a couple cheap cards

I received this Tony Clark card in the mail yesterday, coincidentally the same day he shockingly resigned as executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association. My understanding is that he was being investigated for financial curiosities, and that investigation revealed naughty emails with his wife's sister, whom he had given a job with the MLBPA. These days, it seems powerful people just "ignore/lie/power-thru" after they get caught doing something they really shouldn't have (*cough* Epstein files *cough*), so good for Tony Clark for showing himself out, I guess.

I don't PC the guy, but rather I'm trying to complete the full set of Bowman refractor reprints from 1998. The insert set is 50 cards, featuring highlights from the original run of vintage Bowman, plus the Topps' revival from '89 through '96 (Bowman Chrome began in 1997, so these inserts are like a greatest hits of their pre-Chrome years.. "Refractors that never were (of base cards that were)" if you will, so to speak). Tony Clark is an odd choice to reprint with the hindsight that he was never a big star, though at that point he had just followed up a third-place ROY campaign in '96 with a solid 1997 that saw him garner some down-ballot MVP votes. He was an All-Star in 2001 and also had an impressive 2005 season, but he only accrued a dozen wins above replacement in his career, all said and done.

Anyways, I've still got a ways to go with this set, but will be bumped past the 50% threshold once my latest COMC order arrives later this spring. But yeah, I've still been hunting down refractor reprints from the late 90s and early 00s, actively building various runs that I'm excited to post about after completion.

I'm reluctant to say this is the final COMC order I'm waiting on, but I've definitely been trying to avoid buying from them since this batch. You'd figured after tripling their shipping rates that they would use that extra money to hire an additional order picker or two, but nope, they seem to be backed up again maybe even worse than they got during the pandemic, with shipping estimates pushed out for several months. The vibe I'm getting isn't "wow, COMC is doing lots of business" but rather "wow, COMC is struggling and folks are rushing to get their cards out before the site owners pull the plug and complete the transition to eBay-consignment account only". But I don't really know. Times are bad everywhere, it seems, as society is sapped of humanity and herded into an AI curated existence whether we like it or not. But back to bitching about online card shops, Sportlots keep updating their site to make it harder to use. That Canadian online card shop folded (I never got around to ordering from them, but they seemed to get positive marks from the bloggers who did). I've tried to get more active trading at TCDb but it's been an uphill slog and my successful transactions there seem to be few and far between. (I've recently finished sorting a monster box with my available Archives/Ginter/Heritage that I plan to enter in my "For Trade" list soon and hope that helps improve my trade-matching.)

Oh, and the USPS has been sucking lately, too. I had a Nolan Ryan reprint refractor show up in the tracking as delivered that I never got. :( And that Tony Clark card that arrived yesterday took 2 whole weeks to get to me from Florida.

And back to that. the eBay seller had a promotional discount offer to entice you to buy more than one card from him, so I took a quick browse of his inventory and found another card that caught my eye at a good price:

This is the 102nd Dick Allen card of mine to be logged at TCDb, and forgive the language but I'm still downright tickled pink to be his #1 ranked collector there, even now a ways into his HOF inclusion, causing him to default into being a guy that Hall of Fame collectors now collect. I figured a more focused supercollector would have knocked me off the top spot by now. But nope, second-place is currently a 3-way tie with 84.

Back to the card, this is a Blue Ice Prizm parallel of Dick Allen's 2025 Panini Prizm card. It's my first of the 33-card rainbow, though I also have a Red Pulsar Prizm and Ruby Wave Prizm pending in that eventual COMC shipment. I didn't remind myself of that fact until after snagging the Blue Ice one, so I got lucky not to double up. I like that the card shows Dick in his later Phillies stint, something you don't see on many of his cards, especially an action shot. On the downside, lawyers have instructed the cardmakers to remove logos and wordmarks from the photo due to the fact that another cardmaker paid a lot of money to have lawyers say that only they can make cards that have those special logos and words. Man, everything bad in this world always boils down to greed. Humans be greedy, put that on our headstone.

LOL, I'm sorry this quick post showing off a 2-card mailday turned into a lot of negative ranting! I just thought it was a crazy coincidence the random Tony Clark card showed up in my mailbox the very day his career took a sudden tumble. 

