The Most Wonderful Time of the Collecting Year

Alright, alright... I'm probably exaggerating quite a bit, but the 'Holiday Mega Box' part of the collecting season is upon us!

While perusing the card aisle at my local Target the other night, I happened to see this thing of beauty staring back at me(because of the contents, not because Big Papi is on the box). I wasn't even aware that the release date was near. I happily grabbed a box and brought it home. I really liked the bubble-like, sparkly design Topps put out last year and when I heard these would be done in the same way, I was thrilled! Though I'm still working on the last few I need from last year's set, it was one of my favorites of 2015. This year's offering is a 50 card set that thankfully eliminates the skip-numbering of the 2015 set. Let's get cracking!

Since I haven't been posting quickly, I actually had time to visit another Target and pick up a second box, so I'll show off all 16 cards I've pulled thus far. I decided against scanning any of the base Update since its been out for a bit. I've also already collated the cards into set-building order so there won't be any creative box vs. box comparisons or anything. Sorry about that...

Man, I really dig the way these look!

This scan was not nearly as interesting as the first one.

This was, by far, the best of the base dominated scans out of these two boxes. Two Yankees, a great Rookie Debut, and a World Series Champion are hard to beat.

Here is the final base card and the parallel and inserts. The Almora RC that's done in the x-fractor style is /99. I wasn't a huge fan of the 3000 Hits Club base cards, but these look better and the fact that I pulled Ichiro and Cobb to start may sway me to try to assemble the complete insert set. Getting back to the Almora, I'm torn. I like the x-fractor look, but it just doesn't fit the set. Last year the parallels were gold and black, numbered /99 and /50 respectively. Both were still bubble refractors and the color scheme kinda made sense. However, this year the x-fractor is /99 and the parallel that is /50 is the gold refractor(there are also regular refractors). None of the parallels sport the bubble look this year...I'm so bummed.

I've got a long way to go on this set, but I'm definitely going to piece it together. I'm sure that in the coming days and/or weeks that I'll be picking up at least a few more 'mega boxes'. Thanks for reading.