Affordable Group Break - 1996 Topps Laser Series 1 & 2

** 07/02/20 UPDATE - Prices have been dropped for all remaining teams **

I first featured a box of 1996 Topps Laser in one of my Affordable Group Breaks way back in April 2001 and ever since I've wanted to break another box, but had a hard time finding a box of either series for a reasonable price. With the prices of sealed boxes seemingly going up every day, I was shocked to find an online vendor that had both boxes in stock for a reasonable asking price. I quickly snatched these up (along with some other boxes for future breaks) and I'm hoping others will be as excited about this product as I am.

If you're not familiar with this set, please make sure you visit the Trading Card Database or BaseballCardPedia for more information, including complete checklists.

Price is listed beside each team. All cards ship. Any cards with multiple players featured will be randomed off between those participants. The price does not include shipping. Like with my recent previous breaks, stacking applies so if you bought into a previous break or want me to hold your cards until you see what's next, I'll send you a PayPal invoice for shipping whenever you're ready. We'll break this box Live on my YouTube channel as soon as the break fills up. I'll update all of my social media outlets (FB group, Twitter @flywheels) as the teams are claim. We'll be looking to break this box Friday evening, 07/03/20 at 10 PM Eastern.

To claim your team(s) please comment with your request and submit your payment at that time. If you haven't participated in one of my breaks, please email me your name & mailing address. Please send your payment as Friends & Family: http://paypal.me/flywheels86

Atlanta Braves - Colbey PAID
Baltimore Orioles $6 - Nick D PAID

Boston Red Sox $6 - Boston Red Sox Collector PAID

California Angels - Colbey PAID
Chicago Cubs $5 - Ben M PAID
Chicago White Sox - Colbey PAID
Cincinnati Reds $2 - Dennis B PAID
Cleveland Indians $6 - Ross L PAID
Colorado Rockies $1 - Wade F PAID
Detroit Tigers $2 - @jmswyo PAID
Florida Marlins $1 - Wade F PAID
Houston Astros $5 - Marc B PAID
Kansas City Royals $2 - @jmswyo PAID
Los Angeles Dodgers $6 - gcrl PAID
Milwaukee Brewers FREE w/ any other team - Ross L PAID
Minnesota Twins $2 - @jmswyo PAID
Montreal Expos $1 - Ben M PAID
New York Mets $2 - @jmswyo PAID
New York Yankees $8 - Ross L PAID
Oakland Athletics $1 - @jmswyo PAID
Philadelphia Phillies $1 - @jmswyo PAID
Pittsburgh Pirates $4 - Wade F PAID
San Diego Padres - Colbey PAID
San Francisco Giants $5 - Dustin D PAID
Seattle Mariners $8 - Ben M PAID
St. Louis Cardinals $5 - @jmswyo PAID
Texas Rangers $3 - @jmswyo PAID
Toronto Blue Jays $1 - Dustin D PAID

2020 Topps Big League Group Break Results

While I had other plans for this week's break, it was requested that we break some 2020 Topps Big League so I grabbed two hobby boxes and postponed my original plan to next week. I'm glad that Cynical Buddha from Collector's Crack made the suggestion as it was a lot of fun and we pulled some pretty good cards if you ask me.

Maybe one of these days I'll figure out how to make those cool YouTube thumbnails for my videos! We had a good crowd join in for the video, including a few new people. Napkin Doon even joined in on the recommendation by AJ/Lost Collector! Prior to this break I had opened a few hobby packs of Big League and I loved the simplistic look of the cards. The insert designs were fun looking and its a good set to build with the lower price point. I had no idea going in though that we'd have the success that we did with some of the cards pulled. If you don't want to watch the video, then keep reading for a break down of the two boxes.

The base design is very simple, which I find to be a good thing. One comment during the video was that it reminded someone of some of the old Fleer Tradition sets...which I can see. No gloss. No foil stamping. Just a good old fashioned baseball card set.

In the hobby packs these orange parallels fall 1:1 packs. These are much brighter in hand, almost a safety neon orange!

When I saw the Defensive Wizards on the sell sheet I immediately new that this year's iteration of Big League was going to be fun. These are some of the best cards I've seen in some time. I can't wait to build this set myself.

