Anyone Still Out There?

WOW! I feel like I've blinked and it's been a bit over 5 months since I've posted here. I'm pretty sure I can already hear the crickets... I've got no excuses for my absence. Yeah, life and work and all are a touch crazy, but the truth is I simply haven't made the time needed for scanning and writing. I've certainly still been actively acquiring new cardboard over these months and more often than not, I've been reading the blogs I follow regularly(even if comments have been few and far between). After being  inactive for a certain amount of time, it just becomes difficult to find something worthy of breaking the silence. Well, today's retail find seemed worthy enough and it gave me a great excuse to return to this great community. I happened to be out running some errands with my two younger daughters and what should I happen to find but this sitting on a shelf staring back at me:

About a week ago, I read that this product was returning and that the package format would be different than in years past and I was looking forward to finding some on a Target shelf eventually. I was happily surprised that eventually came sooner rather than later. There were two of these on the shelf so I scooped them both up and carried on with our errands. Once I got home, I commenced ripping right away.

First up, the inserts:

I found one refractor in each box and they're #/250. The only true insert set is a chrome version of the Rookie Cup set. These four were the highlights best of the 6 I pulled. I was especially thrilled to pull the Jeter.

Rookies and Rookie Debuts are the primary focus of the set and here were some of the better pulls. My inability to pull Aaron Judge from packs continued, but at least I found another Bellinger. Interestingly, I found both of the Moncada cards in the same pack. These highlights made for a solid, if unspectacular first experience with this product and I would have been content if that was the best of what was found, but good fortune happened to be shining on an otherwise rainy/overcast day.

I'm not a Rockies fan by any stretch, but pulling an auto was pretty awesome. Pulling a gold parallel auto #/50 was even better! Assuming these boxes don't dry up like every other retail-exclusive product has, I'll likely build the set. Finding seven chrome packs per box versus two packaged along with five base Update packs will certainly make that an easier task, even taking into consideration the larger set size(100 instead of 50 in years past).

I hope this post finds some of my former audience and that you'be all been well. Thanks for reading.

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.