For a more positive coincidence, I'll mention that this past Monday I was out walking the dog making our way home and I saw what I first figured might be a crow with a big piece of bread in its beak (lots of crows around here), but as it flew closer, it became clear that, no, it was a bald eagle! Came in kinda low but it was quick and I didn't want to take my eyes off it to fiddle with my phone, so no photos. Don't see those very often in my neighborhood, and so to get a bald eagle flyover, on Presidents' Day no less, was a neat experience.

Oh, and another happy thing to mention.. I was supposed to have jury duty today, but thankfully I got an email yesterday saying nevermind I'm not needed. I wouldn't mind being on a jury, but what had me stressed is waking up early enough to get downtown by 8am. I'm a night owl like Night Owl and don't usually get to bed until around/after midnight. But instead of being sleep-deprived waiting to see if I get called in, I got to sleep in and then ramble out a blog post with my morning. So that's cool! :)

I'm finally out of Prizm!

With the break I'm featuring today, I've officially depleted my Black Friday stockpile of boxes from last year. I'm very happy with how the plan turned out, and proud that I had the restraint to stick to the schedule I came up with. I really enjoyed having a box waiting for me every month. It's nice to have something to look forward to, ya know? I fully intend to keep it going and replenish my supply this coming Black Friday, assuming I can find enough quality deals to make it financially feasible.

One product I will not be likely to purchase more of, however, is 2014 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Picks. I snatched up several of these boxes last year on sale for less than the price of a blaster each, with the main draw being 3 or 4 on-card prospect autos per box. But now you can bet I'm frickin' sick of these cards and I'm relieved to be done with the boxes. Let's check out what the final box had for me:

Solid showing of autos, with a base, purple (/149), and 2 blue mojo (/75), but no marquee players really jumping out.
Josh Morgan is an infielder in the Rangers organization. He turns 22 later this month and has so far hit .291 as a pro.
Isan Diaz is a 21-year old middle infielder currently in Milwaukee's system. He only hit .222 this past season in the Carolina Leauge, though he did crank 13 taters.
Erick Fedde made his big league debut with the Nats this past season, though the 3 starts he got weren't pretty. Hopefully he can build off that next year.
Jake Stinnett has shown signs of brilliance, including a stint in AA this year giving up just 1 run in 9 games. Could become a valuable arm for the Cubs in the next couple years.

I've now opened nearly a dozen boxes of this stuff, and I'm bummed I never pulled autos of the 2 big names available in the set: Trea Turner and Kyle Schwarber. I also didn't pull anything very low numbered (would have loved a "black finite parallel" [superfractor] of anybody).. they must have printed up a ton of this stuff. Oh well.

My colored refractors included Ross Kivett (currently out of affiliated ball), Justus Sheffield (one of the Yankees' top pitching prospects), and ol' Rusney Castillo (stuck in AAA purgatory with his big contract).

As far as the regular refractors in the box, well there's Erick Fedde again. The Minors Gold insert of Joc Pederson is kinda nice in that it's a known guy rather than a "who?" guy. I know the value of Joc's cards has plummeted from their peak of 2 or 3 years ago, but he did just have an impressive World Series performance, batting .333 with 3 ding-dongs in a losing cause, so maybe that'll bump his collectability up a little.

So there you are, hopefully the final break of 2014 Prizm Draft you'll ever see on my blog. Thanks for putting up with it! Have a great weekend, everybody.

Prizm Bound

I thought last month's box of 2014 Prizm Draft was the penultimate box from my Black Friday stockpile, and so I'd be freed from this product with the next box. But I miscounted and turns out I had 2 left. So I get to use that fancy word penultimate again.

Decent auto haul, with one base auto, a couple red parallels (#/100) and a "blue mojo" (#75).
Grayson Greiner has made it up to AAA, and could find himself as a backup catcher in Detroit within the next couple years. Photos of guys in catching gear are nice on unlicensed cards so you don't miss the logos too much.
Chase Vallot is a catcher in the Royals org. Nothing too notable yet, but he's only 21, so we'll see.
Raisel Iglesias (listed as "Raicel" on the card.. is that an error?) is already an established major leaguer. He was a dependable bullpen arm for the Reds in 2017, leading the team in ERA (2.49) and ERA+ (177). He had 28 saves (for a last-place team that only won 68 games) and was 2nd in the NL with 57 games finished. And the photo shows him in his Cuban uniform, so Panini is able to squeeze in a logo.. cool!
Casey Gillaspie was traded to the White Sox from the Rays for Dan Jennings earlier this year. Hit hit .223 with 15 homers in AAA this season.

