Pay attention and stick to singles, stupid

For the most part, I don't pay much attention to a lot of the custom sets Topps sells exclusively online. These are mostly the Throwback Thursday or other curated sets, whether from athletes, artists, or influencers.

However, my interest was piqued when I saw that Derek Jeter was curating a 52-card set. I got the email, flipped through the checklist, and saw that there were two Tino Martinez cards. For a $19.99 price tag, I was in.

Or so I thought. I clearly just did not read the product description carefully. I thought my $19.99 purchase was giving me a 52-card boxed set.

It wasn't.

It was getting me one 10-card pack of the Topps x Derek Jeter set. ONE PACK!

By the time the realization was made, it was too late. I had clicked purchase. I should have known from the get-go. Outside of maybe a blaster or a hanger, when can you ever get anything like a full set from Topps for $20? I don't know, I just thought I was getting a small set from them. It was honestly a case of just believing what I wanted without clearly reading the description. A stupid mistake, and I was entirely at fault.

I'm not blaming Topps. I'm blaming me. Another sucker.

So I waited, but I wasn't very excited for it to arrive. My silver lining was that maybe I would get an autograph, which fell 1:12 packs. Not too outlandish. That would ease the sting. Or maybe I'd get a low numbered parallel or something. Maybe fate would give me a Tino 1/1 or something. There are cardboard gods, right?

Maybe this mistake would turn into a happy accident! 

It's didn't.

My pack arrived last week, and this was the fruit of my $20.

First, the box is nice. Props for that. I wish the cards looked like that, actually.

Here's how the pack was wrapped. It looked like a mini pop tart.

And here are ALL ten of my cards at two bucks a pop.

Yeah. 

The first card was a David Ortiz, so I was pretty doomed off the bat. No fancy parallel. No autograph. No Tino.

It's not entirely all bad. The two Jeters are cool. Mattingly is cool. Backwards hat Bernie is cool. Sweet Ichiro too. Even the Tim Raines is pretty cool warming up for a game.

But man, for $20? I could have bought something much better. As many around these parts say, stick to singles and buying exactly what you want.

I know better.

I've already picked up the Tino cards for about $2 a piece, and one has already come:

I should have done that from the start. Read carefully, everyone.

A positive Series One experience

This past week was the least excited I've ever been for the start of the baseball card season.

I'm not quite sure what it was. Maybe it's the heaps of unsorted cards in my card space. Maybe it's the   uninspiring checklist. Maybe it's the boring inserts. It just felt very ho hum to me, for whatever reason. I wasn't going to boycott or anything. No loud statement. That would be silly. I just wasn't going to go above and beyond to pick some up like I did the past few years.

Two years ago, I got home from work at 8pm or so, got in my car, got to Target only to realize I forgot the gift cards I had set aside. I went back and got them once I confirmed the store had the new supply of cards in. It was a two hour affair. This year, there was zero chance I was going to make that sort of effort.

On Saturday, my son wanted to go to this new comic book store we hadn't tried to look for Pokemon cards (because kids like those more than sports cards). It happened to be on the way to my usual Target. I decided that we'd hit up his store first, then continue on to Target. I even toyed with the possibility of driving to a Target that is further away because they usually have a better stock of cards. But I took the chance on the local one.

Aside from the usual cart of discarded shit in the aisle, I was happy to see a bunch of 2020 blasters, hangers, and loose packs. I won't touch the loose packs at Target. We all know they've been molested by some beast. But the blasters and hangers were well-stocked. Even better, the distributor took away all the unsold ones from 2019, so it wasn't mass chaos.

My son grabbed a box of Pokemon Sword and Shield, and I grabbed one blaster and one hanger, and we were off!

I got home and busted the hanger first. I usually split it down the middle because that's where the goodies are lumped together.

The first card was this guy. Never heard of him. But I do like how his right elbow overlaps the design. That's a fun touch and I like when cards do that.

The second card was this, which is probably my favorite Series One card so far. What a great card of a great player in a great uniform, even if the baby blues are starting to be a bit overdone.

As for the design, I don't mind it. I never do, even when it stinks. I can see why some think it looks like Bowman. But I like Bowman. It shares some characteristics, for sure. I think it's clean, easy to read, and overall looks pretty sharp. Whether or not it's true, it feels like it was done by the same single designer who has done each design since 2016. It definitely shares some very similar elements to 2016, 2018, and 2019. But I'm cool with it. Just another year.

