Group Break Results: 1995 Topps DIII, 1996 Sportflix, 1996 Leaf, 1998 Upper Deck Special F/X & 1999 Skybox Molten Metal

The first breaks of December 2020 featured two mid-90's product that was heavy on lenticular technology. I've made no bones about loving these motion cards in the past and I figured this would be a fun break. The box of 1995 Topps DIII was actually a bonus I included for free as the planned box (1998 Upper Deck Special F/X) didn't show up on time. Since we were already breaking the box of 1996 Sportflix I thought the DIII would complement the break perfectly.

Topps had planned to do a second series of DIII, but I'm guessing it didn't sell well so they pull the plugged. What we were left with was one series of a "one & done" product. While the lenticular cards aren't as nice as Sportflix in my opinion, they are still nice. Printed on slightly thicker stock that Sportflix, the DIII cards don't seem to have that familiar curl.

The only insert set found in DIII was called Zone. Seeded at just 1:3 packs we managed to pull the entire 6 card set.

Up next is 1996 Sportflix. This is probably my favorite design since Pinnacle brought the set back in 1994. Sadly the 1996 set was the last set released. I'm still currently working on building this set.

The set features a good mix of horizontal oriented cards which feature some nice images, though if you are familiar with lenticular cards then you'll know they don't photograph or scan very good. You have to hold these in your hands to get the effect and realize just how awesome they can be. There are also several traded cards that feature an image of the player, but when "flicked" the image turns to a stadium with the words "Traded to the _____" and the team logo. These are just "meh" to me, but I made sure to include this Tino for a certain lost blogger.

There were two subsets in the set, including "Rookie". Obviously not Jeter's RC, but still a cool card none the less. These alternate between the leather & stitches of a baseball to the woodgrain of a bat.

The other subset was called UC3. If that sounds familiar it's because Pinnacle released a UC3 set in 1995. It's a garish looking set, one that I've built and particularly love. These cards however look much nicer and feature some nice photography.

A Pinnacle parallel staple, Artist's Proof, were included at a rate of 1:48 packs. Our box beat the odds as we pulled this Jay Buhner parallel.

There were several insert sets to chase in the set. Perhaps the easiest to pull at 1:17 packs are ProMotion. The image of the player morphs into baseball equipment when "flicked". Griffey here changes into several bats while Ripken turns into a fielding glove. In my youth I loved these cards. Today they are just a novelty at best...but that doesn't mean I don't want the rest of them for my set!

Until we pulled this Powersurge card (1:35 packs), I had never seen one of these before. Printed on a clear plastic, this card is fantastic looking. I believe 1996 was the first year featured clear lenticular cards. Exclusive to jumbo packs was an insert set called Double Take that features this same technology.

Overall I thought the box of Sportflix really delivered a lot of fun. I will be buying a box for myself soon in the hopes to finish off the base set and possibly make a dent in the insert department. 

Our second break of December occured on 12/11/20 and featured two more boxes: 1996 Leaf with a few bonus backs of 1999 Skybox Molten Metal. The "lost" box of 1998 Upper Deck Special F/X also appeared!

Starting with 1996 Leaf, this is a product that I figured most people had seen before or may have had a few cards of in their collection. I chose this box for the potential parallels and inserts (and the affordable price didn't hurt either!).

Gold Leaf Rookies have been an insert set in Leaf sets in the past, but this time around they were part of the base set. The participant that grabbed the Yankees was happy to see these two Jeters pulled. I was happy to hear they didn't already have this card! That's why I like hosting these cheap breaks...to help collector's with their collections and to just have fun.

Press Proof parallels came in three varieties (Bronze, Silver Gold) and are seeded 1:5 packs. The top row are Silver and the bottom row are the Bronze parallels. The Billy Wagner especially looks nice. Since the card's front already featured foil, the added bronze color makes the whole card shiny as opposed to just the two sides on the normal design.

 MVP Contenders (1:8 packs) highlight players that had highlight seasons in both leagues. We pulled Reggie Sanders, Tony Gwynn and Mo Vaughn.