I was happy to pull that Trea Turner Minors Gold. I've opened a bunch of boxes of this product, and always had these inserts fall one-per-box, so it pleasantly surprised me to pull 2 in this one. Michael Chavis had a nice 2017, with a .910 OPS splitting time between A and AA.

It's odd that some guys in this product have base cards in addition to the Draft Class inserts, though some guys, such as Turner and Conforto, only have inserts. I didn't realize that till this box.. I'm like, "damn, this is like the 3rd time I've pulled Trea Turner's Draft Class card, but haven't pulled his base card yet!" and it's because he doesn't have a base card in there.

Regular refractors ("prizm prizms") I pulled include Dan Altavilla (pitched ok in Seattle this year), speedy Derek Hill (100 career stolen bases in his 4 years in the minors), and Grant Hockin (who seems to have problems staying healthy).

The colored refractors of the box weren't bad: Faded Jays prospect Dalton Pompey (/100), our second appearance of Grayson Greiner (/60), and perhaps the best card of the box, Kyle Schwarber (/100). Schwarber is another guy who doesn't have a base card in this set, just 3 different inserts. He's struggled since his World Series heroics of last year. I'm sure Cubs fans are hoping he can tap into his October magic once again.

So there you go. For the sub-blaster price I paid for it, I'd say that was a solid box.

Only one box of this stuff left and I'm beginning to give up on my hopes of pulling a Trea or Scwarbs auto. But we'll find out next month.

Oh! Since all this month I'm showing off my musical memorabilia and whatnot, let's take a look at a couple autographed CDs before finishing this post. These 2 are technically my wife's, and she got them signed in person at record store appearances a few years before we hooked up, but I happen to like both artists too, so I'm happy to absorb them into "our" collective collection. (I don't have any interesting Social Distortion stuff, which is too bad because it would have really tied the post together!)

Pretty cool signed copy of Sleater-Kinney's album The Woods. All 3 members of the trio are accounted for here: Corin Tucker, Carrie Brownstein, and Janet Weiss. Carrie is the most recognizable these days thanks to starring on the show Portlandia. (And card collectors may know her for having a First Pitch insert in 2016 Topps.) But yeah, they're probably my wife's all-time favorite band. We saw them on their reunion tour a couple years or so back and had a great time.

And here's a signed cd by Feist. Her biggest hit was that "1,2,3,4" song that you've probably heard in commercials even if you're not really into this type of music. I saw her live once back in 2006 and she put on a great show. (One of my goals for Rocktober is to finally finish the big list of shows I've seen.. been working on it off and on for years. So hopefully I'll get that completed and feature it in a future post.)

That's it for today. Have a great weekend, everybody!

2014 Prizm Draft box for August

Ok, you regular readers here know the drill: I bought a bunch of hobby boxes on sale last Black Friday with the intention of rationing them out over the following year, giving myself an affordable monthly ripping fix. I'm proud to say I've been strong and stuck to the schedule I came up with.

We're now down to the penultimate box of 2014 Panini Draft, which is responsible for about half of my stockpile from Black Friday. Yes, I'm pretty sick of this product by now, but hey, these boxes were cheap, and I still think they were a better purchase than a blaster of Bowman or Donruss or whatever else I would otherwise likely be buying to scratch the pack-opening itch.

The colored refractors in this box weren't bad. Jorge Soler made a name for himself as a hot, young Cub not long ago, though he's faded since being dealt to KC.

Alex Jackson is the coverboy for this product, featured on the box and wrappers, but hasn't made much noise lately. The former 6th-overall pick by Seattle is currently in the Braves organization. These neat looking "Blue Mojo" parallels are #'d /75.

Jared Walker is a corner infielder grinding deep in the Dodgers chain, while Victor Arano is a reliever doing ok with the Phillies' AA club.

And here are the regular refractors ("prizm prizms") of the box.

Monte Harrison is a top-20 prospect for the Brewers with good speed on the basepaths and defense in the outfield.

Miguel Almonte saw brief time in the majors this year and in the Royal's Championship season of 2015. Currently on the DL, but has good numbers in AAA.