Actually, one complaint. The gloss! Holy moly are these things slippery. I kept thinking that even if I do get one of the Yanks to sign one of these for me, there's no way an autograph would stick. I need to remove a ton of gloss before sending these out for signatures.

Back to the cards. Within the aforementioned middle of the stack, I did indeed get some goodies...and they were Yankees goodies! First, this was facing backwards!

I still like pulling relics, even though this is probably a $3 card if I were to sell it. But I never pull relics of my team, and it's the first time I pulled one from a hanger. Ever. I didn't end up counting the cards, but I assume I got a few less because of it, although it's not super thick.

The Sanchez was followed by even more Yankee goodies - a Gleyber Torres Gold, which I was most excited about, and an Aaron Judge Turkey Red.

Side note - Gleyber's card is from a game against Baltimore, which means he was hitting a homer in the photo. But remember, his stats against Baltimore don't count.

As for the Turkey Reds, I like them! I've always liked Turkeys. I like Turkey Red cards more than actual turkey (Thanksgiving meal is overrated). I feel like this isn't the strongest Turkey Red effort, as the mid 2000s versions used a fun texture, while these are flat. So I can't get as totally on board here as I'd like, but the cards look really good and the photos against the background are great.

They've been a TTM favorite of mine for a long time.

The Chrome Turkeys are pretty nice, but they are a bit bendy. I bet the colored refractors are very pretty.

I don't know what to think about the "Best Of" cards. I like the 1950s and 1990s designs, I suppose. At the least the lower third of the card. But I think the concept for the set stinks. I'm very sick of these huge insert sets and just wedging all the legends into them. Same thing year after year. Give me a 10 card RBI Machine or Slick Gloves or something. What happened to the Fleer Ultra 10-card insert sets where they didn't look just like a modified base cards? I guess it's because I grew up in a time where inserts were special and were different and you looked forward to them, but it's very apparent Topps just doesn't care about them. The designers who make digital Bunt cards use some sweet designs. Let's call in those guys for a few insert sets.

And it wouldn't be Series One without old designs!

The Trout was a blue SP (these aren't serially numbered). Great guy to pull, although the card was damaged with a peeling corner and some weird smudge on it? Maybe Topps will replace it?

The Vlad Jr Highlight cards aren't too bad compared to recent player highlight series. I like the nod to 1953 in there. Much happier he was the Target guy versus Hoskins.

Glad to see these back. I've never won one, but I like them. It's gambling, you know. It's a prop bet on if a guy will hit a homer. Gambling on sports is fun. Tell your state to get with it and legalize online gambling (not applicable to those of you who live in NJ, PA, WV, IN, NH, and soon CO).

I did score two SP photo variations as well. The first I didn't notice until going back through after. This came from the hanger as well:

Nice! Very open to trading this for a Gleyber of similar stature.

The second was the very first card in one of my blaster packs. I didn't know it existed until Friday night, so I thought it was funny that I snagged it. Gerrit Cole is a Yankee!

And my Manu-thingie was a good one too! I thought these were kind of dumb when I saw them on Twitter, but I don't dislike them. The medallion isn't too obnoxious. And Ichiro is pretty awesome. I'll be hanging onto this one until his Cooperstown induction.

So there it is. Pretty good for one blaster and a hanger! It's about what you expect from Topps Series One. I had a good experience with it. It helped that I had some good luck with Yankees, had some decent pulls, and found the product on my first try. I won't be buying any more of it, but everything has been loaded into the TCDB and hopefully I can snag some of the Yanks I'm missing.

Let the card season begin!

My box of 2017 Topps BUNT

First off, Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. I know many of our moms were instrumental in enabling us as collectors. Mine always seemed to bring a pack pack from the drugstore, or bribe me to babysit my siblings with packs of cards as payment.

Yesterday, my hobby box of 2017 Topps BUNT arrived, a day earlier than the tracking info told me! It looks like I've started a tradition, as this is the second straight year I've bought a box. It's hard to go wrong with 36 packs for around $30.

I was in the middle of painting my bedroom when it arrived, so I quickly cracked one pack and stashed the rest as a reward for finishing the job.

Just like last year, it was a blast to open. There are no major sick hits - at least ones that are attainable - but there are plenty of colorful base cards, parallels, and some sharp-looking inserts.

Here are the base cards:

Nice, simple design. Pretty different from last year. I think I like the base design more than the flagship. One additional thing Topps did was eliminate retired players from the base set, although they are well-represented in insert sets.

