The Redemption Has Arrived! Strasburg?

Hey guys, Drew back here! I'm in a really good mood today, considering I finished my winter track season off yesterday at the sectional meets where I did fairly well, and have gotten a TON of awesome mail in lately! However, nothing topped this one. Last Saturday, I got a paper in the mail saying that a package from TriStar was missed, and I needed to sign for it. I assumed that maybe TriStar sent me a box to review, so I got a little excited, but on Tuesday, I realized that this wasn't the TriStar I thought it was. It was actually one of those tiny little Topps redemption envelopes, and I immediately knew what it was. I could not wait and I ripped the envelope open to reveal this beauty...

Woah. If you don't remember my box break of 2010 Topps 206, Dad and I pulled a redemption for an autograph of Stephen Strasburg. While I really wanted to sell it because of all the hype, I decided to keep it to remember one of the greatest pulls my Dad and I have ever had. My grandma bought me the box of 2010 Topps 206 from our local hobby shop as a gift for my 1st quarter grades, and here in February the card is finally mine!

Topps couldn't have done a better job with the design of this card, and it truly looks incredible! The redemption called for an American Caramels autograph of him, which would have been a sticker autograph, however, I think Topps decided that an on card auto would be more fitting for one of the biggest prospects of all time.

Now that I own an autograph of Mr. Strasburg, I hope for all the best for his career, not just for the sake of the value of this pull but for baseball as well. Thanks Topps!

See Ya!

Trip to the Shop.. Nice Pull!

Hey guys, Drew back here. While I'm on the weekend I figured I'd catch up and post a little more. Last weekend after some shopping I stopped at a card shop, not the usual one, and got 3 packs and some supplies. I got 1 pack of 2010 Topps Update, 1 pack of 2010 Topps 206, and 1 pack of 2010 Panini Threads Football. Here are the results:

2010 Topps Update Baseball:

- Marco Scutaro
- Milton Bradley
- Ryan Church
- Lance Zawadski RC
- John Lackey
- David Freese
- Jonathan Lucroy RC
- Adam LaRoche Gold /2010
- Million Card Giveaway (Redeemed 1980 Barry Foote)
- David Wright Topps Attax

Not exciting at all, moving along.

2010 Topps 206:

- Alex Rios
- Yogi Berra
- Brian Roberts
- Nick Johnson (:P)
- Rick Porcello
- Rickie Weeks
- Matt Kemp
- Julio Borbon Bronze Border
- John Maine American Caramels Mini

Other than Berra, this was another waste of 4 bucks. But, maybe the last pack will be good?

2010 Panini Threads Football:

- Carnell "Cadillac" Williams
- Heath Miller
- Chris Johnson
- Jay Cutler
- Mike Sims-Walker
- Tony Romo
- Visanthe Shiancoe
- Dallas Clark

But thats not all!

- Dexter McCluster Letterman "U" Rookie Auto /450!

Pretty happy about this pull. McCluster seems fairly popular in the hobby, this card selling for around $20. He was a 2nd round pick by the Chiefs in the 2010 NFL Draft, and he is a great athlete. This year he's caught 15 passes for 147 yards and a touchdown. Hopefully he gets more touches in the future and this card can go up in value!

See Ya!

2010 Topps 206 Box Break- HUGE PULL!

Hey guys, Drew back here. I know, I know. Back on August 31st, I threw up a rant post on this set, because I didn't like the looks of it. The creepy mug shots scared me and the back variations were dumb. But, yesterday, my grandma took me to the card shop just for the heck of it, and she bought me a box. I got to pick what I wanted as long as it was relatively cheap, and I saw this, and decided on it over the new Topps Chrome. I had a great experience with the first 2 packs, the first card being a Strasburg and a cycle mini was found too. I kinda just got it just because I need to get back in the hobby, and maybe this could do it. Let's see how this box went...

PRODUCT CONTENT
20 Packs Per Box
9 Cards Per Pack
180 Cards Per Box
1 Mini and 1 Bronze Parallel Card Per Pack!
1 Autograph Per Box
1 Relic Per Box
Look for Printing Plates, Mini Booklets, Silk Cards, and original buybacks!

Base Set: 156/300 (52%)

Stars


Yankees


Rookies (Heyward!)


Legends

I am starting to really like some of these. There are many boring cards in the set, but the Yankees cards look good, and the legends/star players are awesome looking too. I love the Yogi Berra, Lou Gehrig, and Reggie Jackson cards! Also pulled a Heyward rookie, which was cool too!

