The Trading Post: CamClow of Cardboard Heaven

‘Ello ‘ello, old chums.  Back with another trade post.  This one is from CamClow of Cardboard Heaven.  Only three cards in this, but they are all great ones.

MJD Jumbo Jersey /50, FergiePants, and Colston refractor..

As far as plain jerseys go, nothing beats a Donruss jumbo swatch, I tell ya.  It’s hard to explain, but they just do it better.  Maybe this is where the designing cards backwards comes into play (not that that makes it right).  I dunno, but I rarely see one I don’t like, even when the design blows (not the case here, thankfully) or the swatch isn’t that jumbo (it’s more medium-sized really).  The design on the Jones-Drew is nice and simple, especially considering this is Donruss we’re talking.  It frames the player and cool turquoise jersey swatch quite nicely and incorporates the Jaguars team colors into the card in a coherent way.  Good job, designer person!

Next, that Fergie Jenkins pants card is just a thing of beauty.  Upper Deck Vintage were amongst the greatest sets of the past decade, if not all-time, and the hits are no exception.  Just a stunning card.  Definitely one of the highest highlights of my Fergie Jenkins collection.

I’m a huge fan of late-rounders that go on to become big stars, which is why I loves me some Marques Colston.  Taken 252 overall (out of 255), he has put up numbers that are right there with the very best of a still very good draft class, even with some bigger name early picks stumbling to outright bombing.  He’s put up the second most receptions (369, behind Brandon Marshall’s 413), yards (5069, behind Greg Jennings’ 5222), and is tied for most touchdowns (40, with Jennings).  Overall, I’d say he’s easily top-10 in his draft class (he is tied for 8th in the 2006 draft class in career AV at 44, which backs that assessment up).  So yeah, Colston is a favorite and the rest of you should send me cards of him too. 😛

Needless to say, excellent trade, Mr. Clow.  I will get my end of the trade out to you as soon as I pick you up another jersey card for your 3000K collection (Clemens most likely).  Thanks for stopping by!

I’ll get you next time, Gadget…

Remember that Walter Payton Rookie?

Well, there was more to that trade than just Sweetness.  There was some shiny too!

First up, in #'ed /250 X-Fractor form, the late bloomer himself, Bobby Scales.

And coming to us in Gold Refractor form and #’ed out of /50, Derrek Lee!

Finally, Sewingmachineguy also sent his calling card:

It’s the back of a playing card.  Impromptu prize time.  A random jersey card to the first person to correctly guess the card.

And that be that.  Thanks to the Sewingmachineguy for the great trade!

Until our next…

Trading Day Pt. 2: The Search for Curly’s Gold

Here is the other package I received (last) Monday.  These are from Too Many Grandersons hisself.  Behold!

Suh-weet Walter Payton reprints, Gold Hester, base blue Manning parallel /500, Urlacher (foil and thus poorly scanned) insert from rookie year, and more Urlachers (have at that code)! How much better does that blue parallel look than the boring black borders that they've trotted out most of the last 10 or so years?? A set that looks that good I might actually consider collecting, as I once did the the '02 Gridiron Kings (even picked up about half the Legend SPs in a lot once upon a midnight's dreary).

More Bears! Greg Olsen, Bernard Barrien black parallel from one of the single greatest set designs in the history of cards, Cutler, some rookies, and my personal favorite, my first and Julius Peppers as a Bear.

Last of the Bears... The more I think about, the more I think Rex' dad was right about the Bears mismanagement of QBs, especially in the Super Bowl. Fortunately, in getting Martz, they seemed to have wised up to some degree. Not sure I like the total abandonment of the running game though. Somehow Bronko was the only card I already had amongst the Bears.

Moving on to baseball now…

Vladdy! I may have the Own the Game & one of ToppsTownies, but the rest are new to me, three I've never even seen before. The Diamond King is the gold parallel version #'ed to /2500.

Ichiro! Don't get a lot of him in trades. The '04 Own the Game in the middle just insane. And a rookie of the BEST catcher in baseball. Well, he's in that elite group with Mauer, McCann, and Victor Martinez (and maybe Posey in a year or two) at the very top anyway.

And a few of my favorite Cubs to finish it off. I really hope Big Z sticks around if it's between keeping him or Dempster. In fact, I think I'd just rather Dempster leave regardless. Something bothers me about him.

