2008 MLB A Piece of History

Another day, another $5 SRP UD product. This one is the ugly offspring of Donruss Americana and UD Artifacts.

8 cards per pack / 16 packs per box / 20 boxes per case

Hits: 3 GU/1 AU
Case Hits: 3 Patches
2 Autoed Memorabilia
5 Multi-Player Jersey Cards
1 Yankee Stadium Legacy Memorabilia
The Chase: Buttons /5

Of the three GU, one will be a Hollywood Memorabilia.

These card companies just don't get it, do they. Inserting President cuts, Hollywood star jerseys into EVERY product. It seems like the only untouched products are UD First Edition and Topps Opening Day. Now some collectors like those products. I don't. I want hits. If I want to build a set I'll build the Topps Heritage set. It's much more fun. I just want ONE baseball product without any impurities.

Cheap Cracks

Today I bought a couple of blaster boxes off a dealer for $9.99 each. They were

2008 UD Spectrum
2008 Tristar Projections Yankee Prospects
2008 Tristar Projections

UD Spectrum - 7 packs/4 cards per pack, 1 GU Guaranteed

1st pack is GU. GU is Shannon Stewart. Not good. Also got a couple of Derek Jeter Retrospectrums and a YSL with Bernie on it. As a Mets fan , this is not good at all.

Grade: C

2008 Projections Yankee Prospects: 5 packs/7 cards per pack, 1 AU Guaranteed

Well, if I'm a Mets fan, why am I buying this product? I like prospects as well.

Hit: Austin Romine Auto

WOOHOO! Romine isn't terrible. However the base design is.

Grade: B-

2008 Tristar Projections: 6 packs/8 cards per pack, 1 AU Guaranteed

This better be good. The Dealer specifically recommended it. 1st pack I get two /25 parallels stuck together. John Tolisano (heard of him) and Robert Fish (who????).

Hit: Hector Correa Auto/50

Grade: C

HAHA

Bad, Cheap Wax: 2007 Fleer Ultra SE

FLEER ULTRA SE!!! Remember when this product was $80 per box? Well, now it's $32. I don't think anyone is surprised. With only a few big hits (Ryan Braun, Tulowitzki, Gordon RC Logo Autos, Cal Ripken Jr. Autographs), dual patch cards /25.) and with the product loaded down with Miguel Montero, Kory Casto, and Joaquin Arias autos, it was doomed to fail. For $32, though, it was worth a shot.

Let's see what they advertise

5 PACKS PER BOX / 15 CARDS PER PACK (it says 5, but that's a typo)
AN AUTOGRAPH OR GAME-USED IN EVERY PACK
4 GAME USED CARDS PER BOX ON AVERAGE
1 AUTOGRAPH PER BOX ON AVERAGE

Price Paid: $32
BV Goal: 64

Pack One

Ervin Santana Dual Materials/75 (the gold parallel version)
Daisuke Matsuzaka Lucky 13 RC

Not bad. Santana is decent and there's always a market for him. Plus the card looks sweet (I've always had a fetish for dual jerseys).

Total BV of pack: 25

So far so good...

Pack Two

Swing Kings Materials Travis Hafner

God, does this guy have to improve.

Total BV of pack: 6

Pack Three

Faces of the Game Materials Jason Bay
Cal Ripken, Jr. Iron Man Insert #3

Cal sighting! Guess how much this books?

Total BV of pack: 9

We've slowed down considerably... aargh. Still, we're at 40 BV, trying to get to our goal of 64. And we haven't gotten the autograph yet.

Pack Four

holy shitt........

Cal Ripken Jr. Iron Man Autograph/10.

Total BV of pack: 150.

WINNNER!!!!!

Pack Five

Faces of the Game Materials CC Sabathia

Total BV of pack: 6

TOTAL BV: 196
GOAL BV: 64

I beat my goal by 132 BV. Sweet. While getting the best hit possible from this box.

