Case Break: 2009-10 UD Basketball Draft Edition: Box 12

Here we are down to the wire on this case break.  I promise that the boxes were posted in the order that I opened them and I would like to thank Upper Deck for packing them in the most dramatic way possible.  We’re still looking for one “A-List” autograph and the case hit.

We’ll start off this box with a Darrell Griffith Tournament Titan insert parallel numbered to 50.  Griffith had the nickname “Dr. Dunkenstein” and… well, that’s all I got.

These last two boxes were crazy loaded with hits.  It’s like Upper Deck realized that they hadn’t put everything into this case yet and stuffed it into these two boxes.  Keep reading to see what I mean.

More weird base autographs in this box.  The Eric Maynor is numbered to 349.  All of the base autos to this point have been numbered to something ending in 99.  All of the autograph parallels have differently colored borders.  So, this is a base auto going by the card it is on, but it is numbered like a parallel.  It’s also a terrible autograph.  He can’t sign his full name, but he adds his jersey number?  Go figure.  Dante Cunningham is numbered to 899.  I guess someone misplaced a few sheets of autographs.

This was the lowest numbered autograph that I had pulled to this point, but that mark wouldn’t last for long.  Not only is this Gerald Henderson numbered out of 25, but the 15 it is numbered is also Henderson’s jersey number.  That should draw some interest for this card on eBay.  I’ve got a post in the works that shows just how crazy things can get when serial numbers are involved.  It would be nice if it were one of the bigger names in the set that was numbered this low, but beggars can’t be choosers.  Besides, if I were to choose one autograph to pull out of an Upper Deck hoops product, which one would I choose?

Yeah, it probably would have been this guy.  I’ve been collecting long enough that I’ve held a lot of great cards in my hands, but I was shaking when this came out of the pack.  It’s numbered 3/23 and beat out the Henderson for the lowest numbered autographed card in the case.

If you have the time, click on the picture to get the larger version.  Now you see what I saw once I snapped back to reality and started thinking about listing the card on eBay.  The bottom of the card looks like someone used to get popcorn kernels out from between their teeth.  There’s chipping and dings all over the place.  So, even though I’m scared as hell, I have to send this one back to Upper Deck for replacement.  I know that I’ll be getting a college card in return, but I’m sending them a college card so that’s alright.  I’m making sure that they send this card back if they can’t replace it with another Jordan that’s numbered this low.  I may even call Upper Deck on the phone before I send the cards in to make sure they can do what I want them to.

So, I did amazingly well for my first case break considering that this one card should be able to pay for the whole case and then some on its own.  The only downside is that I’m going to have to wait a couple of months at the least to get a card back that I can sell which puts the whole case breaking thing on hold for that long.  It does give me the freedom to be a little more loose on the rest of what I pulled out of the case, so if you sent me a trade request then I’ll be looking to trade what you’re looking for.  Also, I might trade some of the 16 sets away if anyone is interested.  Send me an offer of something Celtics, Red Sox or Patriots.

Thanks to everyone who read through all of these posts.  I’m still looking for ideas of what I should ask for in return for the Michael Johnson redemption and what case I should break next.  I’m leaning towards something like baseball Heroes or Masterpieces, but for football Philadelphia and Magic look interesting as well.  If they were easier to find, I wouldn’t mind busting cases of Topps basketball jumbos.  There’s also the possibility of Donruss Basketball or 2011 Topps jumbos depending on what the Jordan card eventually sells for.

 

Technorati Tags: case break,box break,Upper Deck,2009-10 Basketball Draft Edition,Michael Jordan,Gerald Henderson

Box Break: 2010 Topps WWE

This past Friday night was the biannual Greater Boston Sports Collectors Club show at the Aleppo Shriners Hall in Wilmington. While this show is heavily weighted towards vintage cards, there are usually enough modern product there for me to have a good time. Heck, I could have a good time just walking through the show looking at all of the amazing cards for sale. There's tobacco cards, '52s and just about anything you could imagine. Rows of Mantles in various grades by half grades, Babe Ruths, Teddy Ballgame and more.

