Topps Chrome Baseball Wrapper Redemption Mail Day!

I sure was happy to see these arrive in the mail today. I kept seeing results of breaks on all the bulletin boards and was starting to get impatient. I sent two cases worth of wrappers, so I received 24 packs.

Topps sends them in a large manila envelope with a smaller padded envelope inside that contains the packs. They're definitely packaged to prevent damage. The cards overall are in great shape. There are some flaws, but nothing major. The really nice thing about these cards is that they're flat! The chrome curl doesn't exist on these. The centering is nice for the most part as well.

24 packs should yield 4 complete sets, 2 green refractor packs and two other random packs. Well, that's exactly what I received. The bonus for me was that the two random packs both were the packs that contain Buster Posey. As you can see from the picture, I also received Buster Posey as one of my green refractors. I'm really happy with the results.

4 - Babe Ruth
4 - Lou Gehrig
4 - Jackie Robinson
4 - Ty Cobb
1 - Ty Cobb Green Refractor
6 - Mickey Mantle
1 - Mickey Mantle Green Refractor
6 - Buster Posey
1 - Buster Posey Green Refractor
6 - Ike Davis
1 - Ike Davis Green Refractor
4 - Stephen Strasburg
4 - Mike Stanton
4 - Jason Heyward
4 - Carlos Santana
4 - Mike Leake
1 - Mike Leake Green Refractor
4 - Austin Jackson
1 - Austin Jackson Green Refractor
4 - Tyler Colvin
4 - Starlin Castro

2010 Bowman Chrome Baseball Retail Box Break

I know, you're already asking yourself before reading this, why did this guy get a retail box of 2010 Bowman Chrome Baseball? Well, I didn't just buy a box, I bought three cases. I pre-ordered these back in July for a really good price, well before Strasburg got hurt and the price plummeted. It was also long before I knew how bad the odds would be on the retail packs. I had faith that Topps would continue to release retail products with decent odds as they've been doing for a couple years. The odds are horrendous on retail this year. Pulling a prospect autograph, which are one per box in hobby, are 1:191 packs in retail. Even pulling a prospect or USA non-autographed refractor are 1:110 packs. Just insane!

I decided I'd open one box before I started selling these off a box a time. The first thing I noticed after opening a couple packs was that the top card in each pack was scratched. Scratched actually puts it mildly, more like gouged. They look like someone ran a nail down the front of each card. I have 24 like this, one for each pack in the box. I already sent them all back to Topps for replacement. The good news is that the other two cards in each pack were free of defects.



Enough of the bad news. As I started ripping packs I started getting good cards, defying the odds on the back of the packs. I first pulled Jason Heyward and Carlos Santana rookie refractors (1:6 packs). The next card that came was a Corban Joseph Autographed Prospect Blue Refractor (1:2,850 packs). I would have been happy at this point if nothing else came out of the box. Next came the A.J. Vanegas Team USA Autographed Refractor (1:1,620 packs) and an Andrew Cashner Gold Refractor rookie (1:837 packs). Amazing!

I figured this box was all a fluke but decided to open one more to be sure. I was right, nothing came out of the next box other than the four expected regular refractors and a couple purple refractors. The box did yield a Stephen Strasburg base rookie as well as a Jason Heyward and a Starlin Castro. I decided to stop at that point as I realized I had simply run into a hot retail box with that first one.

Hopefully this information is somewhat helpful to people reading. My advice - go with hobby boxes as they're down around $40 per box now and you're guaranteed an autograph per box. Don't count on being as lucky as I was with that first box of retail.

2010 Topps Chrome Baseball Value Pack Break

I went to Wal-Mart this morning to pick up some random stuff. I had no intention of purchasing cards, I swear, but what kind of person would I be if I didn't just take a peek at the selection? To date, I've not been able to find any substantial amount of 2010 Topps Chrome Baseball value racks. I'd had no problem finding football but baseball had eluded me. There was a full hook this morning so I grabbed four of them.

The offering is exactly the same as the football version. Each rack comes with three retail packs of 2010 Topps Chrome Baseball (4 cards per pack) and one bonus pack of three orange refractors. The price is $8.95 per rack, just like football.

Every break that I've read online speaks of the poor quality of Topps Chrome Baseball this year. I can confirm these claims. The first thing I noticed was the curve of the retail packs. All the cards have the familiar chrome curve to them, but worse than usual. Football didn't seem to have this problem, at least not this bad. The surface defects of the cards I've reading about is there too. There are lines, scratches and dimples on the surface of at least half the cards. I can handle refractor lines, they've always been around. The scratches and dimples are just poor quality control by Topps. The centering on some of these cards is pretty bad too.

On to more important things, the cards. I think I did really well on the orange refractors. The highlights were Mickey Mantle, Carlos Santana, Starlin Castro, Ike Davis and Joe Mauer. In the retail packs I didn't fair as well, the highlight was a Stephen Strasburg. I also pulled four refractors and four x-fractors. Check out all of the pictures below as well as the pack odds.

Speaking of the pack odds, I did find my refractor pulls from the retail packs a bit strange. Odds for refractors and x-fractors are 1:3. I pulled four of each in twelve total packs, clearly beating the odds. Purple refractors are 1:12 but I did not receive one of those. I pretty much saw these same rates in the football value packs too.