Break Me Off A Piece Of That Update Bar

While I'm watching Minnesota and New Orleans on Sunday Night football, my friend Stuart calls.  He's opening boxes of Topps Update while he's watching Game 5 of the World Series.  I figure it's probably the last day of baseball, so I went and got my box.  Here's what came out.

I may have shown before how I always open a box layer by layer.

Here's the start.  Pack #1 is top left, then top right, then lower left, then lower right, and on to the next layer.

Here's about 2/3 of the way through.

Base in the big stack.  Keeper inserts to the left.  Trader inserts below them.  Parallels in bottom corner.

Foils and golds.  No one real special here.  All horizontals on the golds.  I like that the duals match up the sliding boards when you put 'em side by side.  Let me know if you need any.

Votto Retro Vintage Stock.  Back is the old school rough cardboard.  Number 50/99.

Brett Legend variation.  Card #76.  I was glad to see the KC catcher dude a few packs later with the same number.  Means there's probably a whole set in the box.

Salute inserts.  These are actually decent looking cards overall.  Just too pointless and bloatish to collect more than my established player collections.  Nice selection of retired players here.  All up for grabs.

The other bloated insert set.  I won't get off on a rant about why they choose to do this as an insert set when they have two other whole products that reprint old designs.  And great job on the contrast with the Rays player there.  You'll have to get one to flip over to tell who it is.  '83s are spoken for already, sorry.

Speaking of rants.  This one inspires one, just like Jordan at Mint Condition.  Stay tuned for that.  Micro version is that this belongs as a blaster prize, not the big item in a hobby box.

Now the keeper stuff.  These are the generic Star Player + Funky Graphic Generic Background + Catchy Title + Writeup describes how good they are = insert card formula.  And it's an idea that was copied from Allen & Ginter, where they actually used the country's flag in the design.  But whatever....

Annual spiffy photo effect insert set.  But at least there's a theme beyond pitching and hitting.  Interesting checklist.  OK, I'm in.  Need two Bo Jacksons, too.  Tim Raines hot box!

Mod design doesn't really match the name, but the year is there, so I'll give 'em a passing grade.  Interesting idea about the end of a player's career. 

The End.

So I'll sort 'em out and see if I got a full base set.  Would have liked to have pulled an actual auto or relic as advertised on the box, but it's a good launch to completing Topps for this year.  Guess I'll have to buy some retail to fill in the inserts and get some trade bait.

Box Break Preview

Looking at the Database listings for 2018 Topps Update, I decided that for at least a few of them, the inserts actually had half a decent idea behind them, even though there are stupid parallels and other inserts that are pointless.  More on that in another post.  So rather than just trading for a base set like I had for the first two series, I went ahead and purchased a box.  And then, of course, you can't buy just one, so I added a couple friends.  I ordered from Charm City Cards on Friday afternoon, and they showed up the next day.  CCC is in Baltimore, which is only an hour drive from here.

My want list for last year's OPC hockey is still massive, even for just the base set, so I figured it was a good buy and won't stick me with too many unmovable dupes.

The Score football is from 2014.  I actually still need ten base cards there too.  It's a huge master set, with ten insert sets that aren't hits, half of which also come in four different color versions.  I've selected one color scheme on those, so the others are trade bait.  Let's hope I can knock off at least a few of what I'm missing.  Nice part is, that since these came out, they show up in quarter and dime boxes quite often - even the rookies.  This box was only $25!

Oh yeah, this is not an invitation to sign up for break slots.  The extras will be available for trade, but that's it.  As I break each box, I'll take pics and post up what I get.  Hopefully I don't get an identical box to those I opened before.  Stay tuned!

Back From SubSpace

The Blogging Dog Days continue.

I've been away since Friday night on a fishing trip to my buddy's place at the Delaware shore.  Then came home and have been fighting the hacking sniffles since.  And I can't say there have been a lot of posts waiting to be freed in the meantime either.

Anyway, the good part about going away is coming home to a full mailbox.  I had a few different packages, including two from blogger trades.  Bru from Remember The Astrodome, and Trevor from Bump And Run Blog each sent me return fire from previous contributions.

