2010 Topps Series One Hobby Box Breaks (4 boxes)

My brother and his family gave me a check for my birthday and Christmas with the caveat that the money must be spent on something fun.  Twist my arm why don't ya!?  So I bought four 2010 Topps hobby boxes.

I'll just show some of my favorite cards, inserts, and the hits.

 

I have to lead with this card for two reasons.  First, Bumgarner has pitched two seasons in the minors and accumulated some of the best stats in the history of minor league baseball (1.65 era, 27-5, 273 innings pitched).  And he was just a teenager.  I hope the Giants have him in the rotation all season.  I'm very curious to see what becomes of Bumgarner.  Having Lincecum around will no doubt help him learn even faster.  

The second reason I chose this as the first 2010 card to appear on my blog is that this picture of Bumgarner could fit into almost any era.  It could be 1958, 1968, or 1978.   Also, he looks closer to age 35 than age 19 in this shot.  Add to all this a very suspicious looking microphone and we have card perfection.

What a great photo!  Little Ichiro winning a game with a home run, presumably.

Fielder hit a walk-off home run against the Giants.  He jumped on home plate and pretended to "explode".  The force of the "bomb" knocked his teammates down.  This has the feel of football showboating (a bad thing).  It is also a reason purists could point at Fielder and say they dislike him.  The Giants certainly were not happy with the Brewers' behavior.

My feeling is although I generally hate showboating, I found this to be so alarming, original, and shocking, that I laughed like mad.  As they said on MLB Network that night, it was a clever and hysterical thing....once.  Two times or more and this funny moment becomes a terrible trend.  They never did it again.  They knew.  And from it we have one of the best cards ever.

This was the day Henderson eclipsed Ty Cobb in career stolen bases.  When he passed Brock, Rickey proclaimed himself the greatest player of all time (or that's how everyone took it).  Nolan Ryan threw a no hitter that day, stealing much of Rickey's thunder.  Rickey gave us a thousand goofy quotes.

Like others, I really enjoy the Tales of the Game inserts.  They picked out some unusual moments.  You get about six a box.

Wow.  I had no idea.  Pretty amazing.

Boggs ate chicken before every game.

The Legendary Lineage insert set design doesn't really do much for me.  It manages to be both plain and busy at the same time.  

Although the lineage info on the back of the Robinson/Guerrero card is lame (apparently both hit home runs and that scares pitchers), for the most part the ties prove interesting.  For example, on the Cobb/Granderson card, the back notes Granderson's 23 triples in 2007 were the most since Cobb's 24 in 1917.

Nine per box.  

 

The Franchise History cards really capture the romance of stadiums.

Doesn't Honus Wagner look five feet wide here?

Hmmm...I guess I didn't scan a single of the Peak Performance cards.  The mix ranges from today's stars like Sizemore and Utley, to legends of the past (even Dizzy Dean).  You get nine PP per box. 

The backs of these have some pretty cool information too.  I think Topps really put a lot of care and heart into what they wrote about this year.  I am impressed.  Also, the back of the Mize card uses the word penultimate, which is one of my favorite words.  Win.

Turkey Reds never leave me.  Never.  I pulled nine per box.  

When I was a kid (35) you used to be able to buy entire boxes of Turkey Reds.  Every card in the pack was a Turkey Red!  The Salad Days (2007).

You get about six History of the Game cards per box.  Who is that giant guy on the top left?  This is two pictures combined, I assume.  The Ruth shot is sublime.  The catcher and the giant man aren't needed.

 

The Athletics had first pick in the first MLB Draft in 1965.  "Hmmmm, we'll take...let's see...Johnny Benc---wait.  No, no.  We'll take Rick Monday."  

 

The Cards Your Mom Threw Out insert set is super.  I like reproductions of old cards.  The only problem I have is I hate the name of the insert.  It works fine for this Yaz and other old card remakes, but the set also includes newer cards such as Longoria from 2009 Topps.   Topps is either saying "Our cards are so worthless moms throw these out a year after their kids buy them," or they are saying moms are really dumb.

The original backs like this Yaz come about one per box.  The standard back cards come nine per box.  

These are the other three original backs I pulled.  Ripken and Murray!  Pretty lucky for an Orioles' fan.

Some of my favorites of the standard backs.

 

What a card!  The gold works perfectly with the Giants' colors (these are serially numbered to 2010).

The Giants sure have a handful of exciting players.  All very young too.

 

Six gold cards per box.  Click images for a larger look.

Black serially numbered to 59.  Utley!

Not bad.

Better.

Better still.

Ah ha!  The big hit.  S/N to 99.  A sweet card for sure.

I am a bit disappointed that four boxes yielded no autos, but that is my only complaint.

I think 2010 Topps is one of their best sets in years.  I love the base design and there's some excellent photography along with interesting inserts (and lots of them).  The packs are a lot of fun to open considering the cost ($45-50).  I'm also kind of excited to redeem my 24 'Million Dollar Card Giveaway' cards.  It adds another layer of intrigue.

Mr. Topps Company, I approve.  Brother and family, thanks!