So, what did I purchase at this show that could almost pass as a sports card museum? Wrestling cards. That's right, I purchased a box of 2010 Topps WWE trading cards. I'm not that into Bowman Chrome and want to wait and see if the price drops any lower before I possibly buy any of that. I decided to try something different especially since I have yet to pick up a box of the 2009 edition of these.

So, what did I think of the box? There are far too many insert sets in this stuff. I pulled 57 insert cards out of my box. It is just like 2010 Baseball in that regard. I did not get a complete set and still need 5 cards to complete the set. I got three doubles and one damaged card that I wasn't putting in the set. That annoys me when it comes to a product such as this one. Singles can be tough enough to find these days for popular sets. Forget it when it comes to non-sports and wrestling sets.

How can you complain, you pulled the best non-parallel card in the whole product? That's true and I'm still buzzing about the dual auto pull, but I'm looking at the box in terms of just the base set first off. The majority of the boxes out there aren't going to contain a card as good as this one and if someone gets a dud auto or no auto in their box (autographs fall one in every other box) then this is something that's going to bother them. When it comes to smaller, oddball sets there has to be a complete set in every box.

I'll speak briefly on the various insert sets:

• National Heroes (1:8) - I really like these cards. The design is simple with the wrestler in front of the flag of their homeland, but it works. These would have been even cooler in the 80s when nationality was such a huge part of wrestling.
• History of... (1:8) - These are completely unnecessary and I could have done without them. It's easy to sum up the history of The Miz or Kelly Kelly in one paragraph, but how do you sum up the history of wrestlers such as William Regal or Chris Jericho in one ten sentence paragraph?
• ToppsTown (1:6) - Sure, if you are copying the format of the other Topps sets, why not. They're actually limited in this with four found in each box.
• Favorite Finishers! (1:4) - This is the first insert set that absolutely belongs here. Finishing moves have become such a huge part of wrestling these days. I almost wish that these were one per pack like ToppsTown is in every other product. The simple design of these cards leaves plenty of space for some great photography.
• Championship Material/World Championship Material (1:6 each) - These cards are a bit of a mess. There are 50 cards of wrestlers who have held the various WWF/WWE titles. Then there's a different 25 card set of wrestlers who have held the World Championship. Then there are variants of these cards with picture puzzles on the back of title bels that fall once in every 12 packs. There are three different puzzles so you'll end up with six of these parallels in the box in addition to eight of the regular cards which is a second layer of unnecessary.
• Blue Parallels (1:1) - Again, it's a Topps staple so I don't mind it. With all of these inserts, there really should have been 8 cards per pack.
• Gold Parallels (1:29) - It looks like these aren't even one per box. Gold makes a lot more sense for a parallel numbered to 50.
• Superstar Swatch Relic (1:28) - It is what it is and what it is is boring. I never really understood wrestling relic cards unless it is from something really unique to the wrestler. Yellow with black polka dots for Dusty Rhodes, a piece of Rick Rude's tights would have been awesome with the airbrushing he had on them or piece of a Hulk Hogan bandana (oh wait, TRISTAR already did that in one of their TNA sets). Yawn.
• Dual Autograph (1:162 or 6.75 boxes) - I really beats the odds just in getting one of these and I was even luckier in pulling the best of the bunch. It looks like this card has sold for around $80 on eBay, but I think that I'm going to hold on to it.

What Did I Pull?

Ok, here's a chance to get a bit of a spoiler for an upcoming box break.

Wrestling fans, take a look at the 2010 Topps WWE Checklist.  Excluding parallels and super rare pulls such as printing plates, I feel like I pulled the best card possible in the product.  Take a look at the checklist and guess which card you think that may be.