Unfortunately, in my enthusiasm to cross them off my want lists, I combined the stacks into my other show and trade loot, so I'm not positive about a few cards' sources.  So I'll present them together roughly by sport and set.

Now don't be alarmed.  These aren't the originals.

They're from the 1987 Hygrade All Time Greats set.  The regular cards are green bordered and unnumbered.  These are mini size inserts.  Each has four different backs.

A couple nice '64s for the set effort.

One random 1995 Topps to restore my set to unstuck condition.

Mike Mussina postseason subset Upper Deck for his player collection.

Some other miscellaneous Orioles, because I like them, even though they were unwatchable this year.  Most of these are things I wouldn't get for myself, especially Bowman.  The GQ mini is whole, it's just my old scanner can't see the very bottom of the platen, or whatever that's called.

One nice looking Hank for an older Ginter set.

A lingering insert from last year.  There are several more of these still on the want list.

Short prints and inserts to my '18 Ginters.   Say "Ginter Inserts" five times fast....

And more mini action from that same set.

And for laughs, a nice smattering of '91 Fleers knocked off the quest.

Then to football.  Haven't had any new Priests in a long time.  A welcome addition.

And various Redskins, mostly from the last year or two.  Though that Collector's Edge is SO nineties.

Double the thanks gentlemen, sorry I lumped you together, but it all shows nicely.

Post In Five Minutes ... Or Not

Daniel at It's Like Having My Own Card Shop started a Five Minute Post challenge.

How much can you write in five minutes?

You've almost got to have it all thought out, scanned, drafted, and set in your mind ahead of time.  Can you really get a quality post done in five minutes or less?

Nah, c'mon man.  That's not enough time to write something good.

You've got to take some time to come up with a strong idea!

Don't just cop out with a This Day In History or some hot chick's birthday.

Although chicks are always nice...

Hey! This is a baseball card blog, put up some cards!

Relax kid!  He's been doing that all along!

This is stretching way past five minutes.

 Yeah, but I kinda like it...

I don't know, man.  Seems like nothing but a lot of random cards strung together like a conversation.

Hey, it worked didn't it? It's all good!

YEAH!  YOU DID IT!

Uh, that took way longer than five minutes though....

I'm just sad that it's over...

Chantilly Show Loot

It was a weekend of shows.  Cars and Cards.

I spent Saturday at the 2018 AACA Fall meet in Hershey, PA looking at old cars.

Gorgeous classics, muscle cars, and big cars with tail fins, that's what I like best.

Sunday, I was back in my best environment, hunting for cardboard.

Knocked out a lot of my A&G needs...

Also found some Stadium Club inserts and a couple odd singles.  Always nice to find Jeter inserts that I don't have.  It amazes me that even if I find a big stack of his cards, there are hardly any of the dozens of Jeter inserts that I need to kill so many sets.

Also got some box loaders for almost nothing to whittle my 2016 set down to a few.

Picked these up for my friend Stuart:

One dealer had a stack of 1977 O-Pee-Chee, that I purged of my player collection guys.  Love the picture variations on a couple of these.  The Fisk & Sutter are Archive singles.

Same vendor had a box of mojo hits and parallels.  These are all also PC guys.  The Bowa bat piece has him as a coach, which is rather unique.  It was a lot but I didn't figure to see it again anywhere.  Hopefully the shiny A's and Evans aren't dupes.  GQ Bo is just a SP.

Worked on my '71 football at Uncle Dicks.  Also filled out some old Redskins I'd been hunting for a while.  Bosseler is a Post.  The new ones at the bottom I picked up at the end of the show for 50¢ each, which is probably a little much, but harmless fun.

He also helped me with my '71-'72 hockey set.  Down to only a few high dollar ones.

And finally, I always try to peruse my favorite blogger top want lists before a show.  Will be sending these out.  You know who you are.

While I was picking out the Hoyt and Dusty, I found this Monte Irvin that just appealed to me, so he came home too.  Can't really see anything wrong with it for such a discount.

I felt like I spent the whole weekend driving and walking around big places, but it was fun.