Thanks for the great cards!  I’ll get together something worthwhile to send in return… eventually. *sigh*

.::~Outtro~::.

Do You Like Chrome?

I’ll be back to semi-regular blogging soon I think.  Got the card table and the cards are slowly getting organized and will begin being sent out in early August.  If those I owe cards or were in the process of working out a trade with would comment or email what I was supposed to be sending them, that would be helpful.  Thanks.

In the meantime, please enjoy these ’08 topps Chrome inserts, pulled from way too many packs from the $1.59 bin at Target awhile back.  All are available, as (well as the base cards) except for the Trading Card History cards. I’m thinking those may be a worthy set to build.  And the Mannyfractor is already set aside for Shoebox Legends if he wants it.

Now then, onto the cards!

Refractors: Swish, Kenji Johjima, Nick Markakis, Roy Oswalt, Jon Lester Heritage Chrome /1959, Brian Bass RC, Nate McClouth, Curtis Granderson

X-Fractors: John Maine, Justin Upton, Ryan Howard, Victor Martinez, Steve Pearce Chrome Heritage /1959, Randor Bierd RC, Prince Fielder, Jermaine Dye

Pudge, Pence, & Markakis 50th Anniversary All-Rookie Team, Mantle’s 470th and 480th home runs, and the big hit of the 24 packs: Joey Votto Heritage Chrome Refractor /559!

Apologies for the lack of captions on a couple pics.  I’m not redoing them.  So just thank WordPress for eating ’em & proceed.  Besides, you can click on the pics to make them ginormous & readable anyway.  Grrr…

Anyway, as mentioned, all but the Mannyfractor are keepers on the last pic.  Kinda just want to get them all one version.

Alright, I’m gone. for now.

Holla.

Old School Group Break Loot & Stuff

I was a little late to the party so there weren’t many teams left to choose by the time I happened across the Old School Group Break, but there were a couple I thought might give me a chance at something of interest.  So, on a whim, I decided to enter and chose the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins.

I did okay I guess.  Three so-so hits and one insert that’s apparently a really tough pull.  Read that the Upper Deck Rivals inserts only fell around 1:240 packs on someone’s blog.  But I was really hoping for some crazy early 2000s inserts and parallels, so I was a little sad to be completely shut out on those.  It turned out okay though when I gave up my Twins base cards for a few Cubbies.  I just figured I’d get some nice base cards & maybe & insert or two, but woah!  Take a look…

I think I'm gonna keep a couple of the Franks. Think I'm going to pare down my Griffey collection too, and then just keep a few of each guy that I like. Also keeping the throwbacks from this bunch.

I had completely forgotten David Wells played for the White Sox for awhile.  And look at the size of Frank’s arms in that Studio card.  Great googly moogly…

Here's some backs and a couple of the Cubs I received in lieu of Twins base. The Gibson and Youk came from packs of topps and I don't know why I scanned them with these. Sorry. >.>

And what fine backs they are.  I don’t think I scanned but maybe half of the White Sox base cards I received, so there’s plenty more where these came from.

Here's the hits and inserts and extras and extra hits!

Amazing cards all around, but those extras just blew me away.  Though a bit unnerved by him turning white all of a sudden, I never could bring myself to dislike Sammy, so I greatly appreciate the three in the top row.  I for one loved what he did at the congressional hearings, because quite frankly I think the whole steroid thing was/is a bunch of BS.  And though his time with the Cubs ended poorly, the good times still override it for me.

The Kerry Wood/Rick Ankiel dual bat card is really nice looking, though I’m not sure I can keep it.  Why would you make a dual card of hated rivals in the first place, let alone a hit?  I’m not so sure a Cardinals fan would care to have it either.  Did Kerry make any fans with Cleveland yet?  W/e, the card itself is really nice looking and I have no dual hit cards to speak of.

The Sam Fuld auto is epic.  I have high hopes for the guy.  I guess Nady is useful if he still has power, but I hope there’s room for Fuld to get a lot more playing time this year.

