May Group Break Sign-Ups Are LIVE!!!! 3 Boxes of 2012 Product!

Hey everyone, it's that time of the month... well, not THAT time, but it's Group Break time!!!!

I've got three great products from Topps for this break... all hobby boxes... and a big thanks to Atlanta Sports Cards for their sponsorship of this break!

1) 2012 Topps Opening Day - Hobby Box - 36 packs; 7 cards per pack. Lots of fun cards in this product, I threw this one in just for the fun of it! A very remote chance at an auto, but nothing guaranteed.

2) 2012 Topps Heritage - Hobby Box - 24 Packs; 7 cards per pack; box loader - One auto or relic guaranteed per box. A popular set with lots of variations, SP's and great hits.

3) 2012 Topps Gypsy Queen - Hobby Box - 24 packs; 10 cards per pack (1 mini) - 10 card mini box - Of course I couldn't do a break without GQ being involved. You've seen great cards from this set on this blog! In my opinion this is another "home run" by Topps (although I would say the autograph and relic checklist is a bit too long compared to last year) but there are great cards available. 4 hits guaranteed and a good chance at bonus hits with lots of printing plates and new this year are autographs available in the mini's boxes which are exclusive to the hobby boxes.

Alright, I'm not going to take the Astros this time around, as I already have most of their cards from these sets and will probably trade with whoever gets them as their second randomized team if no one buys them outright. I have decided to take the Rangers, as I really want a chance at the Darvish base variation. Sign-ups are first come, first serve... $15 per 2-team slot, as usual one team is your selection, the second team is randomized to you. If you want two slots, that'll be $28. If you want more than 2 slots, e-mail me for a quote. As always, please make payments to my paypal account: samuelpair AT yahoo.com as a GIFT.

Sign up via the comments below. As usual, all multi-team cards will be randomly assigned, if it's one of the "hits" this will be done via video, if it's involving one of the teams I've claimed, it will be done by an independent 3rd party via video and posted to their blog. All cards from "moved teams" such as Montreal will go to the current version of the team (Washington-Montreal), you know how it goes...

Alright, here are the teams... sign up via the comments.

Arizona -
Atlanta -Chris Mays - PAID
Baltimore - jaybarkerfan - PAID
Boston - Matt Perry - PAID
Chicago (NL) - Tom - PAID
Chicago (AL) -
Cincinnati -
Cleveland -
Colorado -
Detroit - Jeffrey W  - PAID
Florida -
Houston -
Kansas City - The Dimwit - PAID
Los Angeles (NL) -Johnson - PAID
Los Angeles (AL) -
Milwaukee -
Minnesota -
New York (NL) - The Dutch Card Guy - PAID
New York (AL) - The Dutch Card Guy - PAID
Oakland -
Philadelphia - Team Phungo - PAID
Pittsburgh -
San Diego -
San Francisco - Johnson - PAID
Seattle -Derek Hill - PAID
St. Louis -jamicfan - PAID
Tampa - Hairylemon - PAID
Texas - The Dimwit - PAID
Toronto -
Washington -

If this fills up within 24 hours, I'll throw in one blaster of 2012 Gypsy Queen as well. You all have until 8:35pm tomorrow, May 1st to get this break filled!

Ripken Auction Posted

The Ripken has gone onto eBay for anyone who wants to watch... or bid... or just buy it now...

Yes, I realize that I went kind of on the high side for the opening bid and the BIN price... but we'll see how it goes... Fingers are crossed that some rich Orioles collector (or 2) feel they just HAVE to have this card... :-D

Gypsy Queen... with MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR MOJO!!!!!!!!!

Well, I'm a sucker for Gypsy Queen and after making a couple of sales on eBay... I had the bread to pick up a couple more boxes of my drug... errr... favorite product... well worth my time and money. Still shaking...

First box... highlights shown here, as I'm sure you all are tired of seeing scan after scan of GQ cards...

 Not too shabby... the Mo Rivera mini relic is pretty nice, stitch marks and all... Castro is a nice auto but I have no clue who this Peacock fellow is; he better start throwin no-hitters though for sure...