Box Break - 2009-10 Panini Hall of Fame Basketball

I've been looking forward to busting a box of this product since I first heard about it.  Not only are there a bunch of great players in there due to the checklist only containing Hall of Fame members, but there are also a lot of players who have never previously had autographed cards in a product.  There are also beautiful looking nickname signature cards.  As a basketball fan, this is pretty irresistible now that it sells for about half of the MSRP.  If I had the cash, this is something that I'd definitely love to break a case of.

I lost my original box break, but here's a recap of what I got:

Box Break - 2007 Upper Deck SP Rookie Edition

This wasn't the first box that I opened, but I thought it was one that was relevant to current baseball playoff events.  I love busting cheap, older Upper Deck products, but you'll rarely see me buying anything from them when it's brand new.

Box Break: 2010 Rittenhouse Lost Seasons 1 Thru 5

Rittenhouse is the second company to have the Lost license with the first being Inkworks.  I wasn’t a big fan of the Inkworks products as the boxes seemed too expensive to me for what you got.  Rittenhouse took over the license and they seem to have gotten things right.  For just about the same price per box, you get three autographs instead of just one and there aren’t any redemption cards.

Rittenhouse as a company puzzles the heck out of me.  They don’t take advantage of new media at all.  They barely have a website.  You won’t find Rittenhouse Archives or Scifihobby.com on Twitter or Facebook.  You won’t find any sponsored breaks to check out before you buy.  The company does have a rewards program, but the amount of points needed to get any of the rewards are ridiculous.  You have to buy 6 boxes and some loose packs just to qualify for one rewards.  They may as well not even have the program since it’ll really only benefit dealers and case breakers.  Just put that money towards some nice box toppers and you’re all set.  That’ll save the postage on mailing in the wrappers and reward normal collectors.

Rittenhouse makes some high quality cards.  They aren’t glossy, but once you’ve held them in your hands and looked at them, you won’t mind at all.  The pictures look great on the sturdy, bright white card stock.  The fact that there’s no gloss makes them perfect for autographs.  I wish that I had the Hurley card pictured above when I sent my autograph request to Jorge Garcia because I would love to have this card signed and in my collection.

The set consists of 108 cards (kudos Rittenhouse for that little detail) with one card for every episode of the first 5 seasons.  Header cards for each season that double as checklists fill out the rest of the set.  This set makes me wish that Rittenhouse had this license from the beginning and had done 108-card sets of each season as they aired.  Those sets would have been beautiful.

There are insert card for another ABC show to be found in packs.  While I am watching FlashForward, I wouldn’t be extremely upset if it were to be cancelled.  It has taken what could be a very interesting concept and gone almost nowhere with it.  It started off well, but the hiatus killed it and it hasn’t regained the momentum since coming back.  I would have much rather seen promo cards for another show that J.J. Abrams helped create and that’s Fringe.  That’s quickly become one of my favorite shows and I look forward to seeing what ridiculousness Walter Bishop is going to do and see each week.

There are some fun inserts to be found in these packs.  There’s a six card set of the Oceanic Six printed on acetate with clear sections.  It looks like there’s a picture of the character off of the island in color with a picture of them on the island ghosted in the background.

The other two cards pictured here are lenticular cards.  They really don’t scan well, but they look good in person.

The middle card pictured here is of the Smoke Monster.  This season, the Smoke Monster aka The Man in Black is spending most of his time in the form of John Locke.  Popular theory says that in the past the Smoke Monster took on various forms such as Christian Sheppard, Dave and possibly even a black horse.  Hopefully they’ll explain why it could do that then, but is unable to now.

The bottom card shows Hurley’s Mr. Cluck’s Chicken Shack restaurant as it is struck by a meteor and destroyed.  The explosion killed reporter Tricia Tanaka who was covering the grand opening.  This was just another example of the terrible luck that followed Hurley around off of the island after winning the lottery with the cursed numbers muttered repeatedly by another patient in the mental hospital Hurley spent time in.

Rittenhouse jumps aboard the painted card bandwagon with their own insert set.  These cards would definitely appeal to fans of Topps Gallery, Turkey Red or Upper Deck Masterpieces.

