My Best Blaster of 2016(So Far)

For quite some time, I've been reading about folks finding discounted boasters of 2015 Stadium Club. I thought they were a myth because despite my best efforts, I hadn't seen one in person. Well, that all changed a few days ago. I happened to be in one of the local Toys R Us stores and even though the card prices are way more expensive there, I can't help but to check out what's sitting on the shelves. On this particular trip, I literally did a double take when I saw this staring back at me:

I searched behind every blaster hoping there would be one more, but alas there was only one. I got a little bit excited and started to rip the plastic open before taking this photo. Going into this break, I hoped to put a dent into my remaining set needs. Let's go pack by pack and see how I did.

Best card of pack one goes to the Ortiz, hands down.

Ummm...pack two blew me away! Greinke at the bat probably would have won the pack if it wasn't for that Javy Baez auto(more on that a little later).

Just a few days after Jackie Robinson Day, pack three provided a belated celebratory JR hot pack!

Cal interacting with all of those fans is definitely the best of the pack four bunch. The A-Rod is the first gold parallel of the blaster and will take up permanent residency in my collection as well.

The Abreu Triumvirate takes the cake in pack five. It'll be sent out to JediJeff soon, assuming he needs it.

As far as photography goes, pack six was pretty weak. That Xander is the black parallel and because of that, it easily is the winner of the pack.

Pack seven was the weakest of the blaster. Even hitting the Longoria insert didn't help it. There is not much about that insert set that I like. So, winner here goes to the DeGrom...by default.

A gold Elvis sighting wins the eighth and final pack. Here is the blaster break down:

- 8 packs, 5 cards each = 40 total cards

- 7 total inserts; 2 gold foil, 1 black foil, 1 Contact Sheet, 1 Legends, 1 Triumvirate, and 1 auto

- 13 of the 33 base cards were needed for my set build

The Baez auto was a huge surprise pull, let's take a closer look.

When I first flipped through the pack, I didn't realize it was the gold foil auto. Only 25 copies!!! I hope Baez can get himself healthy and figure out a way to cut down on his strikeout rate. All in all, I wish I pulled a higher percentage of base cards that I needed for the set build, but I certainly can't complain. Maybe I'll get lucky and find another discounted blaster or two to help me complete my set. Thanks for reading.

Purple Topps of the 2016 Variety

Topps is running their hobby shop Spring Fever promo again this season and I had every intention of making it out to my most local shop that was participating. However, the period to make purchases and receive the redemption cards for the packs ended today. A number of factors contributed to my inability to get to the shop in time. So, once it became obvious that I wasn't going to be able to participate in that promo, I decided to seek out some Toys R Us exclusive purple parallels to help dull the pain and fill the void. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the packaging was the same as series one of last year: one pack and three purple parallels for $2.99. I grabbed a few and got to ripping. Since the base cards have been scanned excessively at this point, I'm just going to share the best of the exclusives.

Woohoo, pulled a Refsnyder. Now I only need the Severino and Bird to round out the Yankee RCs. I was pretty happy to get a copy of the Mookie Betts too. Man, Tim from a few years back wouldn't have been able to appreciate any BoSox cards...I'm glad that guy is gone!

That Sal Perez World Series card is one of my favorite base cards in series one. I like how it seems the purple works with the Royals for some reason. Maybe that's just me. It's a great addition to my season highlights/World Series collection. Only grabbed a few packs and I was lucky enough to pull two Yankees. I've got a few others, but they weren't very scan worthy and I wanted this to be a relatively short post. I can say with certainty that I'll be picking up at least a few more of these packs before I call it quits on series one. I'll be sure to share if I pull anything good. Thanks for reading.

One Last Toys R Us Series One Pack...

