Breaking my group break fast with 2021 Archives

I think my last group break was 2018 when I got in on a couple 2018 Bowman player-specific breaks for Gavin LaValley on eBay. I ended up with a brick of his base paper and base Chrome from the product, but nary a parallel out of several cases ripped on my behalf. Not even a single base refractor in 12+ cases. It was a major bummer for me and basically swore off group breaks after that.

But I caved to take the Padres in a recent break Nachos Grande did for a pair of 2021 Archives hobby boxes. I was feeling like a bad Padres fan for not having many 2021 cards of the team, plus I credit Archives as the product line that helped get me back into collecting, so it's a sentimental set for me even if I no longer buy a hobby box or two like did in years past.. and I've gotten in on breaks with Chris before and he's a good dude.

I lucked into a Slam Diego poster box-topper and the standard card version of it. Very cool. The poster slides nicely into the front cover of a new Padres-centric binder I'm starting.

Jake Cronenworth was in the running for ROY in 2020 and made the All-Star team in 2021, yet this Padres fan didn't have any of his cards until just recently. So embarrassing! I like the Bazooka card a lot, and the "draft pick" inserts are seeded one per box (though only one of Chris' boxes actually had one, so I got doubly lucky here).

Happy to finally add cards of Darvish and Snell in San Diego threads. I didn't end up with any cards in the 1991 design (besides the Bazooka thing), 1957 Topps, nor the weird "futuristic" design in there this year. Oh yeah, none of the 2011 design either, unfortunately.. one of my modern favorites.

A few more highlights to close out on. Love the Gwynn and Winfield cards. Neat Tatis insert. And my first card of Ha-Seong Kim, another new Padre with a lot of potential, though his first season in the majors was bumpy.

Glad to see Topps didn't skimp on the backs this year. Full career stats! Archives usually has a lot for us OCD collectors to nitpick about, and they'll never quite be perfect, but they seem to have done a solid job this year as far as being faithful to the old designs for the most part.

So I forgot to watch the break live, but checked out the recording later that evening while playing a game of Bases Loaded 2. Maybe it's a sign I should stay away from group breaks, because the computer team kicked my ass. The game was called by the mercy rule in the 6th with my Boston Blue Guys getting their butts handed to them by Philly. I don't lose to the computer very often, especially not in a blow out like that. Perhaps the break video distracted me, as shakey defense did me in. This was around the time in the break that another Cubs auto was pulled and I had seen enough.

But no, I did just fine in the break. Some nice inserts and several PC additions. No regrets. Chris did a great job running the break as always. I wouldn't rule out getting in on another break in the future, but don't plan to make it a frequent thing.

-o-

Speaking of 2021 Archives, I perked up when saw (via Dimebox Nick) that Dick Allen was included in the checklist this year-- his first time in the modern Archives (he was in '01 and '02 Archives, back when it was a "reprint" line). I think I'm going to work on a rainbow of his card, though probably won't pony up for anything too low-numbered (expensive).

So far I've just got the red (/75) and red foil (/50). The pair looks great, borders matching the red White Sox unis of the time. I still need plenty more including the base, so if you've got any to trade, let me know. 

Hoping for good news regarding Dick Allen's HOF candacy with an announcement due later today. Really hope his legacy gets honored with induction. But if not, well I guess the consolation for me is his card prices won't see the "HOF bump" and I'll be able to keep adding to the PC without an influx of HOF-centric collectors also after his cards!

Group breaking my heart

I hadn't done a group break in a long time, but recently jumped in and snagged the Angels in Nacho Grande's break of 3 hobby boxes of 2018 Topps Heritage. I was hoping for an Ohtani (preferably an auto, but even a base SP would've been cool), and/or a nice pull from Mike Trout. But sadly I got shutout there.

The collation sucked in the 3 boxes. I didn't even get one single Trout base card or All-Star card (which is also a base card), neither of which are SPs. No inserts, either. At least I got his checklist card, I guess.

Each slot in the break also came with a randomized bonus team. I coincidentally lucked into the Padres which is cool because they're "my team", though not exactly bursting with value, and plus I will likely end up with these base cards unsolicited in trades over the next few months. Again, the crappy collation of the boxes gave me 2 or 3 copies of half the team set, and zero copies of the other half. That's ridiculous. How is it 2018 and Topps is still struggling with the technology of properly "shuffling" their cards?? Shouldn't be that hard.