Oddly enough, I have no issues with the Morneau/Thome card.  In fact I quite like it.  I guess the rivalry thing just matters when it comes to your own team.  Huh…  Hard to believe it’s an Upper Deck card from the end of the decade, when they seemed to not be able to get much of anything right (I been there Upper Deck, no disrespect).  It was kinda cool to get both teams I picked on the same card though.  And as mentioned near the top, somewheres I read it was a very tough pull.

The hits were meh, as also mentioned.  Durbin’s yet to do anything of note.  I dig the Kip Wells just for the fact that it is an Autographics and the fond memories of the past I get from that.  The Mark Buehrle is easily the best player of the three, and the card is #’ed to /56.

Thank you very much, John.  If you do another group break in the future, you can count me in.  Hopefully next time I’ll get there early enough for the Cubs and maybe Mariners or Dodgers or some other team in my upper tier.  😀

Finally, while we’re on the subject of group breaks, I kind of have the itch to host a group break.  I enjoyed this one so much that I’d like to do mine in a similar style and price range.  I’d like to do pick out boxes from throughout the decade though.

This proposed group break wouldn’t take place until around opening day of the baseball season, because I want to get a lot of my ridiculously overbooked trading queue caught up on first, and besides, wouldn’t that just be an awesome time of year to do one?  Also, I’m still not going to have a scanner by then unless I get it one for free or win one or something, but the weather should hopefully be getting a bit nicer by then, so I will hopefully have a good bit more and faster access to the one I have access to now, so that I may be able to pull this off fairly efficiently, or what qualifies as such for me anyway.

The actual box bustin’ itself for this group break would happen on either my justin.tv or ustream channels over the course of multiple days, because I like to take my time when busting boxes of cards.  And that way everything will be documented, and people can come and go as they please during the breaks (hopefully a decent amount of people will bother to show up for them anyway; sorry in advance for not having boobs or an especially flashy personality :P), and they will be highlighted for those that can’t be there for the festivities, but do want to see what went on before the scanning.

So is anyone interested?  Let me know if you are, and please spread the word.  I think this would be a pretty exciting way to count down and kick off the baseball season.  I’d like to have enough people on board and everyone paid and get the teams chosen by mid-March at the very latest.  Otherwise we probably won’t be done in time.

We’ll start delving deeper into this should people start getting interested, deciding on the actual boxes to buy and cost to enter and whatnot.

I totally came up with most of these initial details on the fly, but is everything sounding sensible enough so far? 🙂

Live Box Break Reminder + Bonus!

The 2008 Donruss Threads baseball box is due to arrive later today, and I will be busting it at 7pm east/6pm central/etc/so forth on justin.tv, so be there or kindly be square.  This is definitely a more interesting box than the ’09 Upper Deck A Piece of Sh**story, and let’s hope it’s better much much better too.  I mean seriously, Upper Deck… Gigli??  Even if was fairly enjoyable, mine had to be the worst box ever.  And what’s up with the missing hit?

Edit: I have yet to fall asleep, it’s closing in 40 hours since I’ve had any decent sleep, so there is a good chance I’m not going to be ready to cast by 7pm est/6pm cst.  I’ll let ya know for sure later..

Edit #2: Woke up just in time to hear the Threads baseball box and Playoff football bonus packs arrive at my door.  Those UPS dudes are STEALTH.  Still haven’t managed to see one, no matter how fast I get to the door.  They’re like… ninja tooth fairies or something.  Okay, back to sleep.  Will post when the break is gonna happen when I wake up.  Laters.. 🙂

Edit #3: I’m awake again, so I guess this thintg’s gonna happen tonight.  Gimme about 40 minutes to finish waking up and get a little food in and get everything set up.  That means I’ll be on at just after 9pm est.  Seeya then!

Edit #4: Going live right now.  Check out the break at the link above.

Edit #5: Threads kicked all kinds of ass!  I had a blast with this one, even though my only hit of a legend was a Dale Murphy jersey (a good card, but definitely weak considering the players available).  I ended up with one more than the promised four hits though, and the regular inserts were suh-weet, and where I got most of my most favorite pulls! 😀

Full reviews of this and A Piece of History with plenty of scans to come sometime this month hopefully.  Scans of the Playoffs Bonus Packs as well.  Also some scans of the blaster and repack from the other day too.

