I bought my first ever box online in the latter half of last month, from Blowout Cards. The box was of 2008 TriStar Projections, because it promised lots of hits (4 or 8, depending on your definition) for low low price. Good enough for me, and minor league cards are cool sometimes. At the time, I got it for $32 & change shipped, though last I checked, the box had itself jumped up to higher than that, after bottoming out at a couple bucks less than I paid. But that’s not why you’re here… you came for a box break!
So let’s break it down:
24 packs per box, 8 cards per pack, 192 cards per box
Base–
I got around 3/4 of the base set with no dupes. Forgot to scan the base cards though. I pulled base of most of the (future) stars, including (off the top of my head) Matt Wieters, Matt LaPorta, Rick Porcello, Jason Heyward, Andrew McClutchen, Colby Rasmus, and Evan Longoria, who already is a star.
The design is pretty slick, but there are two notable problems with the set:
1.) Because the rest of the image the picture of the player is taken from is shoop’d out, leaving only the player, a few players have disembodied body parts encroaching on their action shots (see the Adrien Cardenas parallel below). It’s very very weird looking and distracting, but there are very few like that, so it’s tolerable.
2.) The stats on the backs of the position player cards are misaligned. Every. Single. Card. The batting average is supposed to be at the end of the statline, but instead, it is the first thing listed, throwing off the entire line. It is a pretty bad mistake, which is a shame, because this set is nicer looking than 75% of Topps & UD’s releases from the past year.
Reflectives Parallels (1 per pack)-
I think I got 22 of these, also without dupes. The reason there are only 22 is because a couple of the #ed parallels were Reflectives, which, except for one memorable one, replaced the regulars. (Future) Stars included David Price, Matt Wieters, Jed Lowrie, Andrew McClutchen, and Max Scherzer, who’ve all seen major league action, if nothing else. Jason Heyward is a highly touted prospect as well, it seems.
Reflectives
The Reflectives are freakin’ gorgeous, by the way.
#ed Parallels (4 Guaranteed per box; Green #ed 50, Yellow #ed /25, Orange #ed 5, and Purple #ed 1/1)-
Ben Revere Green base #ed 40/50, Adrien Cardenas Yellow base #ed 13/25, Jesus Montero Reflectives Parallel #ed 12/50 (Reserved for Sooz of A Cardboard Problem), and Wilmer Font #ed 11/25.
I see Rainbows... @.@
Numbered ones... @o@
I actually pulled a 5th #ed parallel too, but we’ll cover that in a bit.
Autographs (4 Guaranteed per box; same parallel numbering as the non-autos)-
Matt LaPorta base, Casey Weathers base, Chris Withrow Green base #ed /50, Balbino Fuenmayor ORANGE base #ed 3/5(!)
Withrow has a really nice sig.
And the backs...
All four of these guys seem to have some promise, Matt LaPorta with tons of hype, Casey Weathers being a high draft pick (though Tommy John’d at the moment), Withrow I’d heard of before this pack, and Balbino is struggling but has huge expectations and is still only 20. Plus he’s freakin’ #ed to /5~!
That’s not all though, oh no. I did say there were five parallels. And here is the 5th:
For realz 1/1? Believe it~!
Bonus~!!!!
Jon Still Purple Reflectives Parallel #ed 1/1.
I will not be saying mojo, because that would be wrong. But it is the first true 1/1 I’ve ever pulled, so it is still really exciting going on two weeks later. However, being in the Red Sox organization, I did offer it to Shane over at Shoebox Legends if he wants it.
I was going to try and score this box, but I really can just give it a number or letter grade. I really enjoyed opening this box. The cards look really nice, there were a lot of hits for a low price, some of them may even end up being good, and I greatly enjoyed taking the time to open them, because, well… minor league cards are “Hope in a Pack”-incarnate. It’s not just hoping you get something good of someone good, it’s getting something good of someone you *hope* turns out to be good, of someone who hopes *they themselves* turn out to be good.
I don’t know who, if anybody, from my box will become major stars (aside from Longoria, who already is), but it doesn’t matter that much anyway. I got a whole lot more than what was promised for my $27+ shipping. Two cards whose print runs equal six… combined, a possibly record long box break (somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 hours, due to having to type to chat with people the whole time), three blog posts, and probably many soon-to-be pending trades as a direct result of the pulls.
What more could I ask for? Besides posting the pictures and getting them where I want being less of a pain in the @$^%Z4$&%¢@#%$.
Life and Baseball Cards 