parallel at the top left is a variation that falls one per box, and the Magenta parallel below it is either 3 or 4 per box. I can't remember. I don't find this product all that exciting, outside of the autographs and movie prop relics, so hopefully the second hit in the box is something enjoyable.

I also opened two packs of 2015 Topps UFC Chronicles. These come in a jumbo pack format, with 10 packs per box. Each box promises 2 autographs and 3 relics. That Frankie Edgar relic is the first hit of the box. The Gold Ben Rothwell card is numbered # / 88, the Black & White Jordan Mein is # / 188, and the Silver Ronda Rousey isn't numbered, but is probably still the best parallel of the bunch.

I also got a couple of decent inserts from these packs, with a Paige VanZant Climbing the Ranks card and a Ronda Rousey Victorious Debut insert. I also got the first autograph of the box, a base auto of Scott Jorgensen. It was probably about this point where I began to regret buying this box instead of another box of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome.

I picked up some retail cards on a shopping trip. These were my reward for catching and disposing of 5 mice in our basement, so my wife didn't have to look at or deal with them. I grabbed one of those value packs of 2016 Topps Chrome from the clearance bin. The highlights were a Kris Bryant Pink Refractor and a Byron Buxton Future Stars insert. Not the greatest break, but the Bryant is nice. 

I also picked up another box of 2017 Topps Holiday Baseball. I got a couple of nice Dodgers among the Metallic Snowflake parallels, Yasiel Puig and Cody Bellinger. I also got the same George Springer relic I pulled from my last box of this stuff. The relic on this one also does not quite fill the window. Maybe this card design just has an awkwardly-shaped window.

There was a blaster of 2017 Bowman Platinum hiding in the back of the shelf, and I grabbed it. I got an Aaron Judge insert, a Clint Frazier insert, and a couple of Astros among the base cards. I also finally pulled an autograph out of this product, a base auto of Will Benson of the Indians. Maybe even better, I pulled a Black parallel of Pirates prospect Kecin Newman, numbered # 06 / 10. That's a pretty good break when it comes to retail.

That does it for today's cards. The Cyber Week stuff for today wasn't great, but that's to be expected at times when busting a large amount of stuff over time.

White Whale Whacked: Topps Star Wars Jedi Legacy Jabba's Sail Barge Relic Leia Organa

The Topps Star Wars Jedi Legacy product released in 2013 had quite a few good hits in it. They are pretty rare, though, which means that even with relatively cheap boxes available it doesn't make a lot of sense to bust wax in search of them. I was able to pick up a Carrie Fisher autograph from the set early in 2014. It is a pretty cool card, but one thing that really set this product apart were the relic cards. There were a couple varieties of fur relics, including fur from the Chewbacca costume and a set of relics from the various Ewok costumes. I actually pulled one of the Ewok relics from a box I opened, but I sold it at some point. But the one card I wanted most was the Princess Leia variation from the Jabba the Hutt's Sail Barge relic set. The relic cards feature part of the sail from Jabba's barge, and they only fell one per 14 boxes. With 5 different variations, the Leia variation was probably seeded about 1 in 70 boxes. A few listings have been up on eBay for a couple of years now, all in the $100+ range, which is a price I wasn't willing to pay.

A couple of months ago the eBay consignor probstein123 posted a copy of the card as an auction with a low starting bid. The title of the listing seemed to be missing some information, but my Leia search casts a pretty wide net and it popped up in my feed. I put in some bids on it, but I didn't feel like I had much chance of winning. The auction ended and I emerged with the winning bid at a price that was about 1/3 of what I felt was reasonable and about 1/5 of what the long-sitting auctions were set at. I paid and then I waited.

Over a week went by without a shipping notification and I was sure that the price had just been too low for them to send me the card. Reading the seller's negative feedback confirmed in my mind that this might be the case as there were several mentions that an item had not been shipped, possibly due to a poor selling price. At this point I was certain that the seller had realized the vague nature of their auction title and decided to hold the card back or relist it. I felt a little bit guilty about winning it at that price, but that guilt was countered by me really wanting the card and the fact that I have been on the other end of disappointing auction prices before and always sent the cards with as much care as I did the cards that oversold my expected price.

I sent a polite (important!) message stating that I had not seen a shipping notification and inquiring as to the status of the item. A couple of stressful days later I got a message back along with a tracking number. I half-expected that the envelope would arrive empty, but the card was there and now it is mine. I am super-excited that I was able to track this card down for my collection because I was pretty well convinced that it wasn't going to happen.