One more note, does anyone remember that post from Field of Cards with all the Joe Morgan cards that use the same picture?  Well, another one was discovered, lol.  But it’s still a hella cool card.

On that note, I’m done for tonight.  See y’all soon!

Now then, let’s make this post worth our while. Not that it wasn’t, but eh..  It’s time for an old school (ie no pictures) blaster break post.  This is 2009 Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects and it comes to us from Target.  I was just hoping to grab a couple fat packs in hopes of pulling a Purple Refractor and mayhaps an autograph since they are pretty easy pulls from them, something like 1:11 according to the break on A Pack to be Named Later.  They had none though, and no regular loose packs either.  All they had was just this one lone blaster of DP&P (I looked fairly thoroughly, so I’m pretty sure this was it).  So after much some waffling, I bought it.  And after the way my night went, I am so glad I did.  Here’s what I got:

Pack 1

BDP 4 Trevor Cahill A’s RC

BDP24 Jeff Stevens Cubs RC- Keeper! (I have no idea who dis dude is though… same goes for almost everyone in this thing though.)

BDPP49 Buddy Baumann Royals 1st Yr Chrome

BDPP50 Thomas Berryhill Braves 1st Yr Chrome

BDPP51 Darrell Ceciliani Mets 1st Yr

BDPP13 Seth Schwindenhammer Red Sox 1st Yr- Too many letters in last name!  I haven’t slept enough for this!!

BDPP22 Ben Paulsen Rockies 1st Yr Gold- Either make ’em thick or lose this crap parallel immediately plz.

Checklist

Pack 2

BDP43 Brent Leach Dodgers RC- Night Owl?

BDP3 Trevor Bell Angels RC

BDPP32 Jeff Decker 1st Yr Chrome

BDP40 Fu-Te Ni Tigers Chrome RC

BDPP9 Anthony Morris Nats 1st Yr

BDPP44 David Holmberg White Sox 1st Yr

BDPP65 Daniel Mahoney Marlins 1st Yr Gold

Pack 3

BDP39 Ryan Sadowski Giants RC

BDP21 Chris Tillman O’s RC- Beardy?

BDP16 Bud Norris Astros RC Chrome

BDPW31 Chipper Jones WBC Purple Refractor!- Ooh, nice.  A player I know!  And these purples be pretty slick.  Very very nice card.  Purple Refractors come two per blaster, it even proclaims “New!  Look for 2 Purple Refractors inside!” on three sides of the blaster.  Keeper, btw (on account of being WBC).

BDPP4 Virgil Hill Cards 1st Yr

BDPP41 Jonathan Meyer Astros 1st Yr

BDP11 JD Martin Nats RC Gold

Pack 4

BDP35 Jarrett Hoffpauir Cards RC- Micah’s distant cousin, according to the back of the card.

BDP19 Ryan Perry Tigers RC

BDPP68 Victor Black Pirates 1st Yr Chrome- Anyone?

BDPP54 Tyler Townsend O’s 1st Yr Chrome- Beardman again?

BDPP73 Mark Fleury Reds 1st Yr

BDPP8 Jobduan Morales Marlins 1st Yr

BDPP30 Cory Burns Indians 1st Yr Gold- Seriously, these gold parallels suck.

Pack 5

BDP8 Rusty Ryal D’Backs RC

BDP41 Casey McGehee Brewers RC

BDPP37 Andrew Bellatti Rays 1st Yr Chrome- Wow, this dude was born on 8/5/1991?  Anyone else feeling a little old right now? 😦

BDP55 Fernando Martinez Mets RC Chrome

BDPP69 Dallas Keuchel Astros 1st Yr

BDPP58 Robert Shields Mets 1st Yr

BDPP52 Derek McCallum Twins 1st Yr Gold

Pack 6

BDP53 Vin Mazzaro A’s RC

BDP40 Fu-Te Ni Tigers RC

BDPP61 Ryan Goins Blue Jays 1st Yr Chrome- Second dude from Dallas Baptist in the blaster.  Can you guess the other?

BDPP34 Brandt Walker Astros 1st Yr Chrome- Getting Astros at a rate usually reserved for Yankees!

BDPP20 Jamie Johnson Tigers 1st Yr

BDPP10 Telvin Nash Astros 1st Yr- See??