Alex Verdugo is having a nice year in AAA and might get a September call-up with the Dodgers. Heard his name a lot around the trading deadline with several teams interested the outfield prospect, but Los Angeles was able to hang onto him.

Taylor Sparks isn't having a very good year, batting .179 on the farm for the Reds.

And the autos. Oh man, that Rusney Castillo auto would have been a sweet hit back when this product first hit shelves! He was hot stuff, getting a huge contract from Boston after coming over from Cuba. But of course he was a huge bust, and is now collecting his fat paycheck in AAA. (For what it's worth, he's having a solid season down in Pawtucket, batting comfortably over .300 with career highs in homers and stolen bases.) This is the first stickergraph I've pulled from the product. The mostly on-card autos are definitely a selling point for me. Another thing odd about the Rusney is he was an international signing, not a draft pick, so seems a little out of place in this set of 2014 draft picks.

Ti'quan Forbes, a third base prospect with the Rangers, hasn't done much yet, but he only turns 21 later this month, so he's got time to get going. Pretty sure I pulled a base auto from him in a previous box. This purple refractor is #/149.

Andrew Morales has been pitching decently in the Cardinals chain, though hasn't made it passed AA yet. The Press Proof parallels are #'d /199.

So this box wasn't too great.. but man, 2 or 3 years ago it would have been exciting to pull a Rusney auto, plus #/75 parallels of Jorge Soler and Alex Jackson. Maybe those guys will eventually reach their potential and become solid major leaguers, but that ship has probably sailed. Oh well, still a fun rip. Sadly, I don't think any of these cards are really keepers for my collection (might want to hang onto the Verdugo, though), so let me know if you're interested in trading for anything (also have lots of base from this product I'd like to unload).
Thanks for reading.

Still serving a prizm sentence

Here's my box of cards for May, another box of 2014 Prizm Draft. Again, I grabbed a few of these for less than a blaster a piece last Black Friday along with some other boxes, and I scheduled them out over the year for a monthly ripping fix. I'm sure you're all bored of these cards at this point, but let's run through the highlights of this box.

Hey, this might be my best pull from the product so far. Aaron Nola has established himself as a solid major leaguer. The guy signs a lot (seems like Topps in particular has flooded the market with his autos in the past couple years), so it's probably not worth too much, but still a nice card to pull.

Keepin' it 100, as the kids say. This red parallel is an eBay 1/1, to use a term everyone hates. Last one made. Woo.

A couple more autos. I think every other box of this stuff I've opened had 4 autos in it, while this one only had 3. But hey, at least all 3 were colored parallels, so that's cool. And I can appreciate that all 3 of these guys have very respectable looking signatures by today's standards (even if they were all pitchers.. and it's a peeve of mine when all hits in a box are pitchers.) I'm not familiar with these 2 guys, so let's look 'em up...
Wow, Grant Hockin didn't last very long in pro ball. Nine games in rookie league in 2014 seems to be his entire career, according to baseball-reference. Bummer.
Ryan Castellani, on the other hand, is still slinging it. The 21-year-old is currently in AA after a solid 2016 with the Modesto Nuts. Wouldn't be surprising to see him make it up to Coors Field in a couple years.

The colored parallels are always appealing, breaking up the metallic monotony of the base cards. Jhoandro Alfaro is out of the game, looks like. Gilbert Lara hasn't done much, still grinding in the low levels of Milwaukee's system. Kyle Freeland made his MLB debut this season and has been doing well for the Rockies so far. James Norwood has been putting up good numbers in the Cubs' system after converting to a late-innings role. The orange parallels are a tough pull, /60.

And finally, some regular refractors (or Prizm Prizms, if you prefer the official name). I don't think any of these guys are all that notable, as far as I know.

So yeah, that was another box. Again, not gonna blow you away, but a fun rip for the price, with 3 or 4 solid cards to show for it. Still hoping to pull a Kyle Schwarber or Trea Turner auto, but I'm running out of these boxes.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

A box for March

It's a new month, so I grabbed another box to bust out of my Black Friday stash. I gotta say I'm happy with how this idea has gone for me so far, always having a box to look forward to, and it keeps me from getting too tempted to spend money on boxes elsewhere. Sure, it prevents me from ripping the latest stuff (no 2017 Heritage here), but that doesn't bother me too much.