SPX- New Title: Waste of $PX

$PX is a crappy, $160 a box product. The autos sell for 99 cents on eBay and the game used cards, excluding the patches, are crummy. What happened to this product? Every year it gets worse and worse. You can start by reviewing the checklist. They have a couple of "Young Star autos" which are essentially ugly looking autographs of Nate McLouth, Joaquin Arias, Mike Fontenot and a couple of other scrubs (yeah, McLouth is off to a hot start, but I mean, come on). This is along with other minor stars that sell for $4 on eBay. Cases in point: Joel Zumaya, Tom Gorzelanny, Stephen Drew. This is what you would expect out of a $70 product, not a $160 one. But at least the checklist has some money-bringers: Ryan Braun, Troy Tulowitzki, Phil Hughes. But even those rare gems are in the $15-20 range, simply because they are standard autos of good players with lots of autos. The rookie autograph checklist is simply atrocious. There's Buchholz and Ian Kennedy, and to a lesser extent Votto, Daric Barton, JR Towles, and Wladimir Balentien. The checklist says it has Bruce, Rasmus, Longoria, Fukudome, and Carlos Gonzalez. Sure. I haven't seen any of those pulled. Okay, so they're in the Rookie Redemption cards, I guess. Those should be going for a lot. WRONG!!!!!! They're going for less than 50 dollars and the checklist hasn't been released yet. And those, along with the crappy 1/1 Babe Ruth (yes, crappy 1/1 Babe Ruths) and crappy 1/1 Ken Griffey American hero (which, by the way, are going for a ridiculous 70 dollars even though they're just rare pieces of cardboard with absolutely nothing but a reprinted box score on them) are the CASE hits.

The patches aren't doing so hot either. Sick patches of Chase Utley and Eric Chavez are going for less than 10 dollars.

Sure there are the Derek Jeter autos. Sure there are the Griffey autos. But these are less than one per case hits its starting to look like.

I will say this: if it goes to $100 it's a damn good buy. Anything above that is insane. $160? I don't think so.

Oh, but the base is sweet.

Product Grade: C-

2008 Topps Opening Day

Config:

36 packs per box
6 cards / stick o' gum per pack

2008's crappy parallel edition of the best brand ever.

Base Set

220 players/rookies. They are red.

Parallels/Inserts

White - 220 players/rookies serially numbered to 2008. They are white.
Printing Plates - 220 players/rookies serially numbered to 1. They are crappy.
Flappers - "Individual cards that transform into multiple cards" proudly brags Topps.
Puzzle - Rip 400 packs and you can complete the puzzle!

the Chase is on!

AUTOGRAPHED CHECKLIST BABY!

	Anthony Lerew	Atlanta Braves
	Glen Perkins	Minnesota Twins
	Jason Bartlett	Minnesota Twins
	Jason Botts	Texas Rangers
	Jeff Baker	Colorado Rockies
	John Buck	Kansas City Royals
	John Rheinecker	Texas Rangers
	Kevin Gregg	Florida Marlins
	Nate Schierholtz	San Francisco Giants

Whole buncha stars right there. One per case.

Is it worth it?

Dacardworld.com has it at $33 delivered using coupons. You couldn't pay me $33 to take this kind of shit.

2008 Topps Series One

2008's edition of the best brand ever.

The Base Set Breakdown

330 cards, of which

255 veterans
15 managers
30 rookies
10 league leaders
8 postseason highlights
2 CYA
2 MVP
2 ROY's
5 Classic Combos
1 Barry Bonds

in other words, A-Rod has no less than three cards in this set, possibly four if you count the postseason.

Inserts/Parallels

Year in Review - So that Topps can tell us what we already know. There will be one for every day of the season. June 14, 2007 - Vladimir Guerrero has sacrifice fly, 2 RBI vs. Cincinnati.

Own the Game - This has been running for 234782347928374 years now. Isn't it time Topps did a different format for league leaders?

Barry Bonds Home Run History - This time, its only cards 757-762. This means that the odds are only 1:10 of pulling one of these "player-collector" dream cards.

Replica "Mini-Jersey" Red Sox/All Stars - #'d to 499, these cards feature a MINI JERSEY seeded one per pack in a worthless UD Hokkey product. Note, this is not game-used

Gold - Standