Mailbag: Question from a reader

A while back I did a story about the only local hobby shop in my area, Mike and Dave's Baseball Card Store, in Midland Park, NJ. Apparently Dave had taken notice of the blog from my write up and sent one of his customers over to see if we knew anything about a problem they had. Thanks for the referral Dave, I am going to try and stop down soon to pick up some packs so have a nice stash of Pujols ready ;)

The problem that Joe (the writer of the e-mail) had was with 2009 UD Goodwin Champions. Here is his dilemma:

"Bought a box from said store and over half the cards were cut having no border on the top. Saw Dave and he sent the whole load back to UD. Did anyone find any like this? Also have you found any card fronts different.In the box was Evelyn Ng auto card plus her regular card and the mini. On the front of the mini was a club royal flush. On all the other cards that had both the regular and mini were the same. Has anyone found any different ones?"

Personally I have not encountered any problems with the borders either in the hobby box I opened or in any retail.

Have any of you had this problem, or seen a store that did? Please help us to solve this Scooby mystery, and maybe, just maybe there is a Scooby Snack in it for the person who uncovers "old man Withers" aka the underlying story here.

2009 Goodwin Champions Packs 13-20 & Review

I told you guys that this would probably be the slowest box break ever considering I won't be buying another hobby box for quite some time (maybe). I finished the rest of the box last night on commercial breaks of Grey's Anatomy (which was awesome). Overall I am extremely happy with the box vs. money spent.

I scanned everything in the last few packs, the Hamilton 20th anniversary card is reserved for Tricia over at the Hamiltonian if she needs it. Otherwise all 20th anniversary cards will be sent to VOTC in exchange for Cano and Pujols goodness. Here are the scans, and the breakdown of the box will be after the pics.

So there you have it. My entire box was scanned for your viewing pleasure, and for mine because I really love the design of these cards. I don't really see the card stock being that big of an issue here. I would rather have a nicely designed card on average card stock than a crappy design on a thicker one.

Here is the breakdown:

- 57 base cards (no doubles)

- 21 mini (2 doubles, Iwamura and Uehara)

- 5 gypsy back

- 1 silver mini (Miguel Cabrera)

- 2 relics (Victor Martinez and Ryan Braun)

- 1 auto (Troy Tulowitzki)

- 1 case hit (Entomology redemption)

- 10 UD 20th anniversary cards

If I had to give this product a letter grade it would get a B+. I wouldn't give it an A simply because of the 20th anniversary card insert ratio. You only get 5 cards per pack to begin with and when the stick you with one of those goofy inserts you lose out on a base card, rather than getting that as a bonus.

As far I'm concerned this was a sweet hobby box for me considering I like Ryan Braun and Troy Tulowitzki. It sucked because Pujols is not a short print and I still didn't get one. As far as Yankees base cards, I ended up with Pettitte, Joe D., and Bucky Dent. No Jeter or Cano in the box either which kinda sucks, oh and no Russ Martin or Adam Lind. I didn't expect the Lind though because I believe he is a super SP for some unknown reason.

Luckily Target has packs here and blasters. I was able to pick up some packs and get a few Yankees, still no Jeter or Pujols though.

Anyone pull a Pujols foil or gypsy back? I am still looking for those, as well as Lind, Cano, and Martin. Holla if you have them.

2009 Goodwin Champions Packs 9-12 *Case Hit

So here is the moment you have all been waiting for, at least maybe like 4 of you have been. As I mentioned before there was some talk about the hits being within the last two packs, however my packs were all jumbled up in the box so I just put 10 per half and started. In these packs I got a box hit, as well as a surprise case hit. The case hit came first, then the box hit so it was a more than happy time opening the middle of this box.

Here are the scans:




OK, so it was not the most exciting case hit on Earth but I can use it to make this box cost half as much as it did, and to me that is super exciting.

So when I first opened the auto pack, I barely even looked at the card because I was like wow, a double in consecutive packs is a little odd. Then I scanned it and noticed oh hi, he signed this one. Duh. Even though I am over collecting Tulo, I will probably hold onto this one since it is a hard signed copy and add it to my other Tulo autos.

There were also (surprise!) 2 20th anniversary cards in the packs, but one was Mark Messier and the other was Eli Manning and my brother got those before I scanned. I'm sure you are all heartbroken that they were not pictured.

I will probably break the rest of the box later today once I finish my homework and stuff. Anyone get a Pujols, Cano, Lind, or Russ gypsy back? I got a Cano mini, but need the rest as of now. Perhaps Albert is lurking in the bottom of the box...

