Friday, September 23, 2011

Case Break: 2011 Topps Chrome Baseball: Box 1

I wanted to get these videos up here a lot sooner, but it wasn’t meant to be. To make up for that, I’ll let you know that all of the videos are currently up on YouTube. After you check this one out, you can watch the rest to see if there’s anything that you might be interested in. Just to let you know, for my case breaks, I’m not able to trade the cards that I pull. I need to sell what I can to pay off the case. If something catches your eye, leave a comment and I’ll set it aside for you. Once all of the breaks have been posted, I’ll contact you either Sunday or Monday with a price and we can go from there. The top cards have been listed on eBay and I’ll link to them in the posts. Anything else is available unless otherwise noted. I’ve got 3 sets available for $30 delivered. Pick up something else with the set and they’ll ship for free. I think that’s everything, so lets get on with the fun.

 

Unfortunately, I had the settings wrong and the video crapped out on my during the break. Here’s what I pulled:

Retro

I’m not a huge fan of the card design that Topps decided to bring back for the “Vintage Chrome.” You’ll find four of these per box. I had perfect collation in my case and for 48 of the 50 cards in this set. I had one that I was missing in the two boxes that I bought prior to the box break so I just need card number 31 (Joe Mauer) in order to complete the set. Once the set is completed, it will be headed to eBay.

Heritage

I’m still not sure why Topps felt the need to include retro Heritage cards and a “Vintage” insert set as well. One would have been enough. The Jeter is a refractor (numbered to 562) and is up on eBay with a starting bid of $4.99. The rest are normal chrome cards which are numbered to 1962. Those are available and whatever is remaining will go up on eBay as a big lot.

Ref

You pull 8 standard refractors per box. For the most part, all of the standard refractors will be available so if you see your team or player that you collect, let me know. It was nice pulling a Pineda right off the bat.

Colors

There still aren’t a ton of colored refractors in this year’s Chrome, but Topps added a couple of new flavors to try and add some more value without having to put ridiculously high print runs on the cards. The result is kind of strange. You’ve still got low numbered refractors, but I’m not sure if we really needed two sets numbered to 99 and another numbered to 100. I wouldn’t have minded one high numbered set around 500 or so along with the Atomics at 225.

Since my personal collection was nice enough to lend a vintage insert to case breaking me, this David Ortiz will make its way into my collection. The blues are beautiful as always and are numbered to 99. The Chipper black is numbered to 100 and is up on eBay with a $4.99 starting bid. The Damon is numbered to 225 and is available.

Autos

Nothing like pulling a great card right off of the bat. Not only is this a Michael Pineda rookie auto, but it is the refractor version that is numbered to 499. The card is currently up on eBay with a Buy It Now of $30 and best offers accepted. I’m not sure why I put it as a 30 day listing though. Maybe to wait until the AL ROY award is given to Mr. Pineda. The Sogard is available.

RedemptionSo, that’s it…oh wait. I almost forgot one more card that was pulled from this box:

This card is good for 5 random refractor autographs from the 22 card set. These cards fall every 1,173 packs and I only opened 288 so I definitely beat the odds there. That’s a one-in-every-four-cases card right there. You can find this on eBay with a starting bid of $50 and a BIN of $75. Who knows, this redemption could produce the next Strasburg or Harper.

So, there you have the first box. I will most likely schedule the rest of these boxes to post once an hour on Saturday counting down to the end of my eBay auctions. I’ll be at work on Saturday, but will get to any questions or comments on Sunday and will start sending out prices as well.

 

1 comment:

Guy said...

Wow. Mystery redemption and a Pineda RC refractor auto? Totally winning.

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