Brett Anderson? Ok Topps, stop with the crappy A's pitchers... geez... Heyward is a nice relic, and didn't Avila make an All-Star team????

Alright, I'm sure you noticed that I'm missing an auto from the second scan! I'll tell you... this card I pulled has a pack pull odds of 1:11,300.... it's numbered #1 out of 5!!!!! It's a HOF'er....





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keep scrolling... this is fun...




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drum roll...




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OMG!!!!!!!

I could not believe it... I opened these in the store, and when I pulled this out there were fist bumps and hand shakes all around!!!! FREAKIN' SWEET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Diamond King Strikes Again... and the conclusion of a forgotten contest...

The other day, Kevin over at The Diamond King (belongs in the HOF of blog names, for sure)... posted some discount hits he got at a local card show for about a $1 each... included were a Bagwell and Biggio that I thought were pretty darn cool... he sent them without really requesting anything in return, claiming he owed me cards in a trade (of course I don't remember this debt) but anyways... as you can see from him cryptic message at the bottom, he threw in a few extras...

Great cards... the Wagner and Lane are both serial numbered /99 and /25 respectively. Kevin, you're awesome... expect a return package of thank you cards soon...

Finally tonight... I realized I never made good on my contest that I was running in the side bar for the Gypsy Queen Bronze bordered /999 cards. I completed the set (with about the last 15 cards bought on my own... but who's counting.. hehe)... and now I need to give away the promised prizes to the participants who either traded or freely gave me their cards! So... I entered everyone's name into random.org (one entry for each card, a total of 39 entries)... and randomized it three times... remember, 1st place gets the Brooks Robinson, 2nd place gets the Justin Smoak and 3rd place gets a "hit" from my collection from your favorite team... no duplicate winners, one prize per person... here's randomization #1:

 And the second randomization...

 And finally the third!

Congratulations to Brian over at Play At The Plate... Charles over at Lifetime Topps Project... and Matt H. over at Ten Yards (which I think is his family blog...)

Winners, please send me an e-mail with your address... even if I may already have it... this will serve as a reminder to get these out in the mail later this week! Matt Hickes, please let me know what team you are a fan of and I'll pick out a card or grab one for your from my LCS

Thanks to all who helped put my set together! It kills me to watch this Brooks Robinson go out the door, but it's well worth it considering I was able to put the gold border set together complete... I know I have 1 of only 999 possible sets!!!

I secretly wished BA Benny would have won one of the prizes... I miss his blog and maybe this would have spurred his glorious return to the blog-o-sphere... I haven't heard from him in a while... Mike, if you're out there, let us know you're alright.

I have a problem... her name is Gypsy Queen...

Ok, so let me preface this by saying that what you see in the picture below, I did NOT buy all of this...

Ok, so here's the story... the wife and I went to the card shop yesterday over in Spanish Fort... she told me to go ahead get a box and just put it on credit and be done with it, and so I did... then another... and while I was standing there, a guy I'm familiar with named Kevin started busting a box. Kevin is a case buster and high dollar guy, he busted a CASE of National Treasures football at the last trade night, and for those of you who don't know what that is, the boxes are $500 each and contain one pack. Anyways, he's a great guy as well... as he opened these boxes he pull the hits out to one stack, the base in another and the mini's in a third stack. Well, after two boxes he was rather frustrated and said that if I wanted all the base and mini's I could have them since he know I was a set builder. Of course I jumped at the offer. I also saw the open box on the shelf with about 10 packs left in it and snagged those also... unfortunately those 10 produced no more hits but I got some good mini's and the like from them!

Let me go ahead and give a recap here of what I got overall...