BDP6 Wyatt Toregas Indians RC Gold

Pack 7

BDP16 Bud Norris Astros RC- lol, now it’s just getting silly.  I haven’t even pulled a Yankee yet.

BDP55 Fernando Martinez Mets RC

BDP Kyle Blanks Padres RC Chrome

BDPW10 Chunhua Dong WBC Purple Refractor- Nice! I pulled China’s third string catcher for the ’09 World Baseball Classic (he was only 18 then, so it’s better than it sounds).  It may just be the lack of sleep talking, but I kinda want to collect the entire 35 card WBC part of the set in Purple Refractor form now that I have two of them.  Needless to say, this be a keeper!

BDPP7 Michael Belfiore D’Backs 1st Yr

BDPP14 Patrick Lehman Nats 1st Yr

BDPP46 David Hale Braves 1st Yr Gold- Like the pic, but border is fail.

This is it, the last pack is coming up.  Are you excited?  I hope so!

Pack 8

BDP50 Kyle Blanks Padres RC

BPA-MM Michael Moustakas Royals 1st Yr AUTOGRAPH- Yeeeeah!  I was good with the purples, but hitting an autograph made my fairly crappy night and current lack of sleep worth it.  It’s a sticker auto, and I won’t defend that, but these base autos fall 1:23 packs in regular sized RETAIL packs, so I won’t be complaining about it much.  Interesting (debateably) is that Buster Posey is in this bunch, and not the much harder Chrome autos (1:130 packs).  I hear he’s not too bad.

BDP44 Diory Hernandez Braves RC Chrome

BDPW31 Chipper Jones WBC Refractor- Keeper!  W00t, beat the odds twice in one pack!  Regular refractors fall 1:11 packs.  It’s almost as if this box was meant for me (as was the football repack box from Walmart that will require scans to go through).

BDPP64 Egan Smith Blue Jays 1st Yr

BDPP56 Ryan Jackson Cards 1st Yr

BDPP62 Chase Austin Marlins 1st Yr Gold- No Yankees!

Sorry to Marie and Sooz, and proof that it is possible to get no Yankees, in a blaster at least, for Yankee-hatin’ Yankee magnet Night Owl.

I’ll get scans up eventually maybe.  I guess these are for trade, but like a wiki walk gone bad, I’m in way over my head on trades at the moment, so it could be awhile before I get to it.  In the meantime, I’m gonna go… to… sleep.  I’ve slept two or so of the last 33-ish hours, so yeah.  Night-night, blogamaniacs.

Purple Refractors are made of win…

Blogger’s Saving Throw

SOMEDAY I will complete the 500 Home Run Club post, but that is not tonight.  Tonight we take it easy, take it slow.  Yeah, we’re just gonna touch on a few pressing issues, just for the sake of doing a post.

• First thing first.  I mentioned it on twitter, and it’s half the reason I haven’t felt like blogging for the past few days.  It kinda bummed me out.  My Allen & Ginter cards fell on the floor a few days ago.  Fortunately, relatively few were damaged, and only a half dozen severely so.  Unfortunately, most of the severely damaged ones were intended for Night Owl.  I’m really really sorry, but a few of the A&G meant for you are pretty much ruined.  The bat card, the SP, and the base Dodgers are undamaged, but I think most of the regular base have had it.  Again, I am really sorry about this.

• Moving on, I’ve wasted a s***load of money on several 2009 Topps Chrome fat/rack pack things.  They have seven cards and one or (usually, judging by my packs) two parallels or inserts per pack for $5.  As of right now, I’ve sworn off of them.  Here is what I have of them to trade.  Take note, most of the first two packs, typed up in a recent post, fell in a separate incident and were damaged beyond saving, and a select few already have potential homes.  Anyway, here is what is available.