So colorful too!

I will say, I noticed the cards are exceptionally glossy and slippery, which I was bummed about. I received TTM autos on a few of these last year, as the surface was PERFECT for it. This one definitely is too glossy for a signature.

Here are the blue parallels, which fall one per pack.

There are also black parallels (one per box), green (1:32), orange (1:62), purple (1:125), and red (1:3,095). My one black parallel was Yoenis Cespedes.

 I beat the odds and got two green parallels, which are numbered to 99.

The insert sets also have colored parallels, so there are a lot of different variations.

Program inserts make a return, which is a really fun set. It was one of the best inserts of 2016. I liked last year's design a little more, but they still look good.

Here is 2016, as a reminder.

As I noted, there are also colored parallels of inserts, and I lucked out and pulled an orange program insert. These fall 1:414. Pretty decent pull! This is numbered to 50.

In most packs, you'll find either a Perspectives or a Infinite insert. Both consist of current and retired players.

Infinite look amazing. Such a simple, yet elegant design. The blank white space in the background looks awesome, and you can also see the player's stadium faded in the bottom of the card. I want to get one of these signed.

Perspectives are all horizontal. It took me a few packs to realize this was a different set than Infinite. It also features some players you don't see in insert sets very much, like Martin Prado. But there are big stars too.

And, as promised by the odds, there were 12 of these BUNT code cards.

There are some really tough-to-pull inserts like Splatter Art and Galaxy, but I didn't snag any of those.

Regardless of your view on digital cards, this box of tangible, physical cards is an awesome bang for the buck. I really enjoyed busting the box, and will definitely be buying another box next year.

A tradition has been born!

Playing some Jenga in the Burbs

I'm sure the horrid post title as been used. If not, no one use it ever again.

Jenga is a great game. I haven’t played in a long time, but I always enjoyed it. I’ve been to a couple bars in NYC that have board games, and it’s always fun to hear a Jenga tower falling over every five minutes.

Tony Burbs of Wrigley Roster Jenga sent me some great Yanks last week. It was our first deal, and I’m glad to have had the honor of being the first Yankees collector he has traded with. He mentioned that in the note, and also said he hopes I find these cards to be productive. He also used some sweet orange tape on his mailers.

The very first card behind his note was a James Kaprielian, so yeah, off to a great start, Tony Burbs. 

Now before I get too far and show some other cards, I needed to get to this card while I hopefully (maybe?) have your attention. Feast your eyes on this:

Holy smokes. This Pinnacle Clear Vision of Ichiro is truly awesome and one of the coolest cards I've gotten in a long time. From its refractory shine to the clearcut portion of the card, this is so pretty it makes me forget there are no team logos on there. It’s just a very special feeling card. At first, I scanned it against a dark background, but then decided to put some white against it, and the results were even more stunning, with a hidden sky type of effect. Ichiro is awesome (and a ninja), so I gotta say this is my favorite card of the package. I know that Tony agreed as well.

There was some other prospects too - past and present, which is always appreciated since I shelp these off for TTMs and often forget to replace them.

By the way, Nick Johnson was a beast in the minors. I can't even imagine the type of hype he would create now. In A+ ball he hit .317/.456/.538 and followed it up in AA with a line of .345/.525/.548 and 123 walks! 

This is my first look at 2016 Pro Debut, which is always a favorite set of mine. I like Degano, although I’m surprised he hasn’t pitched yet this season. I also like the light blue color.

So this card is exceptionally cool and I had ZERO clue it existed. I’m a little mad at myself because I actually made a Billy Crystal custom to send to him TTM (request is pending), but I would have much rather sent this card. Maybe I still will. I love this Tristar set. The cards look beautiful signed.

A new Yankees Jose Canseco! I didn’t have this one. I am definitely starting a mini Canseco Yankees PC.

Holograms need to come back. Where the hell did they go? Denny’s needs to have cards again too.

These are originals. Tony, you shouldn’t have!

There was plenty of shiny to go around as well.

I like this Jorge Posada card commemorating the first HR at new Yankee Stadium. I was at the game and remember the homer. They lost 10-2, so kind of a damper, but still cool to know I was there.

I’ll end this with a card of the Mick. I wasn’t collecting back in the late 2000s when Topps was putting out those massive Mantle sets, so I frequently receive them in trade packages. However, I haven’t seen this one. It’s a refreshing image of his. I don’t recognize it, so nice change-up there.

Tony Burbs, thanks my friend!