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.

A Blaster Box of 2023 Topps Stadium Club

I found myself at Fred Meyer yesterday, and decided to look for the trading card section. It was an unfamiliar store, so it took me some time to locate the cards. Once I found them, I noticed that Stadium Club was on offer. Since that's the hot new thing on social media right now, I grabbed a blaster from the row to try it out for myself.

Ronald Acuña Jr. had a pretty good season last year, and gets to be on the cover of the Stadium Club box.

Things start out pretty well for an Astros fan, with the box topper Master Photo featuring Yordan Alvarez, one of the best hitters in the game today. I'm no internet sleuth, but it looks like Yordan has just hit something big in this photo.

Here are some of my favorite base cards from the box. Altuve is probably the best of the bunch for me, but Barry Larkin's card features dogs!!! I picked Dennis Eckersley for his mustache and Mike Trout because he's Mike Trout. I saw him play live last year in Colorado, when the Angels hung 25 runs on the Rockies.

There's me in Denver, watching a baseball game. I'd driven to Denver for a concert, but decided to see if the Rockies were playing at the last minute and wound up getting to see Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani play live. Pretty cool stuff.

Here are a couple of horizontal shots, with the great Ichiro's batting stance and a celebration shot of Michael Harris II.

I pulled a Black Foil parallel of Robbie Ray, and three Red Foil parallels. I especially like the Dave Winfield and Joe Morgan cards in this batch.

I believe the Sepia parallels are retail-exclusive. This Andre Dawson photo seems to be a favorite photo among collectors on Twitter/X, so I was happy to pull an example of it from this box.

Among the inserts in the box I pulled a couple of sluggers in Aaron Judge and Yordan Alvarez. I'm always happy to get another Yordan for the collection, and even though Judge plays for the Yankees I don't mind pulling his cards. 2023 was kind of a down year for Judge, but I bet most players wish a down year for them included an All-Star appearance and 4.5 WAR.

The final insert of the box was this die-cut Cal Ripken Jr. Triumvirates card. My cousin collected Cal when we were kids, so I always enjoy pulling a nice Ripken card for my collection. It takes me back to the good parts of my teen years, which were few and far between.

A Top Tier Reverse Group Break Spot

A few days ago I found myself idly browsing a group breaker's site and strongly considered buying the Astros spot in a Topps Tier One break. Luckily, someone bought the spot while I was contemplating whether or not to buy it. I watched the break in question and no Astros hits were pulled, so I'm glad I lost out on the spot. 

I still had the card itch, though, so I decided to see what I could get on eBay for less than the cost of the break spot. I decided to limit my search to cards from 2023 Topps Tier One, and wanted to focus mostly on Yordan Alvarez cards. I was able to locate the lowest-priced Yordan on eBay, and added it to my watch list. A little while later an offer came in from the seller for an even lower price, and I made the purchase.

I also found a Yordan bat relic card at a decent price and bought it via the Buy It Now feature. Theoretically I still have about $20 left vs. the break spot price, but I am going to leave it where it's at for now. Group breaks are fun, but they are a form of gambling and the house usually wins. I find that most of the time when I join a group break I wind up subsidizing someone else's hits and not having anything to show for it, and that makes me feel a little icky. If I'd bought that Astros spot I wouldn't have had anything in my mailbox, but instead I have a couple of nice Yordan cards.