2011 Topps Wrapper Redemption Packs

First of all, let me say that I am absolutely amazed that it took ONE week to get the packs in the mail for our case break of jumbo 2011 Topps Series 1. I did offer last night on Twitter to open the packs live on UStream and only one person responded. Since no one jumped, I decided to study and just scan the packs.

I was hopeful that we would have gotten lucky and pulled an auto but no such luck on this one. We had 6 jumbo boxes in the case and got back 6 packs. I scanned them in packs so that it made it easier to go through rather than having 30 cards on the post.

Ichiro, Markakis, Howard, David Price, Roy Oswalt


David Wright, Prince Fielder, Mark Reynolds, Sabathia, Miguel Cabrera


Jose Reyes, Carlos Gonzalez, Adrian Gonzalez, Dan Uggla, Justin Upton


Wainwright, Dunn, Lincecum, McCutchen, Kinsler


The greatest pack ever.
Robinson Cano, VMart, Holliday, Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter


Youk, Tulo, Cliff Lee, Morneau, Kershaw

Here are you options on having the cards shipped to you. You can send $2.00 for a bubble mailer via PayPal gift; you can send me an SASE (PWE or bubble mailer) with the postage already paid and toploaders supplied; you can have me ship them with your Gypsy Queen or Topps Series 2 team cards for no extra cost.

If I am shipping them with your next break YOU need to CONTACT me informing me what team you had in the 2011 Series 1, and what team you have in the Gypsy Queen or Series 2 break so that I can pair them up correctly at that time.

Any questions on getting the cards please ask in the comments or send me an e-mail. I will be sitting here studying for my upcoming exams so I will be able to get back to you rather quickly.

Hobby Box Break and Review: 2011 Topps Series 1 Hobby

As most of you are aware we broke a case of 2011 Topps Series 1 a few weeks ago and had fun with it (for the most part). I got a box from Topps to review on the blog and the way I thought I would approach this review is more of an overall comparison as to where to get certain cards.

I will first show you what was pulled from the hobby box that I opened. I didn't scan the base cards because we have all seen them and most of us have 40 stacks laying around by now.

Hobby boxes contain 36 packs, 10 cards per pack, and one auto or relic per box (on average).

Here goes...

Topps 60


Dynamic Duos


CMGR Reprints


Topps 60 Years of Collecting (Original Back)


Topps 60 Years of Collecting




Diamond Anniversary


Gold parallels


Kimball Champions


Game Used relic Jered Weaver



I didn't notice this until I was scanning the cards for the review, but every single Diamond Anniversary and Gold parallel that was pulled were all horizontal cards. I don't think I have ever seen that before, because I would have picked up on it while placing the cards in the scanner. Perhaps there is a box of vertical inserts out there somewhere.

Now that you can see all the cards laid out, you definitely get a great variety and amount of inserts from a hobby box. There were also 5 or 6 Diamond Giveaway cards, however I redeemed them because I was bored. Nothing redeemed from the codes was from anything earlier than 2007...

If all things are equal, meaning the pricing on the Jumbos and Hobby boxes levels off to a more acceptable/affordable level, I really think you get a better value out of the Jumbo box. As much as I don't like the leather manufactured patches, I think I would take that over the single relic card in a hobby box. Plus in a jumbo, you get an autograph as well as another relic in each box. The total base cards in a hobby vs. a jumbo is negligible, both contain roughly 300 +/- 20 cards in a quest to build a complete set.

Did Series 1 make the grade here at A Cardboard Problem? Read on to find out what I think.

Design: A

I think this years base set design has been one of the nicest and sharpest to come out in recent years. I like the name and team logo locations and designs and all the pictures are action shots.

Value: C

Based on the current price points for hobby boxes, the dealers are crazy. Dealers should be selling the base series 1 for a more reasonable price for young kids and us old folks to be able to afford more than a box or a blaster. If these boxes were to level off around $50 or so a box, I would change my grade here to an A.

Quality: A-

This set is the same consistent set we see year in and year out. You end up with almost a complete set per box and a great variety of inserts and parallels. My only gripe with the quality issue is that there are always a few packs that have a card that is crinkled or a pack with all dinged corners. While I know that can happen in transit, or from a shop dropping a box it is still frustrating.

Overall: B+

Series 1 baseball is the set builder's set, so to speak. Each year Topps consistently puts out the flagship set in such a manner that it follows or builds upon the tradition of the base set. I absolutely love the Diamond Anniversary cards in this set and think they could even be a solution to the xfractors of the future. They would be interesting to see incorporated throughout the remaining sets of the year, would love to see them in chrome stock, if they can remain flat and not wavy and curly.

If you are a player collector, I would hold off on buying a box of these and just pick up the singles you need through trades or buying singles at shows and on eBay.

To read more on 2011 Topps Series 1, please feel free to scroll through the archives we have a bunch of posts on the set including posts about each individual subset.

Choo Choo...

Suzy likes to send me eBay links of things from time to time of either cool cards, or ridiculous ones that are funny or overpriced, etc. This particular time was no exception. Now, I will admit I had no knowledge of these cards prior because I have been studying the last few days and not really paying attention to cardboard.

Apparently 2011 Topps included not only the regular Leather Name Plate cards, but also nickname versions that are serial numbered 1/1. First I will run down the list of current auctions in case you want to bid on one of these.

We will start with my personal favorite.

- Shin-Soo Choo who may have never even heard of that gum.

- Ryan Howard

- Ichiro

- Trevor Cahill

A couple of the completed cards went for crazy money.

- Tim Lincecum

- Roy Halladay

So if there is a card of your favorite player or the player you have as your PC will you chase it? I can tell you right now I will not be hunting down an "El Hombre" pleather card.

2011 Topps Kimball Champions Inserts

I will say right off the bat that I love the Kimball Champions inserts. I feel like the majority of bloggers and collectors enjoy "bite size" baseball cards as a bonus to the regular old cards. They are like mini chocolate chip cookies, only these won't make your pants tighter (well, and they probably don't taste as good).



Who doesn't like opening a pack and seeing a tiny card fly out?

I really feel like this insert set will be one of the more successful insert sets, and one of the sets they should continue to spread throughout 2011. The Series 1 set is 50 total cards, which seems totally doable for the set collector or mini set collector. I would love if they did a black parallel set later in the year maybe in Series 2 or in the Updates set.

While I love this set, I don't know if I could see it surviving as a release in and of itself. I seem to fall in love with new "vintage" cards easily, and generally like them while most people hate them. The appeal of the mini card is that it's something different, at least with the Kimball Champions it is different. This is a new subset that will draw in the people who like to build mini sets, retro sets, and the obscure.

I have a separate binder for my mini cards and for the most part all mini cards are in there from Allen & Ginter, Goodwin Champions, and now Kimball Champions. Some of my Cano mini cards are floating in 9 pocket pages in his binder, and others are in their 15 pocket (better) sheets in the other binder.

This leads me to my next thought... Where are all the die-cut cards? Why can't we see more of those? The Target Red Diamond inserts would be awesome as die-cut cards, and the Topps 60 would be, too. I think a die-cut set or parallel set to one of the Series 1 subsets would be freakin' sweet. I know I miss die-cuts and from a couple of conversations I have had with fellow bloggers it doesn't seem that I am alone in that thinking.


What do you guys think? Die-cuts would be a thumbs up or thumbs down?

I'm not going to say I would be building die-cut sets, but I would like to add some odd shaped cards to my Cano and Pujols collection.