Vacation Mail

I got quite the bundle of mail from Topps while I was on vacation. Most of it was Red Hot Rookie redemptions finally rolling in, the rest were autograph redemptions from 2010 Topps Chrome Baseball. Here's the funny thing, all of these cards came regular mail except one, the Stephen Strasburg RHR was sent certified mail. I guess Topps is making sure that they have proof of receipt for those. I think it would have been cheaper for them to send those first class with delivery confirmation than certified, but whatever.

The Red Hot Rookie redemptions look great and they're on chrome stock. I wasn't expecting them to be chrome stock, but I've never had any of these cards from previous years to know if they always are. Topps has sent me #'s 1-8, I'm just waiting on #9 Mike Minor and #10 Brett Wallace. I hope that I get at least one Brett Wallace autograph as I sent in three for redemption. I'll keep you posted on those.

The two autographs I received from Topps Chrome were Brian Matusz and Brandon Hicks.

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 Topps Baseball Update Jumbo Case Break

You really get a lot of of cards out these cases. Wow! I mean that in a good way as it's a really fun break and prices are incredibly reasonable on these right now. I picked up my case last week for $355.

Topps did a great job this year with their core baseball product. The insert sets were all really cool and the Million Card Giveaway was the best hobby promotion ever created. These jumbo cases are loaded with inserts and the really cool bat barrel cards. You also have the chance at the always popular SP veteran base variations that seem to run 3 to 4 per jumbo case. Of course, the black and gold parallel cards are there as well. One last bonus is the Topps Chrome Rookie Box Toppers.

I beat the odds on this case. You're supposed to receive one autograph and two memorabilia cards per box. I ended up with seven autographs, one being a redemption, so you could argue that I got six autographs. I also ended up with seven bat barrel cards which are supposed to fall one per box. The seventh bat barrel replaced one of my All-Star jersey cards, which I only got five of. I also got two silk cards and two black parallels. The case only yielded four of the original back CYMTO cards.

I've read that you can make six base sets out of a jumbo case. I'm assuming that's true as I got six of the #661 Stephen Strasburg rookies. I'm not so sure about completing a master set. I got a lot of doubles in the Turkey Red and CYMTO sets. I'll report back after I've had time to sort all of these cards. I don't know how I'd manage breaking multiple cases of this stuff.

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.

2 Wal-Mart Topps Value Box Break

I didn't specifically go to Wal-Mart for cards this morning but couldn't resist checking them out. I bought two of the $15 Topps Value Boxes. They had about six of them and none appeared searched. I've read on some of the forums that people will shake the boxes to expose the refractor card. You'll see from the picture below that this obviously hasn't happened at my Wal-Mart.

Each value box comes with one hobby pack of 2010 Allen & Ginter, six retail packs of Topps Series 2 Baseball, one Million Card Giveaway code card and a Topps Chrome Refractor of either Stephen Strasburg, Cal Ripken Jr. or Babe Ruth.

I did pretty well, the better cards pictured below. I got a lot of inserts from the Topps Series 2 packs but nothing really of note. I was surprised to get hits in both Ginter packs, as minor as they are. It was nice to get an extra code card from the 12 Topps packs as well.

Stephen Strasburg No-Hitter

You knew it was coming at some point. Stephen Strasburg already had a 10-0 record with a 1.38 ERA and a load of strikeouts coming into the game. He's cleary going to be the #1 pick in the 2009 MLB Draft by the Washington Nationals. He's received more press attention than any college baseball player that I can ever remember. What else could he do? Throw a no-hitter, of course.

Strasburg tossed a no-hitter against Air Force last night, walking only two. He racked up another 17 strikeouts in the game. This guy is putting together an amazing season.

Head on over to the Upper Deck Blog and check out their coverage of the game. They live blogged from the game last night and have some great video from the ninth inning.

Strasburg autographed Upper Deck USA cards are selling in the $100-$600 range on eBay, depending on the card and the amount produced.

Grant Green TTM Success

Date sent: 4/11/09
Date returned: 4/22/09

I'm really happy about this return from Grant Green of the USC Trojans. Green is listed as the #2 pick in Baseball America's 2009 MLB mock draft, just behind Stephen Strasburg. I think I'm mostly surprised at how quick the card was returned from such a high profile prospect.

Grant Green is Junior third baseman with the Trojans. He's batting .372 this season in his first 137 at-bats.

Here's a story Baseball America wrote about Green over the summer when he was playing in the Cape Cod League: http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/college/summer-scene/summer-stock/2008/266640.html

Stephen Strasburg Mania

Stephen Strasburg is a 20 year old senior that pitches for San Diego State University. He also pitched for Team USA in the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. I don't know that there's been as much hype about a pitcher since Dwight Gooden in mid-80's.

Is the hype deserved? Well, yeah, it probably is. Through five starts this year with SDSU, Strasburg is 5-0 with a 1.70 ERA in 42.1 innings pitched. He has 88 strikeouts with only 8 walks. That's quite a strikeout to walk ratio. Did I mention that his fastball tops out at 103 mph? He's an incredible talent, no doubt. But are collectors going a bit too nuts for this young phenom?

Here's a recent example of an eBay sale, from yesterday actually, of his 2008 Upper Deck USA Red Autograph /25. The card sold for $550! Seriously? He hasn't even pitched in the minor leagues. I know he's been dominant in college and for Team USA but let's get real. I just can't imagine spending that kind of money for a player who's still in college.

The card pictured is his Team USA Retrospective card from 2009 Upper Deck Series 1 which I pulled from a blaster I purchased. This card is not rare by any means but it sold on eBay for $15. I didn't think twice about selling once I saw what they were going for.

Who knows, he may turn out to be the greatest player I'll ever see pitch in my lifetime. If you're interested, he pitches tomorrow against UC Davis at 2:30pm PST at Petco Park in San Diego.