A couple bad blasters

Wow, I wasn't expecting so many congratulatory comments on my last post, but thanks, guys! To clarify, we've been together for 10 years as a couple, not a wedding anniversary, but still.

In contrast, I only got 2 congratulatory comments on my recent post regarding a guy from my high school getting called up to the major leagues, a much more impressive feat and one that fills me with more pride than any dumb relationship ever could. Come on, guys, get your priorities in order!

Nah, I'm just messing. Now here's a post I originally planned for the eclipse day last week, but it was derailed by rage and I couldn't bring myself to type about it till I cooled off.

I took today off work, playing it safe in case of any eclipse shenanigans (bad traffic, the apocalypse, etc.), though seems like everything went smoothly. Still, it was a good excuse to take a day off.
I didn't buy any packs/boxes at the card show the other day. But then later that day, my wife asked me if I needed anything from Amazon, and I ended up throwing a couple Panini blasters into the order. You can get them cheaper on eBay, but I had some Amazon credit to burn.
I haven't ripped any 2017 Panini products yet. Picked up a blaster of Optic and a blaster of Diamond Kings. Maybe I'll hit something decent. Let's check it out...

I opened the Optic box first and it was a disaster. About 75% of the cards had a badly dinged corner.. the lower right corner for vertical cards, or upper right for this one horizontal card. The box wasn't crushed or anything, so I'm blaming Panini's production process, not a damaged-in-transit issue. I would have liked this Altuve a lot, but the dinged corner just bums me out. It's worse than it looks in the picture.

These 2 refractors were probably the highlights for me. Kirby and Renfroe. Not happy about the Kirby being so off-center. The corner ding on these 2 isn't as bad as some of the other cards, but still noticeable.

A couple Rizzo DKs. You can't really tell by the picture, but they're definitely dinged.

Some more guys I collect. The top row is dinged, while the bottom row are ok.

Actually, the Miggy has a bonus flaw.. yippy. A weird indentation in the middle of the card.

Needless to say, I don't plan on buying anymore 2017 Optic. My blaster netted me zero hits, zero numbered parallels, and dozens of damaged cards. Very unhappy with it.

Will I have better luck with the 2017 Diamond Kings blaster?

Well, at least the cards weren't damaged! The Ted Williams insert is kinda cool, I guess. The closest thing I pulled to a hit was the framed Bill Dickey. But even that isn't numbered. And nobody collects Bill Dickey.

A few guys I collect, but a largely forgettable blaster.

Too bad I've lost my enthusiasm for collecting Anthony Rizzo lately, as I pulled 4 cards of him from this pair of blasters.

One reason collectors bother with logoless Panini baseball cards is because they usually give you good value and solid chances to pull hits. But after these two blasters, I feel like I'm done with Panini. Couldn't even have pulled one goddamn card #'d /999 or something? Even if the Optic cards weren't damaged, I'd still be disappointed with the purchase. Throw in the damage and I'm downright pissed about it.

It's kind of cool that in the future I can remember the exact day I decided to stop buying Panini products (at least for a good while) because it was the day of the total solar eclipse.

A box now and many more boxes to look forward to

I was active on Black Friday on the card front. In addition to linking my folks and in-laws some high-end boxes for xmas/bday gift ideas for me (excited about these! Heck, the month of anticipation is the best part), I grabbed a few deals for myself.

Here's what I ended up with:

2012 Topps Baseball Factory Set - Fenway Dirt Relic Edition
2013 Panini Beach Boys Box
2008 Bowman Chrome Baseball Hobby Box
2015 Panini Stars and Stripes Baseball Hobby Box
2008 Upper Deck SP Authentic Baseball Hobby Box
2012 Benchwarmer Vault Trading Cards Box
2011 Topps Baseball Value Box
2011 Benchwarmer Bubble Gum Trading Cards Retail Box
2014 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Baseball Hobby Box
2014 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Baseball Hobby Box
2014 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Baseball Hobby Box
2014 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Baseball Hobby Box
2014 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Baseball Hobby Box
2014 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Baseball Hobby Box

Yeah, I went heavy on the 2014 Prizm Draft, but it was a great deal (it was the quickest baseball product to sell out during Dave & Adam's black friday sale). A few bucks less than a blaster each, you get 3 on-card autos with a chance to pull the likes of Kyle Schwarber and Trea Turner (with a tiny chance of Kris Bryant ink, too). Plus there are still a few Gavin LaValley parallels I need. Grabbed enough boxes to qualify for free shipping. Unfortunately, Dave & Adam's hasn't had much else to get too excited over this holiday weekend. I seem to remember last year's sale was more impressive.