I did score 3 SPs, though.

And one nice pull I ended up with was this /69 black refractor of Wil Myers. That definitely made me feel better about my haul. He's a guy I collect, after all. Hopefully having Homser in the lineup takes pressure off him and he can relax and have a great year. I know some collectors don't particularly like chrome cards in Heritage, but I think this one looks great.

Chris also ripped a few lower-end packs as bonuses in the break, and I was able to find some keepers there.

Thanks a lot for the break, Chris! It was fun, even if we didn't score many big hits.

-   - - ---o

On the same evening as Chris' break, I also decided to snag a spot in a break via eBay. It was a player slot in a case break of 2014 Bowman Draft (which recently got back on breakers' radars thanks to Rhys Hoskins having a card in the set). I threw a bid on the Gavin LaValley slot and ended up being the only bidder, so at least it was cheap. I have already completed that rainbow besides the superfractor and some printing plates, but I figured in an entire case I might have a shot at those 1/1s, or at least a nice dupe of a low numbered parallel. But guess what, I got shutout there too. Boo!

Here's all I got. One base refractor and 3 base chrome cards. It was one of those auctions where the base paper cards don't ship. And while I knew that going in, it still sucks. The funny irony of it all is thanks to crap like this, the base paper is actually scarcer and worth more, per COMC:

Chrome - 42 from $0.32
Chrome - Refractor - 30 from $0.69
Paper - 9 from $0.74

The "crummy old paper" base card that isn't worth shipping out, according to many breakers, is going for twice as much as the chrome parallel, even more than the refractor parallel, and there are much less of it available. Pretty funny.

Anyways, since then, I've deleted my saved search for Gavin group breaks. I'll probably still jump on a cardsphere group break once in a while because those can be fun, but I really gotta stay away from other group breaks and just pick up cards on the secondary market.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

Oh, and every card in this post besides the Wil Myers parallel is available for trade (and I'll keep one each of the guys I collect). So if you're working on '18 Heritage and need any of these, check out my wantlist and get in touch!

2016 Topps group break haul (a.k.a. A boatload of Cubs tradebait)

I originally planned to sit out Nacho Grande's big 2016 Topps Series 1 group break. But then I noticed a few hours had gone by since sign-ups went live, and the Cubs were still available. Knowing they're a hot team in the hobby right now thanks to the likes of Kris Bryant and Kyle Schwarber, I decided to jump in and grab the slot. Plus I have several Cubs collectors who are trader buddies of mine, so I figured it'd help me load up on tradebait for them.

Let's put our best foot forward and start with my big hit of the break-- in fact the only "hit" I was lucky enough to have Chris pull for me. Manurelics are hard to get excited about, but this one looks really nice. While I would have rather gotten a low-numbered parallel of Kris Bryant (acetate, or silver frame, perhaps), I can't complain about this monster of a card. From checking out eBay, the going rate is about ten bucks for this card. So it didn't "pay for the slot" or anything, but I'm happy.

I ended up with 20 out of the 25-card 100 Years of Wrigley insert set, plus a few dupes. Some PC guys in here for me (Bryant, Jenkins, Goose, Maddux), but most of them are available for trade.

I like the perspectives cards. Two dupes available for trade. The 2015 Bryant is the Berger's Best reprint. A couple Back To Backs with Bryant and Rizzo. My only numbered card of the break was the gold Soler. It's available for trade. I usually don't care about buybacks, but I was happy to see that Maddux, being a guy I collect. The silver stamped buybacks are the rarest besides the gold 1/1, so it was a pretty good pull, as far as buybacks go. Not to mention it's a first-ballot Hall of Famer rather than a common, so that's cool, even if non-vintage buybacks are pretty dumb.

I've got at least 5 base Cubs team sets here. Please let me trade them to you!

I got at least a couple each of these League Leaders cards. Kershaw and Goldschmidt are PC guys for me, so I'll hang onto one of each featuring them, but the rest are available.

