Box Break and Contest Results Are In!!!!! And the winner is....

Alright, you are all going to have to wait until the end of this post to find out the contest winner... but I'll get started with doing a bit of a review of the cards that I got and the overall experience of opening this product. First of all, a big thanks to Paul at Tri City Sports PL for giving me this opportunity. There are some surprises and I did beat some odds here, so onto the cards!

So due to time constraints I went ahead and opened the boxes yesterday, recording the video and such. Overall, I was pretty happy with the cards that I ended up pulling. I won't go in exact order because I don't remember and don't feel like watching the video again to document it all, but I'll go ahead and post the first picture of cards. Each is in a penny sleeve, the in a hard single hard slip case and then enclosed in a single card resealable bag:

So, the rundown of the first size: a 1/1 Gino Cimoli, Frank Riccelli, Brett Butler, Billy Sample, Julio Solano and the mighty Bud Selig. Now, I had never heard of Cimoli, Riccelli, Sample or Solano... but did find out that Solano and Riccelli spent part of their careers in Astros uniforms so that's pretty cool. I like how the Brett Butler has the smiley face too. The most impressive of this lot, to me, is Bud Selig.

Alright, so now we get to the surprises! As you can see, there are 6 cards above... and I got 7 boxes... but how, you may ask, does the Dimwit have more than 1 card left to show you?!?!?! Well, it turns out I got a Hot Box, with 2 cards in it. Although if you watch the video, you'll see that I had no clue I got a Hot Box and only figured it out in the end when I started breaking down the boxes to put in the trash and found that one of them still had this card still in it:

Yea, I got a Silver Screen Cuts card of Ben Kingsley! You may know him from the title role in Gandhi and many other motion pictures through the years. He is also a knight, so call him Sir! This card is also marked as a 1/1 on the back. My wife really digs this card, as she is a movie buff and really likes the movie star autographs. If any of you readers have movie related cards/products, please let me know I will trade baseball cards for those items if you like.

Now that brings us to the final card. It was actually the first one I pulled... it's a dual cut auto, with 2 HOF'ers!!! First the front:

HOF 2B and HORRIBLE announcer Joe Morgan. Another Astros connection and one that I'm very happy to get, even though he frustrates the daylights out of me due to his bias and unresolved issues with the Houston Astros. Hey Joe, everyone who was here when you got traded away is gone, the management is changed, the attitude is changed, the ownership has changed... go see a therapist and LET IT GO!!!! Alright, rant over, I'm guessing you're just dying to see who the other HOF'er is on the back side of this card... well, here you go:

There you go, Boston HOF second bagger Bobby Doerr. Honestly didn't know much about him until I read his wikipedia page yesterday and I gotta say that I gained some respect for the man. This is a great card, two HOF 2B, and another 1/1. In this way, I beat the odds in that I got 3 1/1 cards and 1 Hot Box. Below is the video, should anyone care to watch me open and go through the boxes. (I apologize for the absolutely HORRIBLE audio, I warn thee in advance...I don't know what the deal is with the audio on my videos, if you have any suggestions, please let me know)...

Now, as for an actual review of the set. With the limited number of cards that I have, I would have to say that this is a solid first product for Tri City Sports PL to enter the market. The cards look great, and as you can see in the Doerr scan, there is a hologram serial number on the back and a short paragraph (that is on the backs of all cards) stating the authenticity of the cards. I would say that it would be nice to know which authentication firm authenticated which cards, so that independent verification can be done. The cards are packaged well to prevent damage in shipping and I think the autographs are centered well within the frame of the card. They are clear signatures, no smudges or illegible print. It looks like all of these were taken from index cards or plain white paper, as opposed to a "frankencut" of an already autographed baseball card or photo. It would have been interesting or cool to get one that was part of a canceled check, lease/contract paperwork or something of the like, but I still like these. They may not appeal to all collectors, and that's certainly the sentiment that I got from a few bloggers out there, but I really dig 'em!

So here's what you all are waiting for... who wins the free box!?!?!?!? Well, there were a total of 7 people who got at least 1 name correct, but no one who got more than 1 name right. So, I took those 7 names and put them into the ol' randomization machine, randomized it 3 times and here's the results:

Congratulations Dawgbones, you're the winner! I'm pretty sure I have your address from a previous trade, but shoot me an e-mail anyways because me trying to find it in my e-mail archive will take forever! I want to thank EVERYONE who participated and I wish I had a box to send out to all 12 of you. If it weren't for my readers, this blog would be just a bunch of pointless ramblings... now they are pointless ramblings that people READ! Have a great weekend everyone!