• 298/300 base cards towards the complete set.
• 26/50 SP Variations - No Yu Darvish unfortunately...
• Complete sets of 2 of the 3 hobby inserts (except for Moonshots, I'm one card short!)
• 1 Gypsy King insert (lame cards in my opinion, Kevin pulled a Gypsy King Manu-Relic /25 but then was pissed to see they were only selling for about $20 on the bay of E.)
• Mini's GALORE... I have no idea what all the parallels are and don't understand at all why some of them are numbered higher than 300 and then the various backs associated with those... it's a confusing world of mini's this year for sure. But, I'm wanting your REGULAR BACK 1-350 mini's if you are willing to part with them. Regular back only, not really chasing the variation pictures, but will take whatever I can get to make the set 1 through 350.
• 255/300 towards a second complete base set, probably won't complete this just because I don't see myself buying many more packs of this product.
• Hundreds of triplicates and more... LOTS of cards if people are looking to complete their sets... PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU NEED!!!! I have WAYYYYYY more base cards than I'll ever need!
• 5 Blue Borders.... I collected the /999 bronze border set last year, but since they made them a smaller run and seeded them even shorter in the packs, there's no way I can collect all of them this year... dang it... But the 5 I got, pretty good names 
• 8 hits... only two of which I'm really excited about... Looking at the checklist online, I realize Topps screwed us all over by expanding the relic checklists astronomically. No way this collector is going after them all... 

Alright, so you want pictures??? You're about to get a bunch!

Here are the blue borders I pulled:

Can't really argue with Young, Fielder, Clemente, Mays and Berra... solid...

Next up, the mini's I thought I should highlight:

From top to bottom, those are the /99 sepia, the unnumbered green border and the unnumbered "black" bordered. 

Insert mini's from the "mini-box":

These are all for trade as long as regular back mini's are coming in return.... :)

I could go on forever posting mini's... I really could... but I won't... here are the SP Variations I managed to get...

You would not believe how "not fun" it is to find these among stacks of cards totaling 4.5 boxes of base cards... I spent all night last night collating and sorting... ok, I lie, it was fun... I'm a baseball card nerd...

Here are the Mini Photo Variations I got from the mini boxes:

I'm going to count these among the mini's for my main set... I'm not going to go out of my way to get the original and then the variation... maybe some day if my OCD is really getting to me, but I doubt it... haha!

GYPSY KING!

I have nothing to say... you want it? Make me an offer...

Ok, I lied again... more mini's!!!!! These are the "Straight Cut" back variation...

I got exactly 20 of these and exactly 20 of the "Gypys Queen Red Back" below...

Again, these mini's are for trade, as long as I get some regular back mini's in return! On these variations, I'd say for the most part I'd be hoping for 2 regular backs in return for a variation back... there may be some where I may want a bit more (like Ripkin) and of course the subject of the mini's in return would factor in as well...

Alright, so what you've all been waiting for... my hits... here's box #1:

Alright, the first box was very "meh"... Moreland and Walker autos weren't my favorite names on that checklist... Hudson is decent I guess, but no one is really going to be confusing him as a HOF'er... and Sandoval is still young enough that he could put a solid career together... Box 2 was much nicer to me...

Mariano Rivera! I believe this is the first relic of his I've ever pulled! The Freese is nice and if you look closely, there is a bit of dirt in the lower right hand corner of that swatch! Escobar = meh... Belt = Heck ya! 

So, my Gypsy Queen adventure begins this year... thanks to basically 2 free boxes of base, mini's and inserts... 

I will have a Need List posted soon! 

Any Oswalt Super Collectors Out There????

My posting has been a bit sporadic lately. I'm having to leave for work earlier so that has severely cut down my blogging time unfortunately! But I'm still here and will be trying to catch up soon on trade proposals and the like!

As for now, I am hoping to pare down the collection a bit... I was hoping that there is a reader who is a big Roy Oswalt fan/collector! Please, if anyone is interested, make me an offer on the following collection that I'm trying to move at a reasonable price...

That's 28 game used, auto, patch, manu-relics. I'm not trying to break the bank on these... there are a couple I know are worth a bit more, but something around an average of $3-4 each for these would help me out. Let me know if you have any interest... samuelpair@yahoo.com

My apologies... I'm a bad blogger...

Things have been hectic for me this week and I need to apologize...