Base-

1, A-Rod, 9 Mike Lowell, 12 Stephen Drew, 25 Garrett Atkins, 27 Francisco Liriano, 62 Chase Utley, 69 Max Scherzer, 94 Joe Mauer, 196 Rickie Weeks, 113 Magglio Ordonez, 124  Joe Nathan, 132 Derek Lowe, 142 Yovani Gallardo, 178 Scott Lewis Indians RC, 179 George Kotteras Red Sox RC, 190 Andrew Bailey A’s RC, 194 Elvis Andrus Rangers RC, 217 Brett Cecil Blue Jays RC, 218 Derek Holland Rangers RC

Refractors-

118 Andy Pettitte, 139 Ryan Howard

X-Fractors-

108 Howie Kendrick, 187 Jesse Chavez Pirates RC

• Here is a random pack break of ’09 Score football, for the heck (trying hard to cuss less) of it:

230 Hines Ward

193 Brandon Jacobs

119 Matt Schaub

154 Davone Bess

17 Martellus Bennett Young Stars

335 Devin Moore Seahawks RC

106 Donald Lee Glossy Parallel

Pretty cool looking cards.  I want to get all the Bears in this set, and Cutler if he isn’t in a Bears uniform.

• It’s a purely theoretical assumption, but hopefully asking here will be the simplest way.  I sent out packages to Baseball Dad, Indians, Baseball Cards, and Random Wax (Is this a name change alert? I haven’t been paying much attention for a few days…) and Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius.  I believe they went out last Monday.  Have any of you gotten them?  And was there anything useful for the former two gentlemen?

• Oh, so you can see just how in over my head I am when it comes to trading, here’s my overall Trade/Send Stuff Queue and how far along everything is.  Note that the order of readiness doesn’t mean order it will be sent (aside from the first one), size of the package and my random sense of focus-ness will determine that:

Night Owl (EDIT: SENT!)

Dinged Corners (EDIT: SENT!!!!!!!!!!!  After this monster of a package, I had to go buy more cases to send cards in.  They’ve gone up in price… >.<)

Cardboard Junkie– Being a Lonestarr Special, I suppose this one is Nearly Ready.

Sooz– Nearly Ready, Jeter Sketch Card just needs finished.

Marie– Must Email; but all potential cards are organized.

Wicked Ortega– (EDIT: EMAILED)

Beardy– Must Email; but pretty much all potential cards are organized.

JD’s Daddy– (EDIT: This trade is ACTIVE.)

Wax Heaven– SASE About Ready, just need to finish Andrew Miller Sketch Card, which isn’t as far along as I thought or hoped. (SASE is for ’09 UD Football Heroes inserts, btw Mario)

Nachos Grande– Must Email and Organizing; slightly further along than ones below.

McCann Can Triple– Organizing.

White Sox Cards– Organizing.

Sharpe Since ’92– Early Stages.  Was it just for random A&G minis?  In any case, I must see what else I can offer.

Shot Not Taken– Where To Begin…

Wow, that is madness… I didn’t even realize I had that much stuff in the works.  And I bet that isn’t even one of the longest trade queues going.  Now if I only had an even remotely acceptable excuse for my slowness and/or laziness. *le sigh*

I guess that does it for now.  If I forgot to put anyone in the neverending conga line of trades/sends that should be there, let me know please, and I will correct it.  Back to looking over Night Owl‘s epic checklist.  His cards go out around Wednesday-ish.  The rest… I don’t know.  I’m sorry.

… Did I mention I’m sorry? 😦

The Lonestarr Personal Collection #2

The is my favorite Ryne Sandberg card that I own (and to be honest, very few I don’t own could hope to surpass it, it’s just that great):

1996 Finest Gold Refractor

Not only do I love this card because it’s freaking beautiful, or because Sandberg was my second baseman idol when I played little league (along with Roberto Alomar), but it is one of the few bidding wars I ever actually won on eBay.  Sometimes it’s the simple things that push something that’s is already awesome into the stratosphere.  Winning is fun, what can I say? ;3

~I am me, and I am awesome.  Deal with it.

Cards From Walmart

Sunday night I bought a pack of 2008 Upper Deck Timeline, 2008-09 Topps Treasury, and an 8 for $10 repack box that boasts an $18 value, at Walmart.  Uhh, hell NO!  A box with packs of cards from 1989 not named Upper Deck (Donruss and Topps specifically), 1994 Fleer Ultra, a 99 cent 6 card pack of 2007 Topps, three $1.99 packs (the dinky 5-6 card packs ’07 Upper Deck and Fleer Ultra, and regular-sized Topps), and only one $2.99 pack (Bowman Chrome) do not an $18 value make.

Well… maybe if your math works like Scott Steiner’s.