Flipping Out celebrates the many bat flips seeming now occur on a regular basis. Not my favorite set, but at least it uses a theme not widely used before.

Roll Call features some pumped up images of the players with their name in all caps behind them. This reminds me for some reason of a subset featured in the old 1998 Fleer Dugout Axcess set.

Even though 2020 Big League hasn't been on shelves for very long, I saw both on Facebook and Twitter the autographs pulled by various people. I wasn't sure if we'd pull anything since the Big League Autographs were seeded 1:78 packs and the hobby boxes now only contained 18 packs. As you can see above we beat the odds!

In the second box our big pull was this beautiful red foil parallel of the Pirates' Chris Archer. I remember seeing on the packs that these were seeded 1:3820 and I saw the asterisk so I knew they would be serially numbered...but I didn't expect to pull a 1/1!! I had an extra One Touch laying around so I put the card in that so nothing bad would happen to it. Shortly after the break Wade, who always claims his Pirates, requested that I ship his stack. I don't blame him, I'd want to get my hands on that card as soon as I could too!

Another week, another great break. I'm really having a blast hosting these and I thank each and everyone that continues to buy in and participate. We'll have another break next week before I take a week off. I'm super excited about next week's break too as I haven't opened a box of this since I included a box in a break back in April 2011! Next Friday, 07/03/20 we'll be busting series 1 & 2 of 1996 Topps Laser! Sign ups will go live Sunday, 06/28/20.

Affordable Group Break - 2020 Topps Big League (x2 Hobby Boxes)

** UPDATE 06/24/20 - Prices dropped on remaining teams **

This break will feature two boxes of 2020 Topps Big League (Hobby). For more info on this set, be sure to visit the Trading Card Database or BaseballCardPedia for checklists. Big League is always a fun set and the changes made by Topps this year look really nice.

Price is listed beside each team. All cards ship. Any cards with multiple players featured will be randomed off between those participants. The price does not include shipping. Like with my recent previous breaks, stacking applies so if you bought into a previous break or want me to hold your cards until you see what's next, I'll send you a PayPal invoice for shipping whenever you're ready. We'll break this box Live on my YouTube channel on Friday, June 26th at 10 PM Eastern. I'll update all of my social media outlets (FB group, Twitter @flywheels) as the teams are claim.

To claim your team(s) please comment with your request and submit your payment at that time. If you haven't participated in one of my breaks, please email me your name & mailing address. Please send your payment as Friends & Family: http://paypal.me/flywheels86


Arizona Diamondbacks $4 - Adam McK PAID
Atlanta Braves - Colbey PAID
Baltimore Orioles $4
Boston Red Sox $5 - Roy G PAID
Chicago Cubs $4 - Ben M PAID
Chicago White Sox $4 - Josh D PAID
Cincinnati Reds $4 - Paul D PAID
Cleveland Indians $5 - Timothy H MAILED
Colorado Rockies $5 - Johnny R PAID
Detroit Tigers $4 - Paul D PAID
Houston Astros $6 - Roy G PAID
Kansas City Royals $5 - Josh D PAID

Los Angeles Angels $6 - Tom T PAID
Los Angeles Dodgers $6 - Joey N

Miami Marlins $3
Milwaukee Brewers $5 - Mark E PAID
Minnesota Twins $4
New York Mets $6 - Trevor P PAID
New York Yankees $6 - @Lost_Collector PAID
Oakland Athletics $4 - @Lost_Collector PAID
Philadelphia Phillies $5 - Charles P PAID
Pittsburgh Pirates $4 - Wade F PAID
San Diego Padres $4 - Ben M PAID
San Francisco Giants $3 - Dustin D PAID
Seattle Mariners $4
St. Louis Cardinals $4 - Kerry B PAID
Tampa Bay Rays $4 - Tim B PAID
Texas Rangers $3 - @Lost_Collector PAID
Toronto Blue Jays $5 - Captain Canuck PAID

Washington Nationals $6 - Charles P PAID

1997 Pinnacle X-Press / 2020 Panini Diamond Kings & Select Group Break Results

This weekend's group break was a little different as Friday was my birthday and I had to take the break on the road as I was celebrating both my birthday and Father's Day at the beach. This caused the break to get started later than planned and my set up wasn't ideal, but hey when life gives you lemons you make lemonade. We still had some good cards pulled from the boxes so if you weren't able to make the live break Friday evening, below is the video as well as a recap of the highlights.