I took advantage of Chris' offer to swap out one of my team sets for team sets from a few teams he wasn't able to sell prior to the break. I really only wanted the 4 cards shown on top there (dudes I collect), but the rest of the team sets will go to my trade box.. so let me know if you're working on the set and need any D-backs, Sox, Marlins, or Pirates besides these guys.

Thanks for a fun break, Chris!

As for the trait bait, if anything caught your eye check out my wantlist and get in touch.
I'm specifically looking at you, P-Town Tom, Tony Burbs, Twitch, and Dimebox Nick.. and will give you guys priority, hopefully spreading out the less-plentiful cards somewhat evenly between you four.

Oh, and don't forget about my big 700th post contest that's running right now. Good turnout so far! Thanks for the strong response, guys. I feel I should throw in a bonus entry possibility in this post. I can't think of anything clever right now, so let's just say the first person to comment on this post will get a bonus entry in the contest. Wait-- the catch is the comment has to be in a foreign language! Haha

Haul from the Nachos Grande final group break of the year

I was originally gonna sit this one out, but after time went by and the Red Sox remained unclaimed, I went ahead and signed up for them in Nachos Grande's recent big mixed group break. There are several Sox guys I PC, plus I can always use more Boston representation in my trade box for my old trade buddy Mark Hoyle and now my new trade buddy at Shoebox Legends. As the deadline to sign up approached, Chris and I worked out a deal for me to pick up all the unclaimed teams at a discount. So I ended up with quite a haul.

Let's check out a bunch of highlights.

It's just a base card, but I was happy to get an Ortiz out of the Tek box; neat cards. Bryce Brentz refractor auto #/499 is perhaps the best card I got out of the break. Brentz isn't a huge prospect or anything, but he cracked the majors this past season and hit a sweet .308 in 9 games. And the Stadium Club (rainbow foil?) parallel is kinda cool. I know it says Shane Victorino on it, but it'll likely end up in my Big Papi PC as a cameo card.

Here's a scanner bed full of Diamondback highlights. A nice trio of Goldschmidts. A nice trio of Yasmanys. Great Randy Johnson insert. That Jake Lamb RC is one of those crazy refractors.. those ones that are like "this is what xfractors look like this year" but for some reason Topps got cute and called them "Prisms" even though in the card world, Panini has a firm hold on the term.

A scanner bed full of of Marlins highlights. The Jose Fernandez top middle is a refractor, though you can't tell in the scan. Nice lot of Giancarlos, though I think I already had them all. The action variation Ichiro is the best card here.

A scanner bed full of A's highlights. Love the Rickeys. And the Reggie. And the Venditte.. that was the base card I was hoping to pull from the box of 2015 Heritage High Numbers.. glad that worked out. The Chip is a Josh Reddick metal parallel or something. It and the gold parallel of the creepy big-head Eck are available for trade if anyone wants them. Oh, and that Zobrist Chrome parallel.. I believe that's #/999.

The Brewers slot didn't net me much, but the Yount and Molitor may be PC additions.. I need to check if I need them. The Khris Davis Chrome RC is nice. And here we see a better representation of a "don't call me an xfractor, call me a prism even though that's not what I am" parallel of Carlos Gomez.. this'll likely end up with Tony L. before long.

A scanner bed full of Royals highlights. A few new Brett cards for the PC. A couple Bo cards. Cool Yordano parallel. And that James Shields chip is a glow-in-the-dark one (though these things barely glow at all.. pretty disappointing, really. They should make the actual Chip material out of glowing plastic, not just a tiny little area behind the player photo). But still, this is cool, as I have been working on building up a little Shields PC lately, seeing how he's the best pitcher the Padres got right now.

Lots of Red Sox highlights, starting with the retired guys. Love the Ted Williams. And there's another card for my non-Yankees Babe Ruth PC. Gotta love UD Masterpieces. These are the glossy versions, not the fancy canvas ones, but still nice.

Final scan. More Papi. A Xander. A couple refractors. A new Adrian for the PC. I love Mookie Betts and was happy to get these two new additions (I was really crossing my fingers for Chris to pull a Betts auto for me, but I'll settle for these two base cards.) Oh, and at the end there.. that's gum. Part of my deal with Chris is that I got all the gum from the break! I'm happy to report that it's all pink. You know the old saying, "If it's brown, put it down. If it's pink, it's ok, I think." I haven't chewed any of it yet, but I probably will soon. I'm a gastric daredevil like that.