1) Group break participants... packages still haven't been mailed, I'm working on getting those out tomorrow.
2) Tom - your Napoli hasn't mailed, it'll go out with the group break stuff tomorrow... sorry...
3) TheBrooklynMet - still working on finding a replacement prize for the Tri City Sports PL disaster/contest. I've got 5 cards from your GQ 2011 Want list (4, 18, 46, 247 and SF10) but am trying to think of something else to send. Apparently I'm going to be just as slow as TCSPL on this, but hopefully your reward will be much better from me than them.

Hopefully things will settle down a bit after today and I can also get back to regular baseball card posts as well... oh and how about my Houston Texans???? 4 prime time games and Thanksgiving against the Lions... going to be a great year!

Final Group Break Box - April - Topps Gallery

Here's another word from our sponsor!

And here's the final video of the break!

Scans after the page break!

April Group Break - Box # 4 - Fleer Game Time

Thanks to Baseball Card Exchange!!!!!

Here's the video:

April Group Break - Box #3 - 2001 Topps HD

Hey everyone! Another box, another plug for Baseball Card Exchange!!! Thanks guys!

Alrighty, here's your video for the day... as always, scans after the page break...

April Group Break - Box #2 - UD Vintage 2002

Another big thank you to Baseball Card Exchange for the break!

Here's your video!


Scan of the "good" stuff after the page break:

April Group Break - Box #1 - 2004 Topps Bazooka

A big thanks to Baseball Card Exchange for sponsoring the break!

Click the link to check out their page!

Here's the video! Scans after the page break!!!!

The Group Break Boxes

Group break boxes have arrived at the apartment per my lovely wife! Busting shall commence tonight!!! Stay tuned!

My Loot from Jaybarkerfan's EPIC Trade Bait Draft

Wes over at jaybarkerfan's junk just held a massive and epic trade bait draft... lots of cards! 30 in the draft and then he threw in some extra Astros for me as well! It's been a great week so far... my Astros are 3-1 (on pace for a ridiculous 121-41 season!!!) and I got all these cards...

If any of these pique your interest, they are all for trade (except maybe the Pettitte RC and the Clemens cards)...

Some more great cards! The Morgan is a "card your mother threw out" insert from Topps. Don't know if I have another Rod Carew card in my collection at all!

And here we have the Astros/Nolan/vintage part of the draft for me:

Sadowski I had never heard of, sad I know... wow, bad pun alert.... Blasingame I'm semi familar with and of course I know Don Wilson, first no hitter in Astros history. Sad story there if you ever need some reading material.

 My two non-astros hits. Both for trade if anyone needs/wants them!

And here we have what lured me into the break to begin with!!!!!

From 2011 Marquee, a GREAT swatch (and probably one of the last Astros Pence hits available) from Hunter Pence, a guy I'll always root for just because of the way he plays the game!

Thanks Wes, you held a GREAT DRAFT!!!!!!!

I did get a delivery confirmation number yesterday on the group break boxes. Unfortunately, they aren't slated to get here until tomorrow! But that means I should be able to do a video per night to get us through Sunday and then get the cards out Monday morning!

Have a great Tuesday everyone!

Additional Trade Night Pick Ups

So every once in a while, we actually do some trading in between the pack wars at Trade Night at the LCS. I was able to pick up a couple cards for my Astros & Nolan Ryan collection:

A piece of Nolan bat? Sign me up for sure. There can't be too many of those layin' around. And it's numbered 49/250! Sweet!

I love cards that involve odd memorabilia, and this one certainly fits the bill! I nice dirty chunk of baseball is slabbed here in this card! Awesome! Being numbered /150 is pretty nice as well!

Finally, I did manage something pretty awesome out of my few packs of Heritage I bought for the pack war...

Not too dang shabby at all. An on card auto from a guy who was playing in 1963. Carl Boles only got to the show for 19 games in 1962 for the Giants, and that summed up the entirety of his MLB playing career. He managed to hit .375 but with only one RBI. His career may very well have been cut short by the fact that he spent '55 through '58 in the U.S. Army. I can't find much more information on him online in a quick search or two. But this is a great auto to pull from a $3.00 hobby pack!

Have a great week everyone! Hopefully the group break will start either tonight or tomorrow night!

Museum Collection - A Product Review

Time for another Dimwitted Review...