The other stuff was from Blowout Cards. Again, I grabbed just enough stuff to qualify for free shipping (which is currently set at twice as much as Dave & Adam's). Nice mix of baseball products, plus a Beach Boys box and I caved to pretty girls and bought my first-ever couple boxes of Benchwarmers. On the topic of non-sports, I was sad to see that boxes of Cryptozoic Ghostbusters are apparently sold out.. was hoping to score one of those if the price was right.

Rather than just have a box-bustin' orgy over the next week or two, I've decided to ration the boxes out over the next year. It'll be a test of my self-control, but I think it'll be nice to have things to look forward to. And I want to cut down on busting boxes (well, paying a lot of money to do so, that is), so grabbing a bunch when they're cheap and spreading them out seemed like a good idea to hopefully keep my ripping urges satisfied. There are really only a couple upcoming 2017 products I plan to buy a box or two of (Archives and Star Wars 40), so hopefully my Black Friday haul carries me through the year with minimal additional blaster and hobby box purchases.

Here's the tentative schedule I've drafted up:

DEC 2016
2011 Topps Baseball Value Box (this was the worst deal; let's get it over with)

JAN 2017
2014 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Baseball Hobby Box

FEB 2017
2012 Benchwarmer Vault Trading Cards Box (just in time for valentines)

MAR 2017
2014 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Baseball Hobby Box

APR 2017
2012 Topps Baseball Factory Set - Fenway Dirt Relic Edition (ring in the new season with dirt)

MAY 2017
2014 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Baseball Hobby Box

JUN 2017
2013 Panini Beach Boys Box (summertime is the right time for Beach Boys)
2011 Benchwarmer Bubble Gum Trading Cards Retail Box (some girls to join the Boys)

JUL 2017
2015 Panini Stars and Stripes Baseball Hobby Box (good way to celebrate the 4th)

AUG 2017
2014 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Baseball Hobby Box

SEP 2017
2008 Bowman Chrome Baseball Hobby Box

OCT 2017
2008 Upper Deck SP Authentic Baseball Hobby Box (Update: there was an inventory error and Blowout was out of this box. I also made an inventory error myself and only counted 5 of my 6 2014 Prizm Draft boxes on this schedule, so I'll pencil in another one here.)

NOV 2017
2014 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Baseball Hobby Box

So that's the plan.. but we'll see if I follow through with it or not. Hopefully the fact that I've posted it here will make me feel too guilty to give in and rip anything sooner. I'm also gonna label them and store them out of the way to help avoid temptation.

Some good stuff to look forward to. But for now, hey, I just got a blaster of 2016 Donruss Optic for a few bucks less than SRP off eBay. I won it on Thanksgiving Day, and the seller was just a few zipcodes over, so it arrived very quickly. There are a couple blasters of this on the shelf at my local grocery store that I've been tempted to grab, but I had some patience and saved a little money by shopping online.

Let's see what I got...

Pack 1 is heavy on Rated Rookies. I collect Jankowski and Donaldson, so this is a fine pack. The Lopez is a refractor, though you can't tell in the photo.

Pretty sure I already have that Sale DK (wait, actually no, I had the refractor, not the base). Strasburg is a PC guy. The Sonny Gray is a refractor.

A pink Strasburg (I call them Bubblegum Refractors, personally) and a Harper DK I needed. Nice.
David Wright is a refractor.

Bubblegum Dee Gordon. I might need that refractor Cutch DK, but it looks familiar.

Oh hey, there's a bubblegum version of the Cutch, as well.. cool. Also a Machado DK that I might've needed and a Donaldson insert that doesn't look too bad.

Final pack is a Tyler White hot pack, though I'm more happy about the Junior insert and the Trout base.

