Sunday, September 30, 2012

Sunday Verse


I know the trading card related posts have been sparse this month, but I've got to admit it's been nice taking a little break.  Lord knows I'm not done collecting cards.  Heck, I've got 2 big stacks sitting beside my laptop that I need to scan and catalog along with plenty of new cards to share.  With a crazy month at work eating up much of my energy and free time I've just been enjoying spending my evenings doing something other than sitting in front of a computer.

Normal posts will resume at some point in the near future, but for now some words from the book of Romans to marinate on. 


Romans 15:7

Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Braves return to the post season...

 2011 Topps Lineage Freddie Freeman auto

...thanks in part to this guy's 1st career walk off homer!

2000 Upper Deck HoloGrFX Chipper Jones A Piece of the World Series

Oh yeah.  This guy played a good game tonight too.

All is well in the universe.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Sunday Verse

1 John 4:16

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

Take care everybody and have a wonderful Sunday!

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Future Group Break Announcement

For while now I've strived to host affordable group breaks on a monthly basis.  I do so for several reasons and thus far there has been a break every month with the exception of a month here and there.  That said I wanted to let everyone know that there won't be a group break for the month of October and there may not be another break for the rest of the year.

The company I work for is being sold and the transaction is supposed to happen sometime in mid November.  Before all this takes place they'll be a lot of change going on - of which I get to apply for my own job!  Throw in my little girl turns 3 next month and I've got a lot on my hands.

I'm going to try and keep up w/ posts as I have a lot to share, but time is something that continues to be in short supply.  I do have 2 random boxes sitting to the side if I do find the time for a break, but right now nothing is on the schedule.

I have greatly appreciated everyone's support and feedback since I began hosting breaks, but for now you'll have to throw your support behind someone else.  I'll be back to my hosting duties at some point so if you enjoy what I do - rest assured there will be more.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Sunday Verse

Philippians 4:8

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Sunday is finally here.  A day of rest and quality time w/ my family.  And NFL football!!

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Tim Hudson Ink

2012 Topps Tier One Crowd Pleasers (11/25)

It's always a good day when the mail man brings a new Tim Hudson auto!

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Random acts of kindness

Things have been a little hectic around my household recently.  Work sucks, I've given myself A LOT of work lately here on the blog and I'm feeling a tad of the burnt out feeling...so this mystery mailer came at the right time.

Inside this small mailer contained a note and a small small stack of cards.  The note simply said "Just some randomness.  Haven't bought much new lately."  - Night Owl

Some of the cards included a few Braves that I didn't have (Sid Bream, David Justice and Chipper Jones!!)


 and a few cards off my 2008 UD Timeline set that I haven't done much w/ lately.  Oh yeah, these two little cards also fell out of the stack:


I'm way late on trying to build the '10 A&G Creatures of Legend, Myth & Joy so this Easter Bunny card was a welcomed sight.  Since I was just coming back to the hobby in '10 I didn't buy any hobby A&G where I believe was the only place you could find this particular World's Biggest card.

Thank you Night Owl for thinking of little 'ol me in SC.  Your care package came at the right time and I really appreciate it.

Monday, September 10, 2012

Blaster Break - 2012 Topps WWE

Another sign that September has come is the release of Topps' annual WWE "flapship" set.  Released on 09/04/12, Topps is back with a 90 card base set featuring wrestlers, commentators and other personalities from both RAW and Smackdown programs.  In addition to the base set several different levels of parallels and a lot of inserts sets can be found.  Falling to 1:1 packs across all the parallels and inserts you're guaranteed to get something of note in each $2 pack.

Like with most hobby vs. retail releases you'll find different cards in the packs depending on where you bought them.  For this post we'll look at the contents of a blaster I recently found @ Target.

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What caught my eye when looking at the shelves the other day was the size of this new blaster.  Panini has been using smaller boxes for their Score football and HOOPs basketball cards and now Topps is following suit.  This makes so much sense as the traditional blaster box has so much wasted space inside.  I'm not the biggest environmental / recycle everything kind of guy, but making these boxes smaller is a no-brainer.

One side of the box features John Cena while the other side features CM Punk.  Kelly Kelly is on the top of the box and basically all you see is her boobs and ditzy smile.  Inside each $20 blaster you'll find a total of 10 packs containing 7 cards each.  You'll also get one shirt relic or WrestleMania XXVIII mat relic in each box.

Before we get to the relic card or the various inserts let's take a look at a few of the base cards.  Topps gave their 2012 football set a unique design, but WWE gets to retread the baseball "surfboard" design.  Not my favorite design Topps has used, but I can look past the issue since there is so much more to the set than just the base cards.  The back of the cards obviously don't feature stats, but it does feature commentary from none other than Mick Foley!  Once I get this set built I will sit down and read every card back.  This guy is a NY Times best selling author so you know the guy can write!

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The obligatory "eye candy" scan
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Great action shot of Rey flying through the air
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Too bad the scan doesn't allow you to see the sweat flying off the guy Jinder Mahal just kneed in the face.
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Christian ain't no Rey!
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Perhaps my favorite card in the set!
Topps continues to follow the trend they start earlier in the year w/ their MLB Opening Day by inserting light blue boarder parallels.  These cards fall 1:6 packs.

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Gold parallels are 1:24 packs and Black parallels can be found 1:330 packs.  I didn't get any of these in this blaster.

Not counting the 2 different relic sets, there are 5 different insert sets to chase and most of them are 10+ cards deep on the checklist.  We'll start off by first looking at Punk's Picks which can be found 1:6 packs.

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In this set CM Punk picks different stand out (or Top Class) matches such as this win at WrestleMania XXIV in 2008.  Until I held this card in hand I hadn't realized all the additional tattoos Punk had gotten in the last several years!

