False Hope in the Mail

Today I went to my mailbox and discovered 3 envelopes from Topps fulfillment and was instantly excited. Honestly, I had no idea what the heck I redeemed or even remember doing so for that matter. I ripped open the envelopes and found the following:


Sam Bradford

C.J. Spiller

Max Hall


Oh... those cards...



Yeah, so I remembered how I ended up with these cards. A while back the card shop had some redemption's to give away so they snuck me a couple. Gridiron something or other. All I know is, I want to trade them to someone who likes football cards or collects any of these dudes.

Mailday, Don't Ya Know?

I am writing this post in the hopes that someone or a few of you out there can tell me that I am not crazy. For Christmas my brother had gotten me an Albert Pujols McFarlane and I liked it a whole lot more than I thought I would once it was out of the package.

He sits atop my bookcase along with some signed balls, and a Jeter bobble head. But he looked so lonely the past few months, and I thought it was time he had someone to talk to when I'm not home. I know you all know that toys talk to each other when we aren't around. Sooo... I picked up a Robbie Cano, don't ya know?



It was almost as fun as getting baseball cards in the mail. And no, I am not going to start a collection of McFarlanes. I don't have any room to display a million of these things, however if they make a Russell Martin Yankees one... I will be buying that.

Sunday Question

The season is still less than a week old and there have already been some amazing moments and a few "almost" moments.

Kyle Drabek took a no-hitter to the 6th inning as did Chris Tillman, Cliff Lee fanned 11 in his first start, J.P. Arencibia hit 2 homeruns and drove in 5 runs in his debut, the Rangers are crapping all over the Red Sox, and the Mets actually won a game.

Obviously much more than just that has happened in a few short days. Has anything surprised you so far? Any players make the 25 man roster that you are excited about or any get cut that you thought you would see in the big league club to start the season?

Personally I really thought Jesus Montero would be a backup catcher this season however I understand and agree that he should be somewhere playing everyday and working on his game. Oh, and.... How about my boy Russ?! A stolen base and a homerun already as a Yankee. Sigh.

I am also very pleased to see Mark Teixeira off to a solid start this year, as well as my boy Adam Lind. Lind belted a homer already which is a good sign and I would love to see him have a great season. I'm still on the fence about parting with my Lind collection to fund my Cano collection in the event that he has a good start and I can flip his cards, but that is a whole other story.

Talk to me, let me know what you guys have seen so far.

2011 Topps Opening Day Hobby Break

We received a box of
2011 Topps Opening Day from Topps to break and review and I must say that it was quite fun to open. Normally I am not particularly a fan of Opening Day because it usually comes across as a set meant for kids to start on collecting. This year was definitely an exception to that theory.

The 2011 set consists of a couple of pretty cool subsets that really make this product worthwhile to break a box of instead of just grabbing a few packs. If you are a set builder one box plus a few packs or singles online will get you a complete set.

Each hobby box contains 36 packs, 7 cards per pack. I will give you the break down of how each subset was collated into this box.

I will show you what the box contained and then give you a breakdown on what the totals were as well as what I liked and didn't like about the product. Take a look at the goods:


Opening Day Stars 3/10


Stadium Lights 4/10

This subset is a special kind of awesome. The background of the card is not glossy, but the player, the lights on the card and the players name are glossed with glow in the dark stuff so when you shut the lights you can still see them. This is fun for me and I am well over 12 years old. If you didn't get any of these yet, you are seriously missing out on the fun.



Spot The Error 6/10



Topps Town



Presidential First Pitch 6/10

Not sure I could find these less entertaining. I am not a fan of non baseball cards in a baseball set even if they are patriotic. Most kids aren't going to give a hoot about getting a "baseball card" of a president that can barely put a sentence together in correct grammar (G.W.B).




Superstar Celebrations 9/25



Blue parallels
One for me and one for Sooz =)




Mascots 9/25



The box ended up collating into almost a complete set. There were 200/220 base cards with no doubles which is nice if you are a set builder. The base cards are the same photos as the Series 1 cards which is why I skipped scanning the base cards.

The one thing I loved about Opening Day this year were the inserts. The Stadium Lights subset is an awesome idea and I think it would do very well as an insert set in a bigger set and possibly as a bigger subset (maybe 50 cards). For a low end product there were a bunch of nice looking subsets that make this product appealing to a broader range of collectors and not just kids.

The Superstar Celebrations and Opening Day Stars are nice additions to the base set as well. It's always nice to get a different looking card of the player you collect.

The one card I don't really care for in the set (aside from boring Topps Town) are the Spot the Error cards. I know I complain that they need to come up with new themes/designs but this one does nothing for me but annoy me. Which side is the front? Which side is supposed to be facing forward in my binder? This requires more thinking than I am willing to put into a baseball card. Luckily Albert and Robbie do not have one.