Base SP's: 3/50 (6%)

These are the hat variations, pretty lame idea, but it is helpful to recognize it easier. The Musial is beautiful while I could care less about the Braun and Bays, kinda boring looking.

Bronze Variations: 20/300 (6%)

These look better this year, but again, they are so pointless! The Burnett is going to the Yankees collection (..unfortunately), and I'm keeping the Longoria too because it's just a really nice card. The other bronzes were: Jake Peavy, Aaron Hill, Chris Iannetta, Denard Span, Aramis Ramirez, Allen Craig (RC), Raul Ibanez, Marco Scutaro, Scott Rolen, and Jason Bartlett, which are all for trade.

Historical Events Minis: 5/20 (25%)

These are so boring, and I absolutely can't stand why Topps has to use dumb gimmicks for EVERY set! Tribute, Ginter, 206, what else? Really? I did kinda get a kick out of the guy jumping out of the burning balloon into the Hudson River, since the river is close to me. I might keep that but the rest are certainly for trade or headin to the campfire.

Minis:
Piedmont- 5 (Howie Kendrick, Barry Zito, Josh Hamilton, Clayton Kershaw, James Shields)
Caramels- 5 (Ryan Doumit, Roy Oswalt, Lou Gehrig, Akinori Iwamura, John Maine)
Polar Bear- 2 (Manny Ramirez, Michael Bourn)
Old Mill- 1 (Joba Chamberlain)

Fronts


Backs

I really like the look of the minis, when they aren't offcenter/miscut. Many of these have at least a little of that. Some of my favorites are of course the Gehrig, which is absolutely gorgeous, the Joba Chamberlain, and the Josh Hamilton. The rest are for trade!

Topps Personalities Minis: 1 (Chris Holmes- Topps Brand Manager) /206
Gold Chrome Mini /50: 1 (Wee Willie Keeler)

One is these is completely awesome, and the other is a complete waste of time. Great guess! Yeah, I love that gold chrome mini, and the other one, well, it has a picture of A-Rod on it at least. For now unless you have a Yankee, the Keeler is not for trade, but the other one again most certainly is.

Jersey: 1 (Kevin Slowey)

Ehhhhh, I honestly don't think he should have a relic card in this set, as he is just a decent pitcher, but hey, whatever, it's got a nice design and the pinstripe is always nice. If anyone wants it and has a Yankee relic for trade, I'll certainly take you up on it (no Nick Johnson, Javier Vazquez, Carl Pavano PLEASE??)

and our autograph............................................................

OMG!!!!! THIS IS AMAZING!!!! I CAN'T BELIEVE I PULLED THIS THING! That was certainly only a small portion of my reaction when my dad pulled this thing out of the pack. We always record on video for the heck of it, so when we saw a redemption in the pack, I immediately thought Strasburg. I was right! My reaction would've been crazier if it wasn't a redemption and I actually held it in hand, but still, unreal!

In terms of selling/trading, I won't sell for sure. I feel like it wouldn't be right to sell a card for $200-300 dollars when I got the box for free. If I sold it, most likely I would've blown the $ on something not as good. Trading wise, 99.9% chance you won't get this card in the mail from me anytime soon. Unless you offer me a Pujols and A-Rod auto or something crazy like that, I will pretty much say no. I really hope this kid pans out, because it would be a great thing for this hobby, and if he didn't pan out, it would be a tragedy for all the people who paid a lot of money for his cards.

A few things I want to mention before I give my final grade, first, I gave a set I didn't like at all a chance and cashed in for sure. So, you never know what you're gonna get out of something you may not even like. And also, I want you guys to think of me as a true collector, and I hope you realized that as I blabbed on about how amazing it was to pull a Strasburg auto redemption. I don't like selling, as a kid, I love making money, but I know that if I sell stuff I even kind of want, I still end up getting stuff I don't want as much in the long run.

So, I'll give Topps 206 a strong B+. Again this is not based on MY box, because people have gotten junk in their boxes too. I got VERY lucky in this box, so please, do not think that you can go buy a pack of this stuff and get what I got. It's possible, but not very. I see a lot of flaws in this product, aka, miscut minis, dumb hat variations, historical junk, and some bad relic inclusions. The cards are nice, and you always have a good time opening something like this.

Here's proof that it's mine in case you couldn't believe it too.

What do you think of my pull? See Ya!

Trip to the Card Shop - Strasburg!