So that was an ok box for me. No hits or even any numbered cards, but picked up several PC additions. The rest are available for trade, so just give me a shout if you're interested in anything.

Thanks for stopping by.

a box of 2016 Diamond Kings

Here's another box from my recent splurge of unopened product.

Yesterday I featured a box of 2014 Panini Prizm Draft. Well, here's some yin to go with that yang. 2016 Panini Diamond Kings. Both logoless, but DK aims for more of a vintage feel, so less shiny than Prizm, and obviously there are more recognizable names here than the draft pick product.

The first thing you need to know about Diamond Kings is the cards smell like damp ground after a fresh rain. That's kinda cool, I guess.

I got a blaster of 2016 DK a few months ago, but I still had a lingering hankering to bust a hobby box, hoping for something cool. So let's see how I did.

Let's kick it off with the winners of yesterday's big playoff game. I'm rooting for the Cubs, but credit where credit's due. Really I'm just excited that no matter who wins at this point, it's a team that hasn't won in a long time (especially with the Jays on the ropes). The Joc is an Artist's Proof parallel #'d /99.

My 2 promised hits left something to be desired. Stephen Piscotty is a decent pull, I suppose, and this relic/stickergraph is #'d /99. And this would have been a good box for a D-backs fan.. The Yasmany dual relic is #'d /49 (would have been cooler if they had slapped an auto sticker on it). And the black framed Socrates Brito is /99.

The pointless photo variations are kinda lame. Set collectors must hate this product. Same numbering on the back of each pair. Is one of these rarer than the other? No way to tell. I'm not gonna bother googling to try to find out.

Some decent inserts. And my luck pulling Pirates continues, as the lowest numbered card of the box was the Starling Marte mini, #'d 7/25 on the back.

And a few other keepers.

That was a fine box, I guess. But I definitely feel like I got my fill of DK this year now, and don't plan to pick up any more unless maybe if it's a screaming deal.

Thanks for stopping by.

finally a box of Donruss Optic in my sights

I've had mixed results during my weekend alone. On the plus side, I was able to fix the water pressure in the bathroom sink thanks to a helpful YouTube video. However my attempt to fix the springs to help our windows open and close easier was a disaster, resulting is shouting and smashing. Good thing my wife and dog don't leave me alone too often, as I seem to liable to lose my temper when there's no one around to judge me for being a hotheaded asshole.

But mainly I've just been hanging out and watching baseball.

I also hit the grocery store for some essentials this morning, and lo and behold I finally found a blaster of 2016 Donruss Optic there.

A couple inserts to start off with. These probably won't stay in my collection long. I just mailed off some Giants to ARPSmith, but the Cueto will likely be in the next mailing to him. As for the Schwarber, Cubs are in demand in my tradebox, so always nice to pull decent cards of them.

Here are a couple base refractors. I'm starting to get a nice little Carlos Correa PC going.

These bubblegumfractors as I call them seem to be one per pack. The Machado is a keeper for me, with the rest up for trade.

Some Diamond Kings. The Cargo is a refractor. These are reserved for Twitch if he needs them, seeing as he called dibs a while back. I should hang onto the Kemp but I don't really want to.

Some Rated Rookies, with Jorge Lopez being a refractor.

Base cards of guys I collect.

And the rest. These are up for trade.

This was definitely one of the more underwhelming boxes of the stuff I've seen. No hits or even a single gosh darn serial numbered card. A bit of a disappointment, but I guess they can't all be winners. I probably won't pick up any more of this-- at least not at full retail price, that's for sure.

But yeah, a few cards for my collection and a decent amount of trade bait. Let me know if any of the available cards caught your eye and you'd like to trade. Thanks!

2016 Diamond Kings blaster

I recently worked out a deal with a guy named Jim S. who grabbed a few things off my Amazon wishlist for me. Included was a blaster of 2016 Diamond Kings which had some good stuff in it.

Howdy! That's a nice hit. Rob Refsnyder has been playing well for the Yankees.

Dual jersey relic stickergraph numbered 4/25. eBay tells me this is about a $10 card. If any of you Yankees fans have eyes for it and have a comparable card that fits in better with my collection, I'm up for trade offers.

Here's a red framed card numbered /99 on the back. Frankie Montas is currently with the Dodgers organization.