The sad thing is, even though you could hear the steam shooting out of my ears when I saw the old packs, I got better cards from those three than the five new ones.  First though, a break of Timeline and Treasury packs…

2008 Upper Deck Timeline (6 cards per pack; look for two inserts in each pack, on average!)

46 Torii Hunter

10 Chase Utley

36 Jim Thome- The Pride of Peoria, dontcha know.

9 Mark Teixiera

123 Max Scherzer Rookie- On a forgettable old school UD design…

301 Rick Ankiel- I guess this would be a subset of some kind.  Zero on the insert count though, unless they are trying to pass off the subsets as such.  If they are a bit harder to get, that would mean shortprint, not insert, so WTF Upper Deck?  There better be a 4 insert pack out there somewhere…

I mentioned in the shoutouts from my most recent post, these cards are FUGLY.  What an incredibly boring design.  At least Upper Deck X’s design fit it’s theme.  This is just so… blah.  As for the backs, they only have career stats and a little blurb, because of a second, different picture taking up half the back.  This giant picture on the back may be a dig at the 2008 Topps base set design, as this picture is nearly as large as the ones on their fronts.

That was observational comedy, my friends.  Onward to Topps Treasury!

2008-09 Topps Treasury (5 cards per pack; why isn’t Larry Bird on money?)

27 Zach Randolph- A big scoring presence that gets rebounds, but is still fairly soft nonetheless.  Still, a fair few teams are lacking the good things he brings.

60 Rip Hamilton

59 Jeff Green- My first Thunder card!  w00t!

83 Brandon Roy

120 Kosta Koufos Rookie Refractor #’ed to /2008- I assume this is a bronze.  This guy is a rookie Center for the Jazz it doth seem.  Here’s hoping for something better than Ostertagian for the ginormously tall youngin’.

The base design is simplistic, but it FITS THE THEME.  Lack of easily fingerprinted up gloss is nice too.  And the refractor version, much like what 2008 Topps Chrome baseball to the regular set, just makes it POP.

Now then, back to the recrap box.  We’ve established that the packs in it are even more garbage than usual.  Now for the contents of said packs.  I stated earlier that I got better cards from the 1989 Donruss and Topps, and 1994 Fleer Ultra, than the five packs from 2007 (6 and 12 card packs of Topps series 2, 5 card packs of Upper Deck series two and Fleer Ultra, and a 3 card pack of Bowman Chrome.

So here are the best of what I got from each.  You can judge for yourself.

Old Junk-

1989 Topps- Barry Bonds, Fred McGriff, Dwight Evans

1989 Donruss- Ken Griffey Jr. “Rated Rookie”, Lee Smith

1994 Fleer Ultra- Mike Piazza Award Winners insert, Roger Clemens, Kevin Roberson (<3) Rookie

New Junk-

2007 Topps- Joe DiMaggio “The Streak” 26 and 48, David Ortiz, Dan Haren Gold #’ed /2007, Brandon Morrow Rookie

2007 Upper Deck- Mark DeRosa?  The rest of the pack consisted of David DeJesus, Carlos Silva, Alex Rios, and Olmedo Saenz, so… there are no winners here.

2007 Fleer Ultra- Hideki Okajima Rookie

2007 Bowman Chrome- Either Chien-Ming Wang or 29 year old “Prospect” Jonathan Van Every.  Hmm… prospects are grim, methinks.

So whatcha think?

Griffey RC, Bonds, Pizza insert, Clemens, Lee Smith, the Crime Dog, and Dwight Evans

vs.

Two Joe D inserts that are cool but worthless, Okajima RC, Papi, Gold #’ed Haren, Chien-Ming Wang, and a pushing-30 prospect…

I didn’t even get any other good base cards in the 2007 packs.  They were remarkably similar to the old school packs in that regard.  A couple couple nice players, and then a whole lotta nothin’.  Only difference being there are a whole lot less cards in the new packs.

Overall, the Griffey rookie makes it worthwhile, but it still won’t make me tilt my thumb upward.  The Griffey is wonderful, but it’s the principle.  The packs in this thing were garbage enough that I actually mean it when I say “never again” to Walmart repacks, and maybe ALL repacks in general.  It’s just horrid to charge more than $6 for this CRAP.

Peace.