Here are the final grades on the Opening Day report card:

Design: B

Simple and consistent with the idea of having the same design as Series 1 each year. Nothing different that makes it stand out from years past but I suppose that is the idea- consistency.

Value: A

This years set provides collectors with the opportunity to get a bunch of really nice inserts that are visually appealing and nicely designed for a product that is supposed to be simple. For an inexpensive box to yield almost a complete base set plus 1/3 to 1/2 of all cards in each subset, I don't think you can get much more value out of a box than that.

Quality: A

For the price you are definitely given your money's worth and then some in this product. The cards are just about the same as Topps Series One and the inserts are top notch and more than deserving of being in Series 1 or 2.

Overall: A

For those of you who have been reading the blog the last few years, you would know how hard it is for me to give this product and A for an overall grade. This year has actually impressed me which has never happened with Opening Day before. I think this was probably the most fun I had opening a box this year so far. If you aren't looking for autographs or game used cards and just want some nice inserts and parallels of your favorite players than you should definitely pick up a box for fun.

eTopps for Dummies

We have received a couple of requests on how eTopps works so I will give you the low down in case you are new to collecting or new to eTopps.

Each week eTopps releases a couple of cards, each serial numbered to a specific number but not all have the same print run. Each card also has a different price, while you may pay $4.50 for one guy, the other offered that week could be $8.00.

You can request as many as you would like, however that doesn't mean you will be allocated that many. Typically you will be lucky to get one card even if you get your order in exactly when they are available to order.

You get a notification the following week whether or not you were allocated a card from the previous week. ("To the victor go the spoils" will become your favorite saying.)

The cards you purchase are stored at eTopps until you request and pay for delivery of the cards. They can stay there as long as you like (at least I hope so because mine are all there).

You may also sell cards from your portfolio on eBay and just transfer the cards to another eTopps user once the transaction is complete.

That's pretty much the best I can do to explain eTopps briefly and easily. If I screwed it up, well.... you can read their website and figure the rest out.

2010-11 Absolute Memorabilia Basketball

Thanks to the folks over at Panini America we got a spiffy new box of
2010-11 Absolute Memorabilia Basketball Basketball to open. Each box contains 4 mini boxes, each with one pack containing 5 cards. Box states two autograph and two memorabilia cards per box.

I attempted to open this box live on UStream but from what I was told the audio on it was pretty terrible for some reason. You are more than welcome to track it down to watch it, but you will probably just hear me grumbling and cursing because no one can hear me.

Here is what was in the box:

Base cards (10):



Parallels /499 (2):


Derrick Caracter RC

Dan Majerle


Spectrum insert /100:


Paul Millsap


Inserts /399 (2):

Frequent Flyer Rudy Gay

Karl Malone Marks of Fame


Star Gazing Insert /100 (1):

Pau Gasol



Game used cards (2):

Derrick Rose Tools of the Trade /49

Derrick Favors Rookie Premiere Materials /25


Autographs (2):

Elliot Williams Rookie Premiere Materials dual GU/AU /499



Emeka Okafor Spectrum AU /25


So what do I like about this product? I love the game used cards because they incorporate a cool new element- a piece of the ball. To me, that makes this product more fun without really doing much of anything. The design of the game used with the ball makes for instant fun for the collector. The downside to the game used cards is that they are all one color (at least in this box). The Derrick Rose card looks boring as hell with just a big black swatch on there. I know that each card can't be a patch but when a card is only numbered to 49, it really can be.

Bottom line- it's a higher end product and it should have patches like previous releases of high end cards by Panini.

Another upside to the product are the Star Gazing inserts. These just look cool and they remind me a little bit of the old school Dream Team cards for some reason. I like oddball cards so perhaps that it why this insert is a hit with me.

The other inserts are fairly standard and don't really scream out "cool" or "new". The rainbow type foil on the parallels is nice to look at.

What don't I like about the cards?

While I like "shiny" type cards here and there, there is one downside to them- they fingerprint too easily. I always try not to touch chrome or foil cards on the surface but sometimes it just happens and it's annoying to look at.

I don't really care for the design to be very honest. I like action shots on baseball cards, and I don't really feel any differently about basketball. In the Donruss 2010-11 cards, the base cards were action but the RC's were on solid backgrounds which made them stand out from the base cards. That was cool. This set they are all on plain backgrounds that have some sort of smokish thing behind the player which looks like the color had water dropped on it.

You aren't really buying this box for base cards, so that really shouldn't be a factor in your decision to buy or not to buy a box. You get 4 hits, all serial numbered and all very sharp looking. That should be reason enough to purchase this product. I had fun opening it, and the hits are very fun.

Overall grade on this product is probably a B/B+ based on the contents of this box.

P.S. I touched both balls.

P.P.S Please say you got the joke.