Case Break: 2011 Topps Chrome Baseball: Box 12

BANG!

So long non-vintage vintage inserts. At least this box produced two Sox. I’ll have to pick up copies for my own collection though.

Lookie here, it’s the same exact two Red Sox players again. You definitely can’t complain about pulling two inserts of Big Papi and Pedroia. Cano is a refractor. Both Kemp and Cano are available (unless Night Owl wants the Kemp).

Another insert set, another Kemp. You know the drill.

Holy Schnikies did this box ever deliver. The red Belt /25 sold for $33.54 and the Cashner Sepia sold for $9.99 (paired with a standard refractor). We haven’t even gotten to the autos yet and this box has almost already paid for itself. The Bautista and Rasmus are available.

And behind door number 12…a zonk. The Revere is a refractor and he’s having a great final month of the season, but there isn’t a huge demand for his cards. Noesi, more like no sell. Oh well, good thing this box had those great refractors in it. That’s what I really like about this product, you’ve got so many chances to pull big cards. The Black Heritage refractors go for good money, the /99 and /100 refractors do well if you’ve got the right player and the /50 and /25 can do well for almost anyone. Combine that with the fact that there’s a very good rookie auto crop this year and you’ve got a great product for busting.

Well, there you go. No wait, there’s one more card that has to be posted:

This is the redemption card for the standard autographed cards. This card sold for $40 on eBay. 3 to 4 years from now, that could be a steal or it could be a bust. To me, it just means another overachieving box. Pretty cool that redemption pulls bookended the case in box 1 and box 12. Those were both huge pulls.

Thanks for following along. I’m going to get a case recap up which includes how each individual box has done as far as sales go. I had a lot of fun busting this though and feel like I did very well. Thanks for following along.

 

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Case Break: 2011 Topps Chrome Baseball: Box 11

Ian Kinsler is the refractor and the rest are base. All of these are available.

All of these are available.

My favorite boxes are the ones with the better refractor parallels. I love both the Sepia and Black parallels. The Atomics look cool as well. All three of these are available.

I was a little bummed to see that it was Brent Morel on the card when I pulled a red refractor auto card (numbered to 25), but it ended up selling for $50 on eBay so I can’t complain at all. The Nunez sold for $6.32 so that pretty much takes care of the box right there. When you consider one third of a set from the case cards ($10) and 12% of the Vintage set ($3.75) and then whatever the other singles from this box might sell for and this box will pay for itself and pick up the slack of another box.

 

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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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

So, 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.

 

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Case Break: 2007 Masterpieces Baseball: Box 12

You know what’s weird, I can’t even remember at the moment which team Victor Martinez decided to sign with. I should remember because as a Red Sox fan I have to root against them so that we get the best possible compensation pick. I loved watching V-Mart while he was here in Boston because he was a great hitter, but I’d much rather have Adrian Gonzalez than Martinez due to the age difference. Of course, re-signing Martinez would have kept Kelly, Rizzo and Fuentes in the system, but what are you gonna do.

Detriot’s team looks pretty good this season, but an extra first round pick plus a supplemental pick is always a good thing no matter the position and the Red Sox have a great track record with these picks.

Green Linen/Windsor: Billy Butler, David Ortiz, Frank Thomas, Troy Tulowitzki and Ryan Howard

Here’s that other Ortiz that I had mentioned in an earlier break. This will be staying with me. All of the others are available.

Ryan Howard Serious Black /99 and Johan Santana Pinot /75

Both of these cards have already been claimed so I’ll move on to the jersey cards.

J.D. Drew RedSox/Dodgers card, Ben Sheets and Tim Hudson.

All of the jersey cards are available.

I was pretty excited to pull this out of the case. Ignore the white blob over Gwynn’s body as it was a reflection on the penny sleeve inside of the toploader. There’s a much better picture on the eBay auction. You can tell when you’ve got a hot card when the price reaches double digits within a day and a half of being posted.

There are some really cool short printed autographs in this product. I just saw Nolan Ryan come out of a case and I think there are cards of Cal Ripken and Ken Griffey Jr. I’m sure there are more, but I don’t have the checklist handy at the moment.

Upper Deck sure put all of their eggs in one basket with this box. You could consider this box to have contained two case hits in the short printed auto and now this 1/1 of 4 printing plate. This is the cyan printing plate of the very same Strokes of Genius autograph card that I pulled an expired redemption card for. The Perkins is also up on eBay. I never get these kind of boxes when I’m just buying stuff a box at a time. I think I’m getting hooked on busting cases.

 

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