A smattering of inserts, heavy on catchers (surprisingly not in catchers' gear, which you'd think would be in Panini's wheelhouse thanks to less logos to worry about). Funny to see Jose Bautista's iconic bat flip on a Panini card, seeing as how it's sort of ingrained as a Topps card image by this point.

Here are some base cards of dudes I collect.

I thought it was odd that I pulled 2 Miguel Sano cards from the same blaster, but upon juxtaposing them, the uniform is obviously different. They both have the same card number on the back, so I guess one must be a variation or something. Seems kinda pointless.

So yeah, there were the highlights. It was a decent blaster, thanks mostly to the /25 auto I pulled. Diamond Kings tend to give you decent bang for your buck, so I like to rip some to check out, though I'm not sure I'll go out of my way to pick up any more this year.

a box of 2014 Panini Classics

I've posted about busting the two hobby boxes of 2016 Topps Archives I pre-ordered a few months ago (see the best pull of my life and the Fantastical Machine trilogy), but I also grabbed something else to help bump me past the free shipping threshold at Dave & Adam's: a box of 2014 Panini Classics Baseball. It's a pretty nice mid-level release that seems to be a one-and-done product, as there was no 2015 version and no word yet of a 2016 release on the horizon either. I've seen 2014 Classics on blogs and gotten 2 or 3 cards from eBay or traders, but hadn't ripped any of it myself. I even put it on my Christmas list last year, but Santa passed on it, so I had to take matters into my own hands. I'm glad I did, as it turned out to be a pretty solid box for me.

This would have been a nice box for a Red Sox fan. Not a bad David Ortiz jersey/bat dual relic /99. He's having a great farewell season, despite being in a lot of pain.
And while this is the Cecchini brother I don't actively collect, I don't mind adding a /299 auto of Gavin's big brother Garin. He was sold to the Brewers after last season, and has spent all of 2016 in AAA so far.

My other 2 hits were definitely solid, as well.. a couple auto/relic cards each #'d /299.
Nick Castellanos is a fine young third baseman who seems to get better every year.
Jameson Taillon made his MLB debut earlier this month and looks to be an important arm in the Pirates rotation going forward. My biggest complaint about 2014 Panini Classics (well, besides no logos) is that all the autos seem to be stickers.. all the autos I got, at least.

I got a couple Timeless Tributes rainbow foil (or whatever) parallels #'d /149, both guys I kinda-sorta collect a little-- Billy Hamilton and Mark McGwire-- so that's cool I guess.

Here are a couple big names you're not likely to pull from a new pack of Topps cards. It's still odd to me that Topps has been shunning Bonds, while giving love in recent products to Canseco, McGwire, Clemens, and Palmeiro. Maybe Barry won't sign with them or something?

I was happy to come up with a fat stack of keepers for my collection, a few of which are shown here.
Looks like Panini got a little out of control photoshopping out stuff, and photoshopped out Mike Schmidt's mustache! LOL

While most of my interest was with the old-timers, there are plenty of cool active stars in there too.

So yeah, this was a fun box to bust.

Easing the hangover with a 2015 Panini Contenders blaster

Had a wild weekend by my standards. My old bandmate Karie from back in San Diego was in town. She actually lives in Southern Oregon now, and may move to Portland in a few months when she finishes school. Anyways, I hadn't seen her in a few years, and we got together with our significant others on Saturday for an evening of pizza, booze, and catching up. She doesn't usually drink, but it was her spring break, so she was living it up and got pretty silly. I kept up with her for the most part, partying a little harder than I normally do. I'll leave out some incriminating details, but we ended up dancing at a dark goth club, complete with smoke machine, coffin, and a DJ of indeterminate gender cranking up Sisters of Mercy.

Fun night out, but needless to say, I was a bit hungover Sunday. While grocery shopping, I took a curious look, as I usually do, at the small trading card section. A blaster of 2015 Panini Contenders caught my eye. I've seen a couple recent blog posts featuring the product that were generally favorable, and the promise of 2 guaranteed autos in a regular-sized/priced blaster sounded good to me. I figured I could use ripping a few packs as a pick-me-up, so for the first time in 2016, I pulled the trigger on sportscards from the grocery store.

