Group Break Recaps - October 2021

Well, here it is the week of Thanksgiving and I'm just getting around to creating a post highlighting some of the cards pulled from our Affordable Group Breaks in October. Man, is time flying or what?!

The first product we opened in October was a hobby box of 1997 Pacific Prism Invincible. Pacific products always seem to garner a lot of attention with in my breaks and that's perfectly fine with me as I'm a huge fan of (most) of their products released in the 90's and 2000's.

The Platinum parallels roughly fall two per box - we ended up w/ Mike Mussina (Orioles) and Robin Ventura (White Sox). I think I almost prefer the silver foil on these to the gold foil on the base cards.

Pacific was known for their crazy die-cut cards and while this Sizzlin' Lumber card of Robin Ventura (White Sox) is rather tame compared to some of the other cards they'd go on to make, it's still a nice 90's era insert none the less.

Our next break featured 4 hanger boxes of 2021 Topps Chrome. At the time I found these I was shocked as most retail shelves around me (and even during my work travels) turned up nothing. This was my first opportunity to rip Chrome so I was just excited as everyone else who claimed a team.

We pulled a total of 7 Refractors from the hanger boxes with some notable names like Mookie Betts (Dodgers) and Alex Bregman (Astros).

Not to be outdone we found 3 Prism Refractors as well that included Khris Davis (A's), Yasmani Grandal (White Sox) and Jack Flaherty (Cardinals).

Everyone like the shiny colored cards! We pulled a red parallel of Shogo Akiyama (Reds) and a Teal Wave parallel of Sean Murphy (A's).

The Beisbol Refractor inserts were represented by Fernando Tatis, Jr. (Padres) and Gleyber Torres (Yankees).

A nice mixture of the 1986 Retrospective Refractors were pulled, including some heavy hitters (Acuna!) and a few rookies.

A week or so later I lucked up again and found more new product on the shelves of my local Walmart so in rare fashion we ripped new product in consecutive breaks.

2021 Bowman Platinum were once again retail exclusives and each box touted two autographs, so I grabbed it up hoping it'd make for a fun break.

Being a Bowman product you know it's all about the prospects and rookies. Here are just a few of the RCs pulled.

Two different colored parallels pulled - blue /150 Mario Feliciano (Brewers) and a green /50 Patrick Bailey (Giants).

Plenty of inserts were to be had including Renowned Rookies and Meteoric. Not a bad selection of players if I do say so myself.

While I can't say I had heard much of either of the two autograph subjects pulled, the participants in the chat section of the livestream said the Vargas auto was the best of the two pulled.

I'm glad that cards are slowly starting to appear once again on retail shelves, if for no other reason it gives me even more variety of product to feature for everyone. I appreciate everyone's continued support and I look forward to hosting more Affordable Group Breaks soon. If you're reading this and have never participated, but want to there are two different ways you can sign up. Right here on the blog I post sign ups, but if you are a Facebook user you can also join my group and participate there.

Until next time!

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.

Group Break Recap: 2002 Fleer E-X

Last Friday night (04/02/21) our weekly Affordable Group Break just consisted of one box. I was headed out on a little vacation trip the following Saturday morning so I needed a little extra time to get ready. The box we opened was 2002 Fleer E-X, a product we opened earlier in the year, but this time we had a full on hobby box to rip. Hits were promised at 1:8 packs so that meant we had 3 expected hits to pull.

If you're not familiar with this product, all the base cards are printed on clear acetate which gives the cards a unique look. The player's name, team and jersey number are printed on the card in silver foil. The last box we opened the silver foil wasn't in the greatest shape, flaking off a bit in areas. This time however the cards were in much better shape which let me breath a sigh of relief.

Below is the actual video of the live break if you prefer to watch the cards pulled from the pack, otherwise keep scrolling for a complete breakdown of the highlights of the box.

The rookies/prospects in the base set were short-printed with the majority of them being serially numbered to either 2999, 2499 or 1999. Cards 126-140 were not numbered however.

We pulled two numbered SPs, Jorge De La Rosa (Red Sox, 2498/2999) and Luis Martinez (0131/2499)

There were several different insert sets to chase including Hit & Run. Darin Erstad (Angels) and Normar Garciaparra (Red Sox). I swear I seem to pull a lot of Nomar inserts in these breaks!

Hit & Run also came in memorabilia version featuring a piece of game-used bat or base. I was personally hoping for a game-used base card, but this bat card of Roberto Alomar (Mets) wasn't too shabby.

Behind the Numbers features one of those designs that was meant for a piece of game-used material so the non-game used versions just look odd...well at least to me. We pulled 3: Ichiro (Mariners), Roger Clemens (Yankees) and Albert Pujols (Cardinals).

Like with the Hit & Run inserts, Behind the Numbers also featured a memorabilia version. In this case we pulled a Brian Giles (Pirates). The glare makes it hard to see, but the white jersey piece is sitting behind a die-cut "24". Good hit for the Pirates since they don't always get much outside of base cards in the breaks.

Both Barry Bonds and Derek Jeter were the subject of their own insert set called 4X Champ. A small set at just 4 cards, these were serially numbered to 1999. I believe this was the first time I've even seen one of these cards before.

The third and final hit of the box was this Game Essentials game-worn jersey card of Robin Ventura (Yankees). The team from the Bronx was well represented yet again in this break.

Side note, according to TCDB this card of Ventura also comes in a batting glove form, however the image scanned was of this card. I submitted a discrepancy notice and uploaded my scans of this card.

This was a quick break, but if I'm being honest it was nice not having a ton of work to do after the break...even though as of this post I've yet to sort and put away these cards. I love hosting these breaks and after a short one week off, I'm ready to gear things back up and get back to our regular schedule. That said, I'll be posting two boxes in the FB group on here on the blog this Monday evening, 04/12/21. Both boxes however will be counted as one break so each team should have a good chance at getting a nice stack of cards. What are these boxes? Well they are from the late 90's and one of the boxes I've recently realized has gotten extremely expensive. Make sure to check by around 9 PM Eastern on Monday for a chance to grab your favorite team(s).