Hey guys, Drew back here, and yes, I'm desperate enough to put Stephen Strasburg's name in the title just to get more views. Ok, don't click out of my blog just yet, there is Strasburg in this post. So crazy Strasburg collectors, please read on. ANYWAY, I went to the card shop over the weekend to blow $40, because I wanted to and I can for some reason. I actually had a $40 gift certificate to the shop so I just goofed off and wasted some cash, like most collectors do at the shop. Got some supplies, the new Beckett with Jeter on the cover (yes, Halladay is on the flip side of the cover but in New York they do show Jeter off), and then some packs and 1 relic. Yeah, kinda pathetic for $40. But whatever, this is what I got:

First off was two packs of 2010 Topps football. This was my first experience with it, and I must say it was pretty nice. In the first pack I pulled 2 Jets, the 2 I would take over anybody right now, Mark Sanchez, and my very first card of future Pro Bowl fullback John "The Terminator" Conner! I had no clue he was even in the set, you should've seen my face when I pulled that bad boy. Then my cool inserts were the Moss/Dez Bryant Gridiron Lineage, and a original back Cards Your Mom Threw Out of Joe Montana. Awesome.

The second pack didn't yield much of anything, just a Demaryius Thomas RC and a Favre "Classic Matchups" card. The design looks better on football than baseball in my opinion. The lone "good" insert (notice how Attax doesn't count) is an AP Draft Anniversary card. Very nice insert I must say.

Then I got 2 packs of 2010 Topps 206. Yeah. I did. Me of all people, tried some of this garbage. But now, I kind of like it a little. Me you ask? Yes. I kinda enjoyed it. Even with some creepy mugs of people with odd hairstyles. I like the Prince Fielder bronze, that's pretty awesome, and I pulled a Cano! Can't go wrong with Robby Cano "Don't Ya Know!", especially for my Cano collection. Also got a Will Venable "Polar Bear Back" (what the heck kind of name is that anyway, authentic or not?) and a Matt Kemp SP.

Pack 2 was schweeet! Haha. Are we missing two cards after all that junk? Yeah, we are.

Not anymore!!! Here are your left is a cycle back mini of Angels pitcher Jered Weaver numbered to 99, and to your right is the infamous RC of STEPHEN STRASBURG (see, told ya that name would come up again)! Wow, I'm so keeping that thing! The Weaver is for trade though. It's such a nice card, I'm even thinking of getting some of his Bowman rookies just for cheap investments, because as you know Tommy John Surgery does not equal the end of a career. He'll only be 23 right? That's plenty of time to win 300 games!

And the final card, is of a Hall of Famer, numbered to 99, my 8th card from the 100 card set so far, Ferguson Jenkins baby blue jersey! Pretty nice, and for a good price at that!

I didn't spend anything, but it always seems that I feel like I got ripped off, even with a Strasburg, which seems impossible. Well, nonetheless, got some nice cards, and a Beckett to read, so I guess I'll be back tomorrow with more! See Ya!

2010 Topps 206 Retail Live- and odd

Hey guys, Drew back here. I would've posted this yesterday after watching the first break over at Stale Gum, and also Chris Olds posted a video and stole what I was going to say. 2010 Topps 206 is out, but not as well done as 2009 in my opinion. First, the good things is that the base cards are clean and nice. But then, we deal with these flaws:

- Crazy Mini Back cards (Polar Bear, American Caramels, Piedmont, Old Mill)

Do we really need all these? Allen & Ginter is different, but also, they could easily lose the A&G back and I'd be happier. If the card looks the same on the front, it's a pain in the butt on video to tell what cards have backs without having to pause and look at every mini.

- Retail Sticker Autos!!

Topps had it right last year with ALL on card autos. Maybe hobby will be on card, but this just looks plain ugly!!! In a vintage product, IF YOU REALLY WANT TO INCLUDE SEAN RODRIGUEZ AS AN AUTO, get him to sign the cards! This just looks ridiculous and may hold me back from buying any retail.

- WHERE ARE THE HATS?!?!

Now this is ridiculous! Maybe Upper Deck would have an excuse to have done something like this, but no, NOT TOPPS! They have an exclusive right to show players in their full uniforms, now what the heck is this? This is a remembrance of the original cards, sure, some guys didn't have hats on those but most did! Do we really want that card above? No, I didn't think so.

Unless I see an improvement in the hobby version, I'll delightfully pass on a box of this. Yuck! Will you buy this? If so, I'd love to know why. See Ya!

*Sorry Dayf for stealing your pictures, only ones I found so far!