1995 Pacific Prism Box Break (A Strange Ebay Experience)

1995 Pacific Prism Series 1 Box
36 packs, 1 card per pack
Cost:  $17.00 (includes shipping, purchased through Ebay)

I only have a few Prism cards from 1995.  I have no idea how I came to own them.  Player lots probably.  Every time I see one of them in my binders I wish I had more.  Inevitably I search Ebay only to be reminded  the singles sell for 1-8 dollars.  I have been hesitant to purchase any at those prices.

So when I finally saw a reasonably priced box of Prism on Ebay ($17.00), I thought "Ah ha!  I'll go right to the source!"

But this story has twists and turns.

After I paid I patiently stared at my front door, waiting.  One week.  Two weeks.  I decided I better politely contact the seller to make sure the box had shipped.  My email was ignored.

After three weeks passed I was pretty frustrated.  I wrote the seller again and explained I was going to file a claim and leave negative feedback.

The seller immediately replied this time around.  He said there had been an accident in the family.  Due to the stress he had forgotten to ship the boxes.  I accepted his reason.  I even offered to just take a refund and forget the transaction happened.  Oddly, he declined, saying instead he would ship my box plus a free one for my troubles.

I waited another week.  The seller lives on the same coast as I do so it isn't a haul.

Finally, after more than a month in total had passed, I wrote again saying I couldn't continue to deal with this forever.  I asked for a refund, this time more forcefully.  I gave a deadline, stating I would be leaving negative feedback.

The seller apologized and said he did mail the boxes.  I quietly doubted it.

He asked me to give him one more chance.  Now he was offering not one, not two, but three free boxes along with the one I had purchased.

A big part of me felt I was being strung along.  He assured me he would send them quickly and that they'd be at my home within 2-3 days.  I reluctantly agreed, assuming I was being a fool for trusting him again.

Much to my surprise, the boxes arrived soon thereafter.  Tada!  My trust and patience paid off (for once).  Four boxes for the price of one.  Sure, I had to wait over a month, but my cost was reduced from $17 a box to $4.25.  It was a bizarre interaction that ended happily, I think (more on that later).

144 total cards.  Holy colorful!  As much as I like these cards, one card per pack is downright silly.  Not quite as silly as a grown man lining up 144 cards on a living room floor, but silly nonetheless.

The set has 144 cards as well.  I got numerous doubles though, so I didn't come all that close to completing it.

I love the way these cards reflect light.  I get hypnotized.

Frankly, after opening all these packs I find I have more questions than answers.  The set puzzles me.  It came out during a time frame that I had stopped collecting, so I have no memories of it at all.  Looking into its history, I found hardly any information.  I couldn't even track down one review or article. 

For example, the box reads 'Series 1' but there is no 'Series 2' as far as I can tell.  Plus, my cards range from 1-144, pretty much.  Beckett does not indicate a Series 1 or 2.  I have never seen a second series box on Ebay.

I wonder if Pacific had intended to release a second series but for whatever reason it never came to pass.  Or was 'Series 2' football?

What happened?  Was the product too expensive?  Was it unpopular?  Did the one card per pack concept anger collectors?  It's a mystery to me.

I'll ponder while we look at more cards.

Rickey looks like he is just about to do one of his famous snatch catches that drove so many crazy (scanner shot).

Each pack also has a team logo card.  Presumably this was included to help protect the Prism card.  It's too bad the background of each is the same generic stadium.

Cal is one of the most valuable cards in the set.  There are no notable rookies.

The backs look almost like a second front.  

Ah, Trammell and Whitaker.  By 1990 or so these guys were pretty much known as the best SS/2nd Base combo ever (offense/defense).  It was taken as common knowledge that they were Hall of Fame locks.  How time forgets.

Back to the set:  Pacific produced 2999 cases of this product.  At 20 boxes per case that comes to just 720 cards in an entire case.  So if my math is correct, there should be about 14,995 of each card out there.  That assumes these were sold only in box form (not as complete sets).

Yet there are very few of these cards on Ebay.  Only about 30-40 at a time.

As far as boxes go, there's usually just one or two sellers offering them.

I've never seen a full set for sale.

So where is this product being hidden?

We know stuff considered junk is all over Ebay.  If these cards aren't being collected shouldn't there be a lot of them for sale at cheap prices?  If they are being collected, shouldn't the giant-Ebay-monster have hundreds of singles up for sale in the $1-8 range?

   

I hope the answer is that collectors appreciate these cards and have them safely tucked away in their homes.

I like the looks of them so much that I am even going to put the semi-stars (not shown) in my star books.  That's right!

15 years after their release, are these cards loved or forgotten?

How do you feel about them?

Oh and there's one more thing that has me confused.

Was I supposed to get Gold Prism cards in these boxes too or were they included in a different Pacific product (Pacific Crown boxes maybe)? 

Beckett doesn't specifically mention these are to be included in my packs.  It simply states they will appear in 1:12 packs on average; doesn't say which boxes they come from.

But they are the only other Prism cards listed besides the ones from my boxes (for 1995).

I didn't get any of these gold cards.  Were my boxes searched?  If so, that would add another strange layer to the peculiar Ebay experience involving a curious set.

One thing we do know, I am not the Sherlock Holmes of collecting, but I do likes me some cards!