Scheduled for March is another box of 2014 Panini Prizm Draft, one of the several I grabbed at a sweet sub-blaster price. Still hoping to land an auto of Trea Turner and/or Kyle Schwarber. Let's crack 'er open!

The refractors were heavy on Yankee pitchers.

Nobody too interesting in the colored refractors. Those "electric blue mojo prizm" (or whatever) look kinda cool and this was the lowest-numbered parallel of the box (/75), but Matt Railey is an outfielder who hit .165 in A-ball last year, so...

And the autos. Ugh. All pitchers.. Always a bummer for me when all the promised hits are pitchers. Nothing low-numbered here. Kodi Medeiros has a minor league career ERA of 5.34 going into 2017. Nick Howard is nearly the same, at 5.38. Luis Ortiz is a top prospect for the Brewers, so I'd say this "Press Proof" /199 is the best card of the box, but I already pulled an auto of his from a previous box, so not too exciting for me. Chris Ellis reached AAA (and sucked) in the Braves org last year.

So yeah, the box was pretty much a dud. At least there was one base card I was happy to pull: a Michael Conforto "Draft Class" insert that I didn't yet have in my modest MC PC. Sounds like he's off to a hot start in Spring Training this year, so hopefully that carries into the regular season.

Besides the Conforto, all the cards in this post are available for trade, though I might be reluctant to part with the Luis Ortiz auto unless for something decent.

That's it for today. Thanks for reading.

Rainbow Complete! Gavin LaValley 2014 Prizm Draft auto

There were 9 different versions of Gavin LaValley's autograph card in 2014 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Picks And Prospects Extravaganza or whatever it was officially called. Only one 1/1 (thankfully no printing plates), so it was do-able. Took me a little over 2 years, but I just now completed the rainbow. The gold /10 was the last one I bought [eBay], though the green /35 was the last to arrive, a COMC pickup.

Now, this rainbow only counts for his autograph card. LaValley also has a base card in the product (different photo, so different rainbow.. in my eyes, at least). Still missing a couple low-numbered cards for that one. But yeah, for now, let's give this rainbow its moment in the sun...

base

Press Proof, /199

Purple, /149

Red, /100

Blue Mojo, /75

Orange, /60

Green, /35

Gold, /10

Black Finite, 1/1

Feels good to have finished off that goal! This is the biggest rainbow I've ever completed, and it'll likely be a long while till I top it.

New Years post of goals, grades, and a box break

Happy New Year!

- Every year my #1 collecting goal is the same: to have zero bobbleheads in my collection. How'd I do this year?

I failed! Rod saddled me a few bobbleheads and I haven't cast them away yet. (Just teasing here; I'm very grateful for being on the receiving end of Rod's generosity. That didn't sound right, but you know what I mean.)
Goal: Have no bobbleheads
Grade: F

- In 2015, I completed 1973 Topps, the first vintage set I ever completed. I nearly followed that up by completing 1971 Topps in 2016.. and I thought I had.. but then when I went to sort and collate it all out, I found myself one card short. I've already snagged it off COMC, though, and it should be in-hand shortly. So stay tuned for that upcoming post. But yeah, that goal didn't quite make it in time for the 2016 cut off. That's ok, because I don't tend to worry about collecting goals like that. It'll happen when it happens, or it won't. That said, by the end of 2017, perhaps I'll have finished 1965 Topps. That'd be cool. If you had to wring a 2017 collecting goal out of me (other than no bobbleheads), it'd probably be that (..with 1964 penciled in for 2018, then 1957 Topps in 2019, then I'd have finished all the vintage sets I want to complete. Though if I feel the itch after that, I could possibly see myself going after a late 70s or early 80s set, but no more true vintage.)
Goal: Complete a vintage set I love
Grade: A-

I'm also tantalizingly close to my goal of completing the 2004 Topps Retired autos, with only 2 cards to go (though I also want to upgrade to refractor parallels of them all, and I've still got quite a ways to go for that ultimate collecting goal of mine.)
Goal: Make good progress on 2004 Topps Retired
Grade: A

- My post total on Baseball Card Breakdown was down a little in 2016. After 283 posts in 2014, and 280 in 2015, I was down to only 254. I think the drop was just because I didn't necessarily feel obligated to post every day. Some days I just don't get around to drafting up a post, and I no longer stress out over squeezing a post out when I'm busy. And sometimes a post doesn't get the number of views I think it deserves, so I don't post the next day out of spite. lol
Goal: Post about as frequently as in years past
Grade: B