Thanks for another fun break, Chris!

Clubhouse Collection group break haul

Earlier this week, I featured some highlights I got from Fan O' Freds Nachos Grande's 2015 Heritage group break. Chris also threw in a 2004 Topps Clubhouse Collection box to beef up the break. And I'm very glad he did, as I ended up with 4 great bonus hits in my haul.

Off the top of my head, I'm not sure if I had a Gwynn bat relic before this beauty. I know I've got 3 or 4 jersey relics, but don't think I had a wood chip. So this is a very cool addition to my collection, rounding out my Gwynn PC nicely.

A game-used on-deck circle relic! Never heard of such a thing! It features Vernon Wells and is #'d /90. The back states it was used in the 2003 All-Star game. And I don't think each player got his very own on-deck circle, so this relic could essentially be considered a relic of all 2003 American League All-Stars, right?  Ichiro stood on it! Edgar Martinez, A-Rod, Hideki Matsui, Carlos Delgado, Posada-- that's some sick early '00s mojo right there.

And then not 1, but 2(!) Robin Yount bat relics. The one on the right is a parallel #'d 84/99. While I usually funnel most of my Brewers cards to Tony L., I'll try to hang onto at least one of these for my meager Yount PC. (Please tell me you already have at least one of these cards, Tony!)

Here are the backs in case you want to see them.

Here's another look at the back of the on-deck circle card. It might be a first for my collection-- well, not just the 1st on-deck circle card, but also the 1st card I have that's a refractor on the back. The front of the card isn't refractory, just the back. I thought that was funny.

For fun little bonuses, Chris also threw in a few low-end packs to rip in the break. Among the junk, I ended up with a Fred Lynn 91 Donruss I think I needed. The Pujols chip was nice, too, though I'm kinda glad Chipz aren't returning in 2015.

--

Hopefully he's received it in the mail by now, so I'm not spoiling anything, but I wanted to share this little "thanks for the break" gift I sent Chris a few days ago:

LEGO® stuff and Barry Larkin cards are both atop his collecting list, so I thought I'd get cute and combine them on a sketch card. I didn't have much in the way of cards on his wantlist, so whipping up a special "1 of 1" was my next best bet for an easy yet thoughtful gift. Not my best artistic work, but it came out fine by my standards. And even though Chris is historically unimpressed by glow-in-the-dark cards ("I don't think there's any good reason to have glow-in-the-dark baseball cards" --A blasphemous statement to me! but to each their own.), I had to stand by my core values and make the card glow regardless.

Thanks again for the fun break and great cards, Chris!

2015 Heritage group break haul from Nachos Grande

Once again, I played the role of "group break bottom feeder" and swooped in at the last moment to pick up unclaimed teams in a group break at a discount. While I did pretty decently in Nachos Grande's 2015 Topps group break last month, I really did well in his recent 2015 Heritage break.

Thankfully, the remaining teams were different than the three I ended up with the previous break, so my trade box won't get too bloated with certain teams.

I worked it out with Chris for these leftover teams:

• Diamondbacks
• Brewers
• Orioles*
• Angels
• Athletics
• Padres
• Blue Jays

*our deal specified Chris would get to keep any Cal Ripken, Jr cards pulled.

Here were my reasoning/hopes with landing these teams:

• Diamondbacks (Goldschmidt!)
• Brewers (trade bait for Tony L.)
• Orioles (shrug)
• Angels (Trout!)
• Athletics (shrug)
• Padres (hey, my team! Too bad all this year's new guys are pictured on their old teams)
• Blue Jays (shrug)

Let's get into it. Chris also threw in a Clubhouse Collection box into the break, and I did well there too, but I'll save those highlights for another post.

Landed a couple nice Goldschmidts, including a relic and SP! Love these cards.

From the front, an ordinary Chris Tillman card.. but it's actually a 1-in-3-cases hit!

Since I don't currently have any Orioles collectors in my trading circle, and I don't particularly collect this guy, I've got it up on eBay now for $30, which seems to be about the going rate. (Maybe I should have posted it for sale before I had it in-hand, as prices on these seem to have been higher shortly after the product was released, as you might expect.)