Part of me is hoping Dansby Swanson is a bust. Because if he's good, I might have to start collecting him, and I don't want to collect anybody named Dansby. No offense to you other Dansbys out there.
As for the first auto, Max Wotell was a high school lefty drafted by the Mets in the 3rd round last year. Not all that notable, but we'll see if he makes something of himself over the next few years.

A.J. Minter hot box! My second auto is among this trio of Minter cards. The start to his pro career has been stalled by Tommy John surgery before he was even drafted (taken by Atlanta in the 2nd round last year), but he's got high expectations for when he's finally ready to go.

Here are some young guys with names I recognized.

That Tony Gwynn card was great pull for me. I didn't even realize he was in this product, so it was a pleasant surprise. I obviously collect Tony, and SDSU Gwynn cards are an extra special treat.
The Frank Thomas is a cool PC addition as well (though as been pointed out already, seems dumb to put the word "colors" in the name of an insert set that doesn't feature color photography). Nice that they added some oldies to the checklist to broaden the appeal so it's not all just young draft picks.

A couple more HOF guys I collect. Always happy to add new Schmidt and Molitor cards.

So that does it for the highlights. The rest were mostly kids I wasn't familiar with. I'll have to do some research to get them sorted by MLB team into my tradebox. Nothing huge, but as far as retail purchases go, this one was free of any buyer's remorse. The Gwynn put a smile on my face, the 2 autos were as decent as could be expected, and I got my first couple cards of hotshit prospect Dansby. So I'm counting this one as a win.

Thanks for reading. Big trade roundup post coming up hopefully tomorrow.

2015 Diamond Kings box break

Here's the second box I've busted from my Christmas haul. I've seen 2015 Diamond Kings on other blogs with generally favorable reviews, and received 2 or 3 cards in trade packages, and they seemed cool enough, so went ahead and put a box on my wishlist. The "artistic renderings" style helps downplay the lack of logos, and the cards are slightly textured with that canvas-like feel, a bit reminiscent of UD Masterpieces.

Let's jump right in with the hits..

I only pulled one auto, but it's a pretty decent Kevin Plawecki card with a couple jersey pieces thrown in, #'d 32/99 on the back. After a hot start to his major league career with the Mets this past season, Kevin cooled off a bit, but still a name to watch.

And that Yu Darvish / Masahiro Tanaka dual relic #'d 10/25 could turn out to be a sweet pull if they can both stay healthy going forward.

The Deven Marrero relic mini is #'d 8/25 on the back. (Yep, I pulled two /25 cards, but I've still yet to ever personally pull a Christmas Card. *sigh* Someday!)

Here are a couple neat framed cards. Danny Santana is #'d 70/99. Herb Pennock (unnumbered) isn't a guy I was familiar with, but turns out he's a HOFer from the Ruth-era with an interesting career.

Here are some dudes I collect. The multicolored backgrounds look pretty nice together in a page-type setting.

Some more cool guys. Pulling this Kirby made me realize he hasn't been included in any Topps product for a few years, as far as I can recall. Cool to see sleeveless Ted Kluszewski show up in a new set. The Walter Alston at the bottom seems to be a rainbow foil parallel or something and is #'d 1/99 on the back.

Some inserts and minis. The Paul Waner mini came out of the pack with a dinged corner; lame. I love nickname cards, so the Johnny Bench "Little General" card was neat to get.
As was...

Here's a card I was hoping to pull! I think I saw this on Fuji's blog a while back and liked how Panini slyly snuck in a team name with this "Mr. Padre" card.

So there you have it. While it provided me with several PC additions and some decent trade fodder, I feel like this box was maybe one decent hit away from being a "good box" and instead it was just kinda "meh" overall.

One thing that bummed me out was pulling four blank dummy cards. I understand trying to thwart pack-searchers, but it's a kick in the crotch to pull a thick card that turns out to be nothing but a plain white card. At least as someone who occasionally makes sketch cards, I can use them for drawing on.

Thanks for taking a moment to check out the box with me. Still got the 2015 Bowman Chrome box and the big boy: 2014 Topps Tribute.. excited for that! Those are coming up soon, as well as closing out Gavin Month, then some fun stuff lined up to kick off 2016.