So at Trade Night last night at my LCS, I picked up some Museum Collection cards. Let's just all agree now that this set is about 1000% better than Marquee last year. These cards are slick. One of the guys at the shop opened up a redemption for a /10 Gold Museum Collection Ken Griffey Jr autograph... going to be a $750+ card there. I wasn't AS luck, but I did pretty well myself...

Here are my base cards:

The Palmer is my parallel for the pack! Apparently they thought I'd really like the Orioles for this pack! Haha!

A great insert hit, a Jeter Canvas Collection card! Awesome looking card, brings me back to the days of UD Masterpieces! Great job Topps!

And now for my hit of the pack!!!! It is awesome... it is numbered /10.... it is both a PATCH and an AUTOGRAPH... it's major MOJO people!!!!!!

Yes, that is a huge chunk of patch in the bottom window... assuming it's from one of his jersey numbers are the straight side of the R in Rays. It's ridiculously awesome. #06/10 and even though it IS a sticker auto, it's framed nicely enough that it's not blatantly obvious enough to ruin the look of the card!

I saw a lot of people pull a lot worse cards than this. And I also made a trade or two and picked up this card (just knowing I'd have people who would LOVE to pick it up)...

OOoooooo would you look at that piece of Cano jersey??? Dirty as all get out... Yanks, Sox, Braves and Phills... #'ed 18/75. Another great job by Topps on this one. Quality jersey swatches for sure. I think the Utley is either dirty or something as well, as it's a bit yellower than the Pedroia swatch. Anyways, great looking cards.

At this point, I personally consider Museum Collection a better value than Tribute as far as for the guys and girls out there collecting for their team and in hope of something awesome. And after watching one guy throw down $2,000 on Tribute last night, I'll stick with a pack of Museum Collection now and again!

Have a great Easter everyone!

Highlights from Cardboard Collections Affordable Group Break

Colbey over at Cardboard Collections does a great thing: Affordable Group Breaks; where you get 2 teams for usually right around $10 or less. For March, I snagged my Astros and ended up with the Reds as my second random.

Here's the highlights of my Astros loot:

The Bagwell is a tin from 1997 Topps Screenplays. The card inside is a bit like a Sportsflix card from the 80's but is much thicker and the "action" in the card is much easier to make out. There weren't really any Reds cards that made me excited enough to scan, but with the Astros I got in this break, not only was this affordable, it was awesome. Heck, the Bagwell tin & card are cool enough to justify joining the break. Now I just have to figure out how to store this tin! Haha!

Dimwit Group Break boxes were ordered last night. Again, hopefully they'll be here Monday or Tuesday and I'll start posting videos then!!!!

GROUP BREAK IS FULL! Send Payment!!! 2nd Team Randomization

Alright, jaybarkerfan took up his 3rd spot and the 15th & final spot overall! Thanks Wes!

So here are the names for the randomization:
1) jaybarkerfan
2) jaybarkerfan
3) Matt Perry
4) Tom
5) jaybarkerfan
6) Baseball Dad
7) Hiflew
8) The Dimwit
9) night owl
10) The Dutch Card Guy
11) Martyn
12) Brad's Blog
13) Pirates Treasure Room
14) Brad's Blog
15) IkesCards

And here are the teams going in the randomization:

Arizona
Chicago (AL)
Detroit
Florida
Kansas City
Los Angeles (AL)
Milwaukee
Minnesota
Oakland
San Diego
San Francisco
Tampa
Texas
Toronto
Washington

And here is the randomized order:

So the final pairings are:
1) Atlanta & Minnesota - jaybarkerfan - Trade with Tom
2) Baltimore & Texas - jaybarkerfan
3) Boston & Milwaukee - Matt Perry
4) Chicago (NL) & Chicago (AL) - Tom - Trade with jaybarkerfan
5) Cincinnati & Kansas City - jaybarkerfan
6) Cleveland & Florida - Baseball Dad
7) Colorado & Arizona - Hiflew
8) Houston & San Francisco - The Dimwit
9) Los Angeles & Toronto - night owl
10) New York (NL) & San Diego - The Dutch Card Guy
11) New York (AL) & Los Angeles (AL) - Martyn
12) Philadelphia & Oakland - Brad's Blog
13) Pittsburgh & Washington - Pirates Treasure Room
14) Seattle & Tampa - Brad's Blog
15) St. Louis & Detroit - IkesCards

Trade away in the comments.