The odds really weren't in our favor to pull any of the other inserts, but we beat the odds! Picture Perfect were seeded 1:140 packs and features a faux wood grain front. Serially numbered to 5000, I love the look of these cards. If they were so hard to pull/find I'd consider building the set as I love cards made of materials other than cardboard.

As a bonus with the box of Leaf, I had 4 hobby packs of 1999 Skybox Molten Metal. This is a product I've longed to open for some time, but it's not exactly cheap so I haven't pulled the trigger. That may have to change however after opening these 4 packs.

The set is broken down between Metal Smiths, Heavy Metal and Supernatural. Each 6 card pack should yield 4 Metal Smiths, 1 Heavy Metal and Supernatural are seeded 1:2 packs. The Manny Ramirez is a Heavy Metal while the rest are Metal Smiths.

The best short printed Supernatural card pulled from the packs was this Derek Jeter.

Xplosion is a parallel of the base set and are seeded 1:2 packs. Printed on metal - think 1996 Leaf Preferred, but with two rounded corners. I love these! Trying to build that set would be a huge undertaking and you'd have to be pretty crazy to try...but oh what fun it could be. I'm sure these would test the welds of Ultra Pro Platinum pages for sure!

In addition to the Xplosion parallel set, there are also 3 other sets that feature just 50 cards each. Fusion, Sterling (#'d to 500) and Titanium (#'d to 50). I don't know what the odds are of pulling these, but I'm sure the odds weren't in our favor with just 4 packs...

...but we beat the odds! Check out this beautiful Titanium Heavy Metal Fusion (don't you just love that name!) of Tim Salmon, #05/50! It didn't look like the Angels were going to be claimed so I grabbed them...with the hopes of pulling a Tim Salmon. Holy smokes, I never imagined pulling anything like this! Of course as soon as this card was shown I could "hear" chants of "RIGGED" being shouted through YouTube's live chat!!

If you enjoyed these 4 packs of Molten Metal and want to see more, please let me know. I can grab a box...but like I said previously it's expensive. I would probably do 15 slots where you pick a team and have a team randomly assigned. Prices per two team slot would be between $13-$16 more than likely. This would be with me breaking even too by the way. If that sounds like something you could get behind please leave a comment or email/tweet me please.

The last box was the late 1998 Upper Deck Special F/X. A retail exclusive, this box had just 10 packs. This made it hard to get a good sample of the set. The set was a parallel of the base 1998 Upper Deck set. 

Beautiful cards, each one featured Upper Deck's etched foil. Trust me, these look much nicer in hand.

The set featured 3 insert sets, but with just 10 packs per box the only odds that were in our favor was Power Zone, of which we pulled this Kenny Lofton. 

Seriously, what's with all the Indians being pulled from my breaks lately! 

Two great weeks of breaks. I've got one more planned for Friday, 12/18/20 and perhaps one other announcement coming. Stay tuned!

Cards, Candy and Fishing Supplies?!

I teased on Twitter a few images of a shop I found late Tuesday night while browsing Facebook and seeing a store mentioned on a friend's post. The store just happened to be located in a small NC town that I would be driving through the very next day on my way out of town for work. I set my alarm as I had added motivation for getting out of the house early.

It took me about an hour to get to my destination, which was pretty easy to find...just off I-85 in Salisbury, NC. Fleming Candy Company. Not much to look at, in fact I almost drove right by it as it looked like an old warehouse. Turns out a small section at the front of the warehouse is the store front. I got there a little before they opened at 9 AM. Shortly after 9 I walked in and was immediately greeted by a nice lady. The store wasn't very big, maybe 3 aisles total. I told her what I was there for and she showed me a section of cards in the middle aisle, a glass display case on the other side and mentioned there were a few cards/packs in the display case by the register. 

This section of cards was about 9 feet long give or take. Baseball on the right, football in the middle and basketball on the left with NASCAR all along the bottom shelf. The top was stacked with complete sets mostly.

The baseball section wasn't as robust as the pictures I found on their website, but there was some nice stuff left...at least in my opinion. The lady that greeted me said that stuff has sat on the shelves for awhile, but started selling in the last 3 months. Thanks COVID-19.