Got a couple Machado SPs. I got a bunch of Brewers SPs, but all of them besides this dupe have already been packed up for Tony L.

The Angels were probably my best performers in the break, netting me a bunch of SPs, plus some chrome parallels, and a buyback.

Also a gum-stain variation and a blue back.

A bunch of Trouts, too. (He also has a LL and a couple combo cards with Pujols and Miggy that I didn't scan.) The action variation might be my favorite card from the break.

The A's did ok for me, with a couple Chrome parallels and a couple Sonny Gray SPs.

Some Blue Jay SPs.

More gum-stain variations. I don't really care about these too much, to be honest, and will probably list all 3 in an eBay lot soon.

The Padres landed me nothing of note in the Heritage break (besides base cards of a couple dudes I collect, above). But there was a sweet hit in the Clubhouse Collection box. (Spoiler alert: Gwynn bat relic!)

And the non-team cards I got thanks to the randomizer.


So there are the highlights. Most of these are available for trade (besides the Goldschmidts and Trout non-dupes). I also have lots of base cards. Base team sets have already been packed up for Tony L. (Brewers) and Daniel Wilson (D-Backs-- sorry, didn't get a Goldschmidt SP dupe). Anybody else working on completing the set or whatever, please let me know, as I've got 3-5 copies of each base card for these teams.

Thanks a bunch for the break, Chris! I've already got a little "thanks for the break" gift PWE ready to drop in the mail tomorrow. I did so well, I was starting to feel a little guilty! So hopefully I'm able to balance the scales a little.

Haul from Nachos Grande's 2015 Topps group break

I try to stay away from group breaks since I'm not really a team collector. But they're fun. And I also appreciate a good deal. As Nachos Grande's 2015 Topps Series I break was about to get underway, I saw Chris was offering the 3 still-unclaimed teams together for one low price, so I got onboard.

Phillies, Marlins, and Rays.

No surprise the Florida teams didn't get grabbed, since they generally don't get a lot of love on the cardosphere, but it's a little surprising Philadelphia went unclaimed.

Honestly, I was mainly looking to get a couple decent Giancarlo Stanton cards out of the deal. I didn't hit any mojo blockbusters, but I ended up doing all right.

Here's how the cards stacked out. Phillies had the most cards, Rays the least. Seems I got about 7 or 8 of each base card, along with a few goodies such as inserts and parallels.

I only got a couple Rainbow Foil parallels, but hey, at least one was my boy Giancarlo.

These parallels are generally a bit underwhelming (especially in scans; nearly indistinguishable from the base), but can look kinda cool when the light catches them just right.

The Rays slot was pretty much a bust, with only a single friggin' non-base card coming out of it. But at least that one card was the only auto I got from the break:

Grant Balfour definitely isn't the best name to pull an auto of, but hey, I'll take it!

So yeah, Chris didn't pull any "sick hits" of Giancarlo, but still got a nice lot of his cards out of the deal:

Good stuff. The Chip(z) was a bonus throw-in pack break.

Some other decent Marlins pulls.
Koehler (gold) is #'d 0162/2015 (162? Yes! The "number of regular season baseball games" eBay 1/1!)
Baker (black) is #'d 29/64. Any Jeff Baker collectors out there?

The randomizer claimed a few non-team cards for me, including CNN (Ted Turner), Top 40 Countdown (Casey Kasem), and 3 of those Call Your Shot game cards which I suppose I should scratch and see if they'll win me anything.

The Phillies slot scored me a bunch of decent cards. Steve Carlton is getting a lot of insert-love in this set. The couple of open-mouthed buybacks are kinda cool.

Finally, here's my best hit from the break:

Cole Hamels framed parallel #'d 17/20. Very nice! I had been wanting to add one of these metal framed cards to my collection for a while now. And you could pull a much worse name than Cole Hamels, 3-time All-Star and 2008 postseason hero. Fellow San Diego boy, too.

Thanks for running the break, Chris! Nice bunch of cards.

And if anybody out there needs any Series I base cards from the Phillies, Marlins, or Rays, for the love of God, please let me know and take them from me.