2009 Goodwin Champions Packs 5-8

OK, so these packs were cool.... The best though is yet to come. I have to scan the next group of packs while I watch the Yankees (not) win. Believe me, you want to stop back in the am to check out my loot.






Also, for those of you scouring Targets looking for some retail, one of my local Targets had them today. Packs were $1.99 for 4 cards, rack packs $4.99 for 12 cards, and blasters for $19.99 (12 packs).

2009 Goodwin Champions Hobby Box

My immediate defense: It was the bargain of the century, and it was scraping what little was left of my money out of our closed eBay store and putting it to good use. Now, everything is officially empty- wallet included.

I included a picture of the bottom of the box in case some of you were unfamiliar with the stated odds. The odds are not printed on the hobby packs, which I noticed the other day.

This is going to be a slow box break with a review of the total contents at the end. I know you're all shaking your head going, "how long is she going to drag this on for?" The answer is probably the end of the night in all honesty. I have been hell bent on getting my mitts on these cards since I saw the preview cards months ago. I know many of you have already opened these, and some of you were not pleased. I don't understand how anyone could be disappointed in the design of these cards by any means. You all drooled over A&G and they were on white backgrounds with halfway decent drawings, yet some of those same people are crying that they got ripped off or whatever. I'm just sayin'.

Anyway, clearly I love these. There are a few things that I do not like but they aren't enough to make me grumpy, which is good for you guys so you don't have to listen to me bitch. I will tell you the one thing that is annoying right off the bat to me. I don't like how if you get one of these cheesy 20th anniversary inserts you get one less card per pack. I have no interest in these inserts and I don't know many people that do, so why wouldn't they make it an extra card every so many packs? The only reason I am not going to burn them is because VOTC is trying to complete the set.

Here are the first 4 packs, in scan form rather than words. Words are boring, and these cards are too cool to not scan all of them.



The A-Rod card was a Gypsy Queen back, which I can't complain about. I could have ended up with Garrett Atkins... (If he is lurking in this box as a gypsy queen, I promise I will kick my own ass for even saying it.)

Victor Martinez Game Used (white) jersey (Indians...) card. Now, I know some of you had mentioned to me that they had noticed alot of people pulled the "hits" from within the last 2 packs on each side. When I opened the box up the packs had shifted and there were an uneven number on each side, not to mention a pack smack in the middle. So I really had no idea what was where to start. Normally when I go into a store and buy packs, I ALWAYS buy the bottom ones and that's something I have done for years so if I come across a box of these somewhere I will test the theory (for the sake of reporting, of course).

As far as trading these, I am undecided what I am doing with them. I will probably try to flip some of them for Pujols, Cano, Lind or Russ Martin.

More packs to come later....

2009 Goodwin Champions

For those of you that follow me on Twitter you probably already know that I have been running around like a mad woman since Monday trying to locate packs or blasters of Goodwin. I was and still am hellbent on finding a blaster and will mow people down to get one (half kidding). Well, since Target had yeilded zero results I took myself to ToyWiz against all better judgement and sure enough they had them. They were in their display case so I had asked to see the packs so I could pick my own and count them. 18 packs were there. I am not going to go off on a tangent about this, draw your own conclusions. I did have a conversation with the owner/manager (not sure which) about why they are in the case along with some of the other higher end packs. He told me that they put those types of packs into the case so that customers can't search them. I can understand that completely, and it makes sense. I did mentiont that I have never seen a complete box in the case ever, always a pile of loose packs. I was assured the boxes are not searched, and I will take that information and pass it along to all of you in the local or not so local area.

The conversation I had with the manager/owner was not in any sort of argumentative way. We spoke about the packs, and the storage of them and briefly discussed the pros and cons of buying online. He also mentioned a dislike for Beckett which may make the masses cheer and throw beers, but it was more of a $10 price tag that makes him not like it as well as the flimsy thinness of the pages recently. He didn't give me the impression that they sell many issues.

My method for choosing packs was simple. I piled them into piles of 4, took the bottom 4 packs, and then picked just 2 since they were $4.50 each (box was $85). So me and my Goodwin Champions were finally united. I jetted to the supermarket and then to class after that. I opened my packs while waiting for the professor to show up because I couldn't wait any longer. Here is what I got:

More than pleased with the way the cards look. I love the design, and the colors are amazing. One thing I thought was kind of odd was that the David Wright card has Mr. Met in the lower corner. I wonder if that is some sort of variation, or that they are all like that. There is no Phillie Phanatic on the Chase Utley. I got a mini Robbie Cano card which made my day.

I am working on posting the results of my OPC hobby box... It may or may not happen, lol.