Prices of these boxes ranged from $12 (Score, Studio) to $60 (Bowman, Topps). The bottom shelf had some 1991 and 1992 Stadium Club, 1992 Fleer Ultra and 1991 Score...all right up any junk wax conasuir ally.

The football section definitely had more selection to choose from. Most of this product was early to mid 90's. Collector's Edge, Pacific, Pinnacle, Pro Set, Topps and Upper Deck...even some 1992 and 1993 Bowman. 

The basketball section had some old Fleer and Hoops boxes, but you could tell the prices had been marked up whereas it seemed like many of the prices of various football and baseball boxes had marked down. I would have loved to pick up a basketball box to feature in my Affordable Group Breaks, but I wasn't sure how many people would be excited about a box of mid 90's Hoops so I left them on the shelves.

By the way, the rest of this aisle was full of hard to find candy (opposite the cards) and fishing gear after the card section. Talk about eclectic!

Next I went around to the other side to look in the case. This is where the semi-new stuff was kept...and since it's behind glass you know the prices aren't cheap. I didn't spend a lot of time as pretty much everything was more than I wanted to spend at the time, but looking back at the pictures I took there was some nice boxes to choose from.

See anything you like? Allen & Ginter, Bowman, Pristine, Reserve, Triple Threads, Unique!

There was so much in this section I took a quick video so everyone could have a better idea of the selection.

Underneath the glass case were two long shelves. These shelves held non-sports stuff. Comic related sets such as Skybox Ultraverse, Youngblood, Savage Dragon. Desert Storm, Country Gold, Coca-Cola, Star Trek, Aliens, Kaya boxing, Corvettes, Harley Davidson. Most of these boxes were cheap. I tweeted a box of Demolition Man earlier today...just $8!

As I was at the counter checking out, I noticed even more boxes on shelves behind the counter. Most of the price tags used were those bright orange and with my poor eyesight it was hard to read the prices on those small tags. These boxes were cheap, but they didn't seem to be too bad...at least what I could see. 

Just above these shelves was a stand that displayed some of the loose packs they had. These ranged from just a few bucks to higher for older packs such as sealed tins of Donruss Preferred (football). They even had a sealed gold tin box in one of the side cases.

I was told earlier that they may have more cards in the warehouse! It does make me wonder and I will visit again in the near future. Upon checking out the guy did write down what I was purchasing as he mentioned he wanted to check the back to see if he had more of what I purchased. Hmm...

So, what did I purchase you ask? Well even if you didn't ask here you go...

My personal purchases were limited to just two boxes. Just two you ask? Well, I wanted to buy more, but I really had a hard time deciding 1) what to get and 2) did I really need it. I settled upon a box of 1993 Studio...which I was looking for anyhow and a box of 1995 Topps DIII...because lenticular cards are cool. Both of these boxes were just $12 each.

I almost didn't see this small box of 2002 Donruss Fan Club. I grabbed this specifically to feature in a upcoming edition of my Affordable Group Breaks. I've opened some of this product in the past and liked it...plus their asking price wasn't bad at all.

I mentioned earlier that the football section was much more robust with different product to choose from. Most of the stuff was pre-1995 and since I didn't pay the NFL much attention until the Carolina Panthers came along in 1995, I didn't know what to get. I was leaning towards a box of 1991 Upper Deck or 1992 Topps as they both were cheap. I also looked at 1994 and 1995 Upper Deck, but ultimately decided on this box of 1993 Bowman. More than likely this box will also appear in a future Affordable Group Break.

Overall this place was pretty cool. The store was organized in the sense that I could find what I was looking for, but the cards seemed to be all over the place, however being surrounded by candy and fishing gear while looking at cards was odd. I can see how someone could easily overlook this store because 1) it doesn't look like much from outside and 2) the selection is all over the place. The staff was very nice and very helpful. I asked if I could take pictures for this blog post and they didn't mind at all, if anything else it seemed they were happy that I was so happy! I'll be hitting up Fleming Candy Company again very soon...after all I should've brought that box of Demolition Man home with me!!