I'll get the boxes ordered here shortly so hopefully we can start busting ASAP! Still need payment from Hiflew. No rush, just an FYI! I know several of you were waiting for pay day Friday to pay, and that's fine. Thanks!

Again, you guys are all awesome... I consider it a joy that I fill these breaks usually within 24 hours and don't have to drag this out or anything! It's been a long time since I've had to cancel a break or have it painfully drag along waiting for 1 or two more people to seal it up. Thanks for your loyalty and joining in on busting some cards. It really does reel in my desire to bust cards for myself all the time, and gives me the chance to bust some products I missed during my collecting hiatus!

April 2012 Group Break Announcement! CLAIM YOUR TEAM NOW! - WE ARE FULL!!!!!!!!!!

Alright everyone, I'm a bit behind on announcing my group break, but here we go...

It's going to be $17 for 2 teams (one your selection, the other randomly assigned), so sign up early and often. If you want a second slot, you can get a total of 4 teams (2 your choice, 2 random) for $31. If you want more than 2 slots, please e-mail me for a quote.

First of all, a word for our group break sponsor this month: Baseball Card Exchange

Steve over at Baseball Card Exchange has tons of boxes for sale. Not just baseball either, all sports. Great prices and great rates on shipping. One thing that annoys me about some places is that they like to make $$$ on their shipping charges. Thanks Steve for being a great sponsor to group break hosts all over the blog-o-sphere!

Here are the boxes we'll be busting this month:
2004 Topps Bazooka - Lots of entertaining cards here! 24 Packs and 3 hits per box!

2003 Topps Gallery Museum Edition - A lot like the Playoff Portraits or Masterpieces sets. The hand-painted look/feel, plus 2 more hits and a Coin Box Topper insert! 24 packs in this box as well!

2001 Fleer Game Time - A great set for those looking for a Pujols or Ichiro rookie! One and possibly 2 hits per box! Some special inserts as well! 24 packs, 5 cards per pack!

2001 Topps HD - Another 20 packs of awesome photography and thick card stock here! Odds are close to one hit per box! But this is a product you buy for the base cards for sure!

2002 Upper Deck Vintage - 24 packs at 10 cards per pack! Another early 2000's set from UD that I'm a fan of, these cards have the look of vintage cards from days gone by. One hit per box on average.

Well, I think that's an enticing group of boxes! All multi-player cards will be randomized amongst all teams listed on the card. All cards will go to the team listed on the card (not necessarily in the picture, but what team the card company assigned the player to on the front of the card). All cards from the Expos will go to the Nationals. Any other teams that have moved will be given to the team which it became. In issues of ambiguity where I am involved, an independent third party blogger will be asked to rule on any ownership issues. By purchasing a slot in this break, you're agreeing to these rules!

Please send payment via paypal (gift please) to samuelpair (at) yahoo (dot) com.

Alright, now that I have that out of the way... claim away!

Arizona
Atlanta - jaybarkerfan - PAID
Baltimore - jaybarkerfan - PAID
Boston - Matt Perry - PAID
Chicago (NL) - Tom - PAID
Chicago (AL)
Cincinnati - jaybarkerfan - PAID
Cleveland - Baseball Dad - PAID
Colorado - Hiflew
Detroit
Florida
Houston - The Dimwit - PAID
Kansas City
Los Angeles (NL) - night owl - PENDING
Los Angeles (AL)
Milwaukee
Minnesota
New York (NL) - The Dutch Card Guy - PAID
New York (AL) - Martyn - PAID
Oakland
Philadelphia - Brad's Blog - PAID
Pittsburgh - Pirates Treasure Room - PAID
San Diego
San Francisco
Seattle - Brad's Blog - PAID
St. Louis - IkesCards - PAID
Tampa
Texas
Toronto
Washington