You won’t find any gloss on these cards either and these would be beautiful cards to get signed.  This is a set that I could definitely see myself tracking down if some of them show up online at a decent price.

The theme for my box seemed to be deceased characters as three of the four characters are no longer on the show.  Shannon was shot by Ana Lucia.  Boone died after being crushed by a plane while tagging along with Locke.  Juliet died due to injuries suffered while detonating a hydrogen bomb back in the 70s.

Enough about these cards though.  The main reason that people buy these boxes is for the autographs.  Who did I pull?  Let’s find out…

My first autograph card is of Patrick Fischler as Phil.  Phil was a member of the Dharma Initiative back in the 70s.  I can’t say that I was too impressed with this autograph, but these autograph cards are great.

All of the autographs are on-card and there’s a nice, big, white area for the actors and actresses to sign in.  The front of the cards are not glossy, but the backs of the cards are.  I like this decision because it prevents things like eBay idiots adding a “1/1” notation to a card and then trying to find a sucker to buy it.

Before I go any further, I have to warn you not to buy these Lost cards by the pack.  These packs are extremely searchable.  In my box, packs without an insert contained 6 cards and packs with an insert only contained 5.  You might not be able to tell the difference by holding them or looking at them, but anyone with a caliper could easily tell the difference.

My next autograph was of Andrea Roth as Harper Stanhope in “The Other Woman.”  They had to include the episode title for this autograph card because otherwise no one would have any clue who this character was.  She appeared in one episode as Juliet’s therapist

It’s nice to see that crappy autographs aren’t confined to athletes.  Actors and actresses can have terrible autographs as well.  Seriously, what the heck is that supposed to be?  Was she drawing a picture?  Getting an autograph of a minor character is even more disappointing when the autograph looks like this.

So, I had pulled two out of my three autographs and wasn’t feeling all that great about the box.  The autograph cards are easy to pick out when you open a pick due to the borderless design.  So, when I saw the next borderless card I slid the card above it aside slowly.  I saw a cursive T and then a printed T and then a familiar bald head.

Terry O’Quinn autograph!  My second favorite character on the show behind Hurley.  This card totally saved the box in my opinion as I think this is the best autograph there is to pull out of the box.

This set has a great design and the insert sets give you a little bit of variety as you open the packs.  I got a complete set out of my box which should always be the case with a non-sports box.

You can’t beat the value since you get a handful of inserts, a complete set and three autographs per box.  Even if you get three of the lesser autographs the box is worth it.  If you pull one of the bigger stars, they go for close to the cost of a box.  This Terry O’Quinn has sold on eBay from anywhere between $35 and $50, but this one won’t be making it’s way to eBay as it will find a permanent spot in my collection.

I would give this set an A- just because the autograph checklist is a little weak and you could very possibly get three clunkers who have each only been in one episode of the show.  The set itself is beautiful and the inserts add a lot of fun.  I have no choice but to give my box an A+ for a grade.  The only way that it could have been better was if I had pulled O’Quinn, Michael Emerson and Nestor Carbonell in the same box.

Technorati Tags: Lost,Rittenhouse Archives,Terry O'Quinn

Box Break: 2009-10 Topps Basketball Jumbos

I’ve been waiting to open a box of this for a while now.  I’ve been a huge fan of Topps jumbo boxes for a while now especially after pulling rip cards in the previous two years of basketball jumbos.  I’ve seen a bunch of great breaks online and watch the price of these boxes increase about $20 from when they were released.

One complaint that I have about the base cards is the photography on the cards with images from last year’s playoffs such as the Big Baby card to the left.  Those images look a little blurry or lower quality than the rest of the images in the set.  It’s especially disappointing since that includes most of the Celtics as well as the best players in the league.  It was a nice idea by Topps to try and use the most recent pictures available, but the results weren’t all that great.
Another thing that wasn’t so great was the collation in this box.  One thing that I love about jumbo boxes is that you usually get a complete set out of the box.  It saves the hassle of trying to chase down singles.  I didn’t even comes close to a set from this box.  I have 279/330 cards along with 144 duplicates.  There’s no way that I should have to track down 51 cards after opening a jumbo box.