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Punk recaptured the WWE Championship last November and has to this day not relinquished the title.  He may not be the "Best in the World", but he is a pretty darn good wrestler.

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Classic Hall of Famers are found 1:4 packs and feature some great wrestling talent.  I found this card of Tully Blanchard to be awesome, but some what puzzling at the same time.  Any long time wrestling fan knows Tully from his time spent w/ the Four Horsemen...which was in the NWA/WCW days.  Seeing him as a WWE Hall of Famer is odd, but I'll still take it as I loved Mr. Blanchard.  Today Tully spends his time spreading the Good News as a preacher.

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Ah, Terry Funk.  What wrestling federation hasn't he wrestled in?  This is another wrestler that I remember mostly from his NWA days, but towards the end of his career I do remember catching a few of his matches in the WWE.

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I never was a fan of Greg "The Hammer" Valentine growing up, but I mostly remember him for his submission move simply called "The Hammer".  How fitting.

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I really like these First Class Champions cards.  The idea to imprint the different title belt's designs onto a card in this fashion seems so simple, but I don't think I've ever seen a card like this.  These are inserted 1:6 packs.

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Maybe the trend of making movie poster like promotional images for Pay-Per-View events isn't new, but the WWE cooked up new images for each month's featured PPV such as the Royal Rumble in January of this year.  What is bugging me is I can't figure out who that is on the card.  At first I thought it was Shane McMahon, but the chin ain't right...so I'm going w/ Santino Marella.  He's crazy enough to dress like a fortune teller.  These World Class Events are inserted 1:6 packs.

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I don't have much to say other than I wonder of that small QR code on the front still works when snapped w/ your phone's camera?

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It wouldn't be a WWE set of cards without something devoted to the Divas, right?  These Divas Class of 2012 cards are seeded 1:4 packs.

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I was hoping that my relic card would be one of the WrestleMania mat cards.  I was hoping it be of someone other than Dolph Ziggler though.  Oh well, guess you can't win 'em all?

I was so UN-impressed with last year's WWE set that I wasn't sure what to expect for this year.  Then I saw the sell sheets a month or so ago while on Blowout's site and I was hooked.  I've got a hobby box coming as well which will mean I'll probably have lots of cards to trade if anyone cards.  I'll also do a quick box recap post for that hobby box later on.

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Sunday Verse

Psalm 143:10

Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.

Straight forward and to the point.  Have a great Sunday everyone.  Here in the Hopper household we're getting ready for Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers to take the field for the beginning of what we hope is a playoff calibur season!

Saturday, September 8, 2012

September 2012 Affordable Group Break - 2012 Topps Chrome (Box #3)

We're down to our 3rd and final box of this month's Affordable Group Break.  As we've progressed each box has got a little bit better.  Will this trend continue?  To see your team's cards watch the video below...or if you just want to see the hits scroll on down to see them in typical fashion.


Like with the other boxes we ended up w/ 9 Refractors.

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Only 3 Xfractors this time around.  Were we shorted?  Or did we get something better?

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I love it when these different colored Refractors match the team colors such as this Blue Refractor for the Dodgers.

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#034/199
This Black Refractor may not match the Brewers colors exactly, but Black Refractors always look nice.

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#007/100
The more I see of these Sepia Refractors the more I like them.

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#34/75
 Topps has really done a nice job w/ these die-cuts...

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Our two guaranteed autos aren't names I know, but hopefully the recipient of these cards will enjoy them.

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Remember that we only got 3 Xfractors?  This is why...an extra auto!  A Refractor auto at that...for the Brewers.

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#294/499
I love opening older cards, but opening new stuff was also a lot of fun.  This break filled up quite fast too so that told me that some of you guys really liked the choice of product and the price.  If you'd like me to continue to offer new product in these Affordable Group Breaks please comment and let me know.  I'll have an update posted soon about the next break, but for now if there is a product coming out before the end of the year let me know.  Thanks again for everyone's participation.  I hope to have these cards packed up and mailed on Monday.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

September 2012 Affordable Group Break - 2012 Topps Chrome (Box #2)


Our 2nd box was much nicer in my opinion.  We scored a few extra inserts than before which you can see if you continue to scroll down.

We got the same number of Refractors in this box - 9 total
 
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4 more Xfractors

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This time around there were 2 Blue Refractors

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#019/199 & #129/199
1 Black Refractor

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#087/100
Pulled a Sepia Refractor as well...nice looking card.

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#14/75
The die-cut card goes to the Cubs

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The Oakland A's of all teams is up 2 autos already!

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Our 2nd auto ended up being a Refractor...I know of at least one Rockies collector that may be kicking themselves for passing on this break!

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#364/499
2 boxes down and 1 more to go.  Remember that if you don't want to wait for the results to be scanned and posted you can always subscribe to my YouTube channel and get notified as soon as a new video is posted!  Thanks again to everyone that is participating.  More fun to come!

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

September 2012 Affordable Group Break - 2012 Topps Chrome (Box #1)

It's been awhile since I've done a box break on YouTube so if you want to watch the 12+ minute video or staring at my double chin then view away.  Otherwise you can scroll down for scans of the hits.


I have to say it appears that Topps has done a really good job w/ Chrome this year.  Photography is nice.  From what I can tell we've got some different photographs versus the flagship set.  Cards lay flat too!  We pulled lots of Refractors.  I didn't really look at the insert odds before busting into the box so I was surprised to see so many shiny cards!  Autos may not have been the biggest names, but I guess you can't always win the lottery.

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Refractors
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X-Fractors
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Black Refractor #078/100
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Blue Refractor #198/199
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Autos! (Where's Bryce?)  ) :
One box down, 2 more to go.  Stay tuned!