Last week was a busy week! We kicked off the week with a special mini break that featured a (expensive) box of 2020 Topps Chrome Sapphire. Then in our normal Friday night slot we had a box of 2005 Topps Pack Wars and a box of 2019-20 Panini NBA Stickers & Cards. If you just want to watch the videos of these breaks skip on down to the bottom of the post, otherwise keep reading and I'll share some of the highlights.
The first card out of the first pack was a Kyle Lewis RC! Earlier in the week once I opened trading the owner of the Mariners was trying to trade for his Dodgers. I encouraged him to keep the Mariners just in case this very card was pulled. Needless to say shortly after the break Monday night I was messaged asking for his stack to be shipped! I think the sold auctions search he did for this Kyle Lewis card is what must have prompted his decision to not sit on his stack of cards anymore!
Not to be out done however, we also pulled this RC of Randy Arozarena. At the time I don't think I paid too much attention to this card, but what a mistake that was!
Another highlight of this box was this beautiful red parallel of Carlos Santana. I wasn't expecting to see that it was serially numbered 4/5 when I flipped the card over.
As the host and Braves fan, I was excited to pull 3 base cards...especially the soon to be announced NL MVP Freddie Freeman.
The Astros got the guaranteed RC auto hit the box promised with this nice on card signature of Urquidy. Also pulled the base card as an added "bonus".
This was a fun box to rip. I was worried about the high price tag and the low number of packs/cards however. While sorting the teams I did my best to include a few cards from my own collection for those who got shut out. I know that's the risk of buying into breaks, but I want everyone to be as happy as possible.
I was really looking forward to this box of 2005 Topps Pack Wars. In another effort to create a baseball trading card game (TCG) Topps upped the ante with Pack Wars. Each box contained just 7 packs, but inside each pack had 3 packs...two 3 card "game cards" (the base cards above) and 1 prize pack. Each prize pack had either an auto, relic, auto relic or cut signature. The checklist across the possible hits was pretty nice.
The base cards are busy, but cool looking. Red was used for offensive players while green was used for pitchers. I have never taken the time to learn how to play any TCG games (though I have plenty of cards from various TCGs), included in each pack was a card w/ instructions on how to play the game.
Also included in each box was a Collector Chip pack. We ended up with the Reds' Frank Robinson.
The very first prize pack we opened contained this 2003 Topps Archives Fan Favorite auto of Boog Powell. Wasn't expecting this, but it was a nice bonus for whomever was randomly awarded the Orioles.
The next 6 prize packs contained bat relics, but if you're going to receive something like this at least the cards look sharp. Printed on holofoil with an overall nice design, I hope the recipients of these will enjoy them.
This was a fun box to rip and I'd love to do another. The vendor I grabbed this box from has one box left (although the price did increase by $10) so I may grab it soon so we can try our luck again...sound good to everyone? Let me know in the comments.
In an effort to try and mix in more current product, I grabbed a box of 50 sticker packets of 2019-20 Panini NBA Stickers & Cards. I'm glad that Panini is now including a card in each sticker pack as it just adds another level of fun to the product. All of the teams for this box were randomly assigned, thanks for the hot rookie crop. As you can see above the owners of the Pelicans and Grizzlies did at least get a base sticker of some of the top rookies.
The cards included in each pack made up their own 100 card set. With 50 packs we stood a good chance of pulling some good RCs and above is a selection of some pulled. Sadly no Zion or Morant.
Foil parallels of the cards could be found, but I'm not sure of the odds. We ended up w/ 4 silver parallels, the first pulled was Kevin Durant. These are not numbered, but not that easy to pull either.
These teal/blue parallels are numbered to just /75. I was hoping we'd pull something like these so I'm glad we got two.
I had fun opening the sticker packs myself and I hope others will be happy w/ their team's results. I may try this again, though next time with a box of 2020 football. Hopefully if the participants don't already have a sticker album they'll pick one up...something therapeutic about putting stickers in albums...unless you have OCD like me and have to place every sticker perfectly!
As always, thank you to everyone who participated in these three breaks. This next week will feature just one box (baseball) as I'll be traveling for work again and headed to the beach Friday. That said we'll be breaking Thursday night, 10/15/20 to accomodate my schedule. Thanks again everyone!