We'll start off with the box of 1997 Pinnacle X-Press. I actually picked up a lot of these boxes last fall and have been sitting on them for awhile now. I thought this was a fun set even though it must not have sold well for Pinnacle and it was rebranded for it's second release and then ended after that. Made up of mainly horizontal oriented cards, this was meant I believe as a low end entry.

Men of Summer was a gold foil parallel set. These look much nicer in hand than when photographed. There was an interactive game called Swing for the Fences where you could guess the home run leader for each respective league. These game cards also doubled as a insert set. The only other insert we really had a chance of pulling was Far & Away as the Melting Pot inserts were 1:288 packs.

These Men of Summer parallels fell 1:7 packs and as I said earlier, these look much nicer in hand. The McGwire Peak Performer card especially looks really nice.

Far & Away fell 1:18 packs so we beat the odds by pulling two of these. I thought these cards featured Pinnacle's patented Dufex technology, but the silver background is more or less etching. Still nice looking, just not what I expected.

I thought we had fun last week with the hobby box of 2020 Diamond Kings, so I grabbed another box from my LCS while they were still in stock. Then the next day I found two blasters of 2020 Select so I grabbed them. I had already heard the moans and groans regarding the blasters only containing 3 packs so I was hoping people would want to try their hand without having to invest too much money. The break sold out quickly so I guess I was right.

3 more framed parallels, one gray and 2 plum this time. Despite what you may think about Pete Rose, I thought it was cool seeing him included in the checklist.

The Aficionado inserts are very colorful and look great...even the Altuve looks good.

Par the course from the first box, we pulled another 6 of the All Time Diamond Kings inserts, including Trout this time around.

I still think these Artist's Palette inserts are some of the brightest uses of color I've seen on a baseball card.

Love 'em or hate 'em, two more DK206 inserts pulled. This time we got Pete Alonso and Yordan Alvarez.

The DK Originals yielded a pair of players from different points in the game - Rendon for the Angels and Ty Cobb for the Tigers. I know Paul from the Scribbled Ink blog was happy to see this Cobb.

From the days of Donruss Triple Play comes a new version of Gallery of Stars...beautiful!!

The last of the regular inserts are The 3000. Twitter user @jmswyo was very happy to see this George Brett pulled.

The last box yielded an auto of a youngster from San Diego and this time we get a youngster from San Francisco...but this time with two pieces of jersey included. Not serially numbered this time around, but not a bad hit.

Happy birthday to me! I don't always like it when my Braves get a hit as I like for the other participants be the ones to take home the good cards, but I won't lie...pulling such a beautiful card of a Braves player on my birthday was pretty cool. I like bat cards and this is one the best looking game used bat cards I now have in my collection.

Up next we opened two blasters of 2020 Panini Select. I had opened one of these previously for myself and while the cards are absolutely beautiful, I can see why some people say the "value" just isn't there in these $20 blasters. 

None the less we did pull 5 of the retail exclusive Scope Prizm parallels. The more and more I looked at these the more my eyes started hurting with the swirling little circle patterns in the background.

Both of these are regular Prizm parallels, just of different "levels" in the base set. The Realmuto is a beautiful red Prizm and numbered to /199.

A sampling of some of the other inserts: Hot Rookies, Moon Shots, Sensations and this Trout insert (the name of the set escapes me, sorry)

Probably my favorite cards pulled from the blasters were these two Select Stars. I should have photographed the back of the card as it features the green and gold (yellow) from the initial 1992 Select set. The Vladimir Guerrero Jr. card obviously is the Prizm parallel.

Overall this was a another fun break and I'm glad the guys that made the break Friday night seemed to have fun as well. We will be doing some more new product soon (ordered two hobby boxes of 2020 Big League tonight), but next week's break will be going back 24 years and will have a LASER focus on the card design. Look for the next sign up post Monday, 06/22/20.