Topps Series 2 is out. It has been for weeks now. I've got a good start on that set, but it had been bugging me that I was still 2 cards short of completing series one. I happened to be in my local Toys R Us trying to find a toy for my daughter. I can't walk into a retail store that sells cards without checking out the display, so I wandered over to take a look. Nothing was really jumping out at me until I saw that there was only one of the series one blister packs left on the rack. I had already picked up a bunch of these and figured that the one pack it held wouldn't help my set collecting needs, so I was leaning towards not getting it. I took it off the rack and without trying saw that the top purple parallel was Carlos Gomez. When I saw that I figured it was as good an excuse as any to buy something to open. At least I could send the Gomez to Tony from Off Hiatus so I knew it wouldn't be a total loss no matter what else was in there. Well, I sure am glad that I decided to take it home.

I opened he pack first, being careful to put the purple parallels to the side without seeing the others besides the Gomez. I was right about the pack, no help for the set needs, but it did have that gold CJ Cron. These are two of the three purples, the previously mentioned Gomez and a really cool George Springer 'Future Stars'. As nice as the Springer was, my jaw dropped when I saw the third card...

Ohhh Yeahhh(he said in his best 'Macho Man' Randy Savage voice)!!! It's a really clean copy of one of my favorite cards in series one. I had planned to stop searching for parallels of this one and the Jeter checklist card after I finished the base, rainbow, and gold of them both. Now that I have one of the purples though, I might need to search out the purple version of #319 too.

Last Series 1 Packs

Note: before I officially begin this post, let me start by saying that I have Nacho Grande's group break of series one to partially thank for jump starting my decision to complete the set this year. Chris has announced his next group break which will involve 2015 Topps Heritage and a bonus box of hit-laden product. There are still a bunch of great teams left to be claimed. Do yourself a favor and go here to check out the details. It's a LOT of fun to be involved in one of his breaks! C'mon, you know you want to...

Okay, public service announcement complete.

I've been out of the 'Hobby' aspect of collecting for a while since I do t really have a local card shop that I can frequent. I was searching for some info about series one last week and I came upon the following promo poster:

I quickly searched the attached list of shops that were participating in the promotion. I found one that's about a two hour drive from my house and called them hoping that I'd be able to get my hands on a pack. Fortunately, they still had a few redemption cards, so I hopped in the car and made the drive. 

Once I arrived, they didn't have much product left in stock. I grabbed their last jumbo pack and four out of eight of the hobby packs they had left. Once I made the purchase, they handed me the redemption card with my receipt.

It's been really difficult, but I've saved the packs because I wanted to open everything together once I was able to pick up the Spring Fever pack. This week I made the drive back out to pick it up. As an aside, there happened to be a Toys R Us close to the shop, so I stopped in to see if they had any of the blisters that had the purple parallels and picked up their last two. Here is what I plan to be the last pack purchases of series one this year(if I can control my impulses).

My intent was to make these packs last for a few days, but that idea went out the window as I was opening the first pack. It seems I have gained the control that I can have packs sitting in the house unopened, but once I start, all restraint goes out the window. Here is the haul.

I could have done much worse on the purple parallels from Toys R Us. The corners are even in pretty good condition. I like these much better than in past seasons, but they still need to be distributed differently. A separate pack(preferably with more than 3 cards) would be a good start because just putting them in the blister pack isn't cutting it. I'll be holding on to the Mitchell and Kiermaier, but I think the Corcino and the Chapman will be heading to a new home very soon.

Two pretty decent parallels. I certainly could have done much worse in this area. The LL card is a keeper for sure.

I think I'm going to try to put together the Robbed insert set, so pulling this Gomez was a good thing. Unfortunately, no autograph in my Spring Fever promo pack. However, the five regular cards I pulled from it couldn't have been much better. I really like these and if the checklist wasn't 50 cards, I might actually try to build it, but for now I think that's unlikely. Maybe I'll just hunt down a few other singles and leave it at that. I also did really well in pulling base cards still needed for my set. I got my needed cards number down to 39 from 80. I'm almost there. 

So, there you have the highlights of what I plan to be my last series one packs of 2015. I hope I can manage to control those impulses.