Jumbo boxes promise three relic cards and I autograph card, but I beat the odds with a fourth relic.  I’m not quite sure exactly what shirt the Harrington swatch is from.  Yes, it’s two colors, but it’s definitely not a patch.  The yellow is a rubbery type material.  It seems more like a shirt that would be worn underneath a game jersey.

My favorite of the four relics would have to be the Dwyane Wade All-Star Relic numbered to 199.  There’s some variety to the two swatches.  I’d much rather pull a card like this than one with two similar, single-colored swatches.

I pulled two cards like that though.  The first is a Yao Ming All-Star Relic.  It’s not even known at this moment whether or not Yao will ever be able to play basketball again.  One this is for sure, the swatches in this card are definitely not from the jersey pictured on the card.

I also pulled a card of Mr. No Effort, Vince Carter.  Yippie.  I pulled jersey cards of both Ming and Carter out of last year’s Upper Deck hoops release and those went towards by box of 206.  I have a feeling these will just sit there until I can find a similar offer despite their numbering to 199.
It’s a Topps product so you know it’s got to have gold cards in it.  There are 4 gold cards per pack which are numbered to 2009.  Some of the more notable players that I got are Kevin Durant, Rajon Rondo and consecutively numbered Tim Duncans.  A lot of the gold cards in my packs were damaged so I’ll be sending them back to Topps for replacements.  Who knows how that will go with the expiration of the license, but it is worth a shot.
You can’t really tell from the scan, but this is a gold refractor of Dwyane Wade numbered to 50.  The only problem is that there are all kinds of smears on the surface and spots where the refractory stuff didn’t take.  The Baron Davis gold that I pulled is alright though.  In regular refractors, numbered to 500, I pulled Jrue Holiday RC, Earl Clark RC, Tracy McGrady and Richard Hamilton.  The chrome cards are numbered to 999 and I pulled Derrick Rose, David West, Richard Jefferson, Anthony Randolph, Greg Oden and Pau Gasol.

You get one Draft Snapshot insert in every pack, but those aren’t anything special.  The cards have Draft Night pictures of current NBA stars from the year they were drafted.  I pulled two Ray Allens and that was the only thing of note.  I’ll definitely pick up a Paul Pierce for my collection, but I don’t see myself putting the set together.

This was all that I had with one pack left to open.  I had 4 hits so I was afraid that Topps had shorted me an auto and forgotten about my autograph card.  The final pack contained a great surprise…
Blake Griffin McDonald’s All-American autographed card.  This is an amazing pull.  It would have been even better if Griffin weren’t out for the season, but his cards are still in demand especially since he doesn’t have quite as many cards as players have had in past years with more than one licensed basketball card manufacturer.

Unless someone reading this offers up one heck of a trade, this card is going up on eBay.  One of these cards recently sold for a little over $150 which I think I’d mostly likely use to finally add a nice Piazza autograph to my collection.  I may be able to pick up another box as well.  I’ve got my eye on 2009 Update and Highlights Jumbos or 2010 Baseball Jumbos.

Overall, this final basketball release from Topps was disappointing.  The photography wasn’t that good, there were far too many damaged cards and there are only 15 rookies in the set.  No one is buying these boxes for the base cards though.  The boxes are jam packed.  Between the autos and patches, most boxes end up with at least one really nice pull and some have more than one.  While I would give the set a C, my box gets an A-.  The damaged cards and completely terrible collation drags the grade down even with the unbelievable pull at the end.

Technorati Tags: 2009-10 Topps Basketball,box break,Blake Griffin,Dwyane Wade,Yao Ming,Vince Carter,Glen Davis,Kevin Durant,Al Harrington