Blogger Secret Santa Exchange

This year, Jon at Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts is hosting the annual blogger Secret Santa gift exchange.

Sign up (here) by Monday November 12 to join in the fun!

Silence By The Cove

San Francisco Giants legend Willie McCovey passed away peacefully on October 31 at the age of 80 after ongoing health issues.  There will be a tribute on November 8th at AT&T Park.

McCovey combined with Willie Mays, Orlando Cepeda, Juan Marichal, and Gaylord Perry to make the San Francisco Giants a perennial competitor through the 60's until his retirement in 1980.

"Stretch" was 6'4" of slugger.  His home run total of 521 might have been higher if he hadn't been pitched around so often.

I don't remember watching him a whole lot.  I just know what was on the cards.  He's one of those big guys that could smack the ball a long way.  Seems like he was a kinder, gentler version of that other guy that hit a lot of homers for San Francisco.

My best three McCovey cards:

The often dull '70 Topps gray works well with the white team name contrasting with his black uniform.  He doesn't have any bad cards, really.  The majority are cheerful poses like this one.

His 1960 Topps rookie.  One of the last three I needed to complete the set.  He's got an All-Star at the end of the set as well.

And one of my best all-time pulls, this 2012 Gypsy Queen Indian Head Penny is serial numbered 9/10.  The coin is dated 1898. 

The Hit Redefined

A "Hit" is defined by Baseball Cardpedia as

"a high-value insert card, usually a card that is either serial numbered, autographed, or game-used. Hits vary in value by the product and by the purchase size. A "case hit" in 2012 Topps Tribute, for example, is likely to be a card that would sell for hundreds or even thousands of dollars; a "box hit" in, say, 2010 Topps Series 1 could sell for ten dollars or less."

That concept has been the norm for several years now, and it can be argued that it applies down through the retail market as well. 

• Case hits are once-in-a-lifetime pulls.  
• Box hits are normal autographs and relics - specifically (or more recently only vaguely) associated with a particular player and/or game.  
• Retail hits can be the occasional gamer or auto, but only at high odds.   

More often than not, a blaster box will advertise the guaranteed inclusion of a manufactured item, like a custom patch, medallion, or other commemorative piece that was created specifically for inclusion in the product.  They aren't sourced from players or teams on the field.

Typical Hobby Box (cost: $50-60):

Typical Retail Blaster (cost: $20):

Hobby box has one relic or autograph, and blaster has one manu-patch card.

Back in the mid- to late 2000's, relics were so common that even the blasters had them.

Typically, they were the workout jerseys from the previous year's All-Star Game.  Technically, they're "event-worn", but that actually makes them more interesting.

Then later, blasters had the well known manufactured patches, or "manu-relics".

Not actual patches from game uniforms, but spiffy little fabric patches of team or event logos.

Manu-relics evolved into even fancier forms, some of which only appeared in hobby boxes.

And of course, the rookie card had to make an impact along the way as well.  With logos, or even reproductions of cards themselves.

Is this really considered a rookie card?

But there was still the expectation that if you bought a hobby box,

you would get at least one of something like this:

Or this:

You might get really lucky and pull something like this:

And blaster boxes would advertise thusly:

And contain things like these:

But really at NO time, would you expect to see this on the outside of the box:

"1 autograph or relic card in every hobby box"

And get this:

Yes, it is serial numbered, so technically it fills the original definition of a "hit" as described above.  But that's where the similarity ends.

If you can get a comparable item from a $20 package, then placing it in a $50+ package basically cheats the buyer out of half the value of the item.  Considering this the hit of the box is ridiculous compared to the last 15-ish years of similar products.

This is not a fancy fabric patch, or an engraved metallic coin or wooden piece.  It's a puffy sticker.  And it's not a team logo, or event logo.  It's a corporate wordmark for the general playoff season in the sport.  Not the World Series, or the LCS, or All-Star Game, but just the whole group of games played after the regular season.  Here's your puffy sticker for the post season.  Hey, we only made 50 of them.  This guy played in the postseason.  Thanks for coming.  Good Night. 

WTF?

The "hit" has officially been devalued to become whatever the manufacturing corporation feels like calling a hit.  No longer does it have to be an actual piece of memorabilia, or signed by a player.  Now the player doesn't actually have to be involved in the process at all.

The only thing I can think of that would be more worthless is if they didn't actually make anything at all. 

Oh wait...

The next step in "hits".  Digital hits?  (Psst, they're not actually real).

Happy Birthday Aishwarya Rai Bachchan

I try to resist frivolous posts about gorgeous women.  But I can't.

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was once called the most beautiful woman in the entire world.  Don't think I have any problem with that.  I don't see any flaws...

The winner of Miss World 1994 while in her college years.  She has aged well and is now 45.

She took up acting after many offers resulting from the pageant win.  Rai became one of the most popular and influential celebrities in India.

After a five year absence from acting, she resumed in 2015.  She also has many accomplishments in endorsements, humanitarian work, and social causes.

In 2011, there were a reported 17,000 websites devoted to her.  She has a figure in Madame Toussaud's Wax Museum, and has a Barbie doll modeled after her.

It's all about the eyes....

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!