- I haven't posted about my favorite card of the 2016 because I haven't gotten it yet. But it's supposed to arrive soon via FedEx. Very excited for it!
Goal: Pull a super sick mojo hit.
Grade: A+
Goal: Successfully redeem said card.
Grade: (incomplete.. F for 2016, but early 2017 is looking A) 

- Maybe you remember, I bought a bunch of hobby boxes on sale Black Friday with the intention of doling them out over the year. So far I've been good and patient with them. They're all labeled and hidden away out of sight. I guess a goal for 2017 is to stick with my schedule of spreading out these boxes, and not buy more boxes other than the couple I've been planning on getting.

Let's crack open January's box. It's one of the several boxes of 2014 Prizm Draft on tap for me this year. Each box usually gets you four on-card prospect autos, so for less than the price of a blaster each, I had to grab up a few of them. My hope is to pull a Trea Turner and/or Kyle Schwarber auto, but there's plenty of other good stuff to hope for in there.

I scored a pair of Press Proof parallel autos. Honestly, that's my least favorite parallel, as it's just a base refractor but with a dumb stamp on the side, and numbered /199 on the back. Not familiar with these guys, but let's look 'em up... Nick Howard put up an ERA of 7.58 in 2015 and followed that up with 8.10 in 2016. Next! Luis Ortiz went from Texas to the Brewers in the Jonathan Lucroy trade. His numbers look pretty decent, putting up a 3.08 ERA last year, mostly in AA. And yeah yeah, I know I still use arcane stats like ERA and wins to judge a pitcher, rather than much more accurate metrics that are used these days.

Ha, Gavin LaValley. I've got a ton of his cards, but I think this is the first one I've ever personally pulled from a pack. I've already got this base auto (and nearly all the parallels of it), but still a cool pull for me. As for Forrest Wall (great name!), he was the 35th overall pick of the 2014 draft. Nothing extraordinary, but he's put up decent numbers in the minors so far.

As far as regular refractors, Miguel Sano is a decent one to pull from the one-per-box Minors Gold inserts.

The colored parallels are always the highlight of any Prizm product. Thanks to the 2 auto parallels being Press Proofs rather than color parallels, these 4 are the only color from the box.. kind of a bummer. Reds are /100, powder blue /199, electric blue /75 (these look pretty neat), and green /35.

As far as base card highlights, I pulled the 2 aforementioned big names. So that's cool, I guess.
Goal: Pull some great cards from this box of 2014 Prizm Draft.
Grade: C

Anyways, here's to a great 2017 for ya'll!

Do you think I Blew It with this box of 2014 Prizm Draft?

On more than one occasion, I've stated on this blog that I'm finished with the metallic chrome pajama nightmare that is Panini Prizm. But dang it, guaranteed autos, enough colored parallels to keep the break fresh, and a price that's hard to beat.. I keep coming back.

For just the retail price of a blaster, I threw a box of 2014 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Picks in with my latest Dave & Adam's order.

Let's check out the highlights..

A couple nice cards for me here! The Minors Gold inserts fall one per box, and you definitely can't do better than to pull Mr. Kris Bryant.

I've previously busted 2 or 3 boxes of this product, and I don't recall getting a Prospect Ranker insert before. It's numbered /100 on the back, and as a bonus for me, it's a Padre. I heard Michael Gettys had a big home run in the Arizona Fall League yesterday. So that's pretty cool.

I pulled a couple auto parallels. The green parallels are #'d /35 on the back, and I know firsthand that they're very tough to come by, as the Gavin LaValley auto green parallel is the highest numbered card I'm currently missing in my LaValley supercollection. Imagine if I had pulled that instead of Kyle Freeland here?! That would have been an incredible pull for me. But alas..
I don't know much about Freeland, but he made it up to AAA this season with decent results, so it's likely he'll be pitching in Colorado before long. I feel like I've stockpiled a lot of quality Rockies cards since whenever the last time I traded with a Rockies collector was, so hit me up if you wanna work out a deal.

