Group Break Recaps - September 2021

This has been a busy summer. Shortly after school let out for the COVID shortened summer, my wife and I decided to sell our home and move. Goodbye to subdivision/HOA living, something we've wanted to do for awhile, but never pulled the trigger. We called up Offer Pad to get a cash offer on our home and off we were running.

As you may know, the real estate market this year has been crazy. The Carolina Panthers (NFL) broke ground on their new training facility complex just up the road from our home so combined with the hot market, I think we made a good decision when we did to sell and move.

We got lucky I feel like with the house we ended up buying. We moved south about a half hour further into SC, buying a larger home on 2 acres of land. No more subdivision, no more HOA, no more annoying neighbors. So far, it's been fantastic. As a bonus, I was given the finished two car garage for all of my stuff. While I'm still in the process of getting the room set and finding a home for everything, I decided to fire up my Affordable Group Breaks at the beginning of September. While my collecting has certainly changed this year, particularly with the move, I still missed the community and hanging out Friday night with the guys...so I sought out some new product to go with the few boxes I still had in reserve.

I was able to grab one of these "Quick Pitch" boxes of 2021 Panini Prizm to kick things off again. While Panini's baseball products aren't everyone's cup of tea, I figured there would still be enough interest to give it a try. These boxes don't have the same "hit power" that then full fledge hobby boxes do, but it offered plenty of colored parallels and our hit was a surprise.

Silver Prizms

Blue Donut Prizms

Red Donut Circle Prizms

Green Donut Circle Prizms

Sixto Sanchez Blue Donut Circle Prizm auto

I don't remember what this auto was serially numbered to, but I believe it was rather low. I didn't really expect to pull an auto of a good player so this card of Sixto was a nice surprise. I think the Marlins initially went unclaimed and was picked up buy a regular buying up the cheap teams left over for a deal.

Towards the end of August I stumbled upon some retail football cards I so grabbed two hangers and two fat packs for a little Mini Break.

We pulled some decent cards, but no Trevor Lawrence RC for the Jags. After watching this past week's Sunday Night Football game with the Bucs vs. the Patriots, this Xtra Points parallel of Mac Jones's RC is looking a little better.

It had been awhile since I've opened a Skybox baseball product so I didn't hesitate in picking up this retail box of 1999 Skybox Premium.

These two inserts, Show Business and Soul of the Game are niiice and the checklist for these sets aren't half bad either. Love pulling 90's inserts of such hobby greats like Tony Gwynn and Big Mac himself.

The lower tiered insert set if you will, Live Bats, was represented by Juan Gonzalez and Normar Garciaparra. If these don't look like a 90's themed insert set, I don't know what would.

This football product puzzled me as I was never able to find a checklist. It's clearly labeled as 1996 Score Board NFL Phone Cards, but the phone cards inside were actually from the Classic Pro Line II Intense insert sets.

The phone cards came in various denominations with $1 being the most common and $10 being the tougher pull. Here are two examples of the $10 cards.

Even in 1996 there were several different parallels to chase, including these Proof and Test versions of the phone cards.

For the following week I had to slow the pace a bit thanks to my work schedule becoming a little more hectic. Only one box was offered this time, 2004 Fleer Tradition (retail).

I can't say this box was the most fun to rip, especially in a group break format, but we pulled a lot of cards for each team and that makes me happy for my customers. This Day in History inserts come in memorabilia versions and are much more appealing.

The week before we broke this hobby box of 2001 Topps Fusion, Shane Salmonson featured the same product as a part of his weekly Cheap Wax Wednesday series on Beckett.com. Let's see who's box fared better?

Fusion was a one and done product for Topps unfortunately. It was a "best of" of sorts as it featured multiple base card designs - Bowman's Best, Finest, Gallery, Gold Label and Stadium Club. Even though the box touts that one auto is guaranteed, as Shane pointed out in his article that just wasn't true. We however got lucky with this nice on card auto of Todd Helton AND a bat relic of Chipper Jones.

October is looking like beast of a month for me at work, but I do have a few boxes on hand that I plan on breaking starting Friday, 10/15/21. We'll get things kicked off with two breaks that will post here and in the Facebook group on Monday, 10/11/21. One will be a Pacific baseball product while the other will be another retail mini break that will feature 3 hanger boxes of 2021 Topps Chrome baseball. If I can find more between now and then, I'll up the box count.

Thank you again to everyone that has supported me with this fun little endeavor. 2021 has been a roller coaster for sure and I'm looking forward to busting more boxes before we close out the year. Catch everyone later, thanks for stopping by.