Pretty sure I pulled a Mitch Keller auto from this product in one of the earlier boxes I busted. But this /100 red parallel is nice, and Pirates hits are always welcomed around here for when I need to return fire toward Bob Walk. Keller had an excellent 2016 in A ball, striking out 138 and walking only 19 in 130.1 innings pitched.

Here are some more parallels. Carson Sands had a rocky year in the minors (5.91 ERA), but I'm sure I can find a Cubs fan to take this /100 red refractor off my hands. Brandon Finnegan pitched ok on a bad Reds team this past season. Cuban signee Dariel Álvarez, here on a /199 blue refractor, has gotten a little taste of the majors, though has yet to stick in Baltimore. John Richy and Derek Campbell, teammates in Clearwater this past season, are regular non-numbered refractors (yes, I know Panini calls them prizms, but I don't care.)

Scott Blewett hot box! Base card, Draft Class insert, Draft Class refractor, and autograph. Scott has the best looking signature of the box, I'll give him that. The 20-year-old had a respectable year in the Sally League, putting up a 4.31 ERA.

So there you have it. For 20 bucks, I got 3 on-card prospect autographs, plus a sweet Kris Bryant insert and a few more decent cards, so I'm considering this a good break.

I won't mind hanging onto these cards and hoping one or two of these kids becomes a star.. but that said, these are all available for trade except the two cards in the first photo. Plus plenty of base cards I didn't bother to post, if anybody's working on a team set. So just let me know if you'd like to work out a trade for anything. Thanks!

My first Blowout Cards order (is a good one)

Not that I'm a stickler for store loyalty, but when I buy a box of cards online, it's pretty much always from eBay or occasionally Dave & Adam's Card World. But a week or so ago, somebody in my feed retweeted about a good deal Blowout Cards had going for the July 4th weekend and I took a look and ended up getting in on the action.

I had been wanting to pick up a few magnetic cases, particularly for some fat cards that I didn't have good storage for. So I threw a bunch of various sized magnetic cases into my cart until I had enough to make the shipping fee worth it, plus get me to the threshold for using a $5 off coupon code I found with a quick google search.

Ah, that's better.. some old cards of mine in nice new cases befitting cards of their stature.

But the catalyst for the order was a price I found hard to resist on a hobby box of 2015 Panini Prizm, about half off of what you'd find elsewhere. While I'm pretty burnt out on the metallic chrome overload that this product shows up with every year, I hadn't ripped any of the 2015 version, and it was cheap for 2 promised autos, plus the usual pretty and/or numbered parallels. (That said, I kinda hope the fact that Blowout was blowing out these boxes means they haven't been selling well and hopefully Panini mercifully lets the product line die after this year.)

But as for this box... would my recent hot hand busting boxes continue? Let's check it out..

Well, it was a Barry Bonds hot box, with a base card, a refractor, and a tie-dye parallel. Serial numbered 10/50, that crazy hippy-looking card is now the scarcest item in my modest Bonds PC.

From tie-dye to die-cut, Panini delivers with oddly shaped cards. Looks like established players get a badge shape, while up-and-coming kids get a pillar thing.

More inserts. Looks like Passion is the insert set where Panini snuck in some interesting photos (as all the rest of the cards in the product are boring shots you'd expect). The Fireworks cards are a bit of a head-scratcher, but hey, a couple guys I collect, so I'm happy with them.

Shiny parallels. Love the trippy effect on the Polanco. It's #'d /99 and will likely walk the plank to Bob Walk one of these days. The Greinke is #'d /10, which would be a pretty nice pull, but I don't collect him, and pretty much nobody else does either. He's among the best pitchers of recent memory, but he hops teams too much and seems like kind of a jerk, so his cards don't have many collectors out there.

A couple St. Louis parallels. I think the Lackey is /149(?) and the Carpenter /75.

More refractors and another insert.

Some base cards of dudes I collect. While I'm still not crazy about the base cards in this product, I'll give them credit that they seem to get a little better looking every year. (ie, the first set was the worst.)

And grand finale:

The autos. Jay Buhner #'d /99 and Carlos Gomez /25. Not bad! Buhner had a very nice career. Gomez had a couple impressive years for the Brewers. I don't collect either of these guys and chances are they won't stick in my collection longterm, but at least I have trader buddies who could give them good homes.

So yeah, decent box. Non-PC guys available for trade, so let me know if anything caught your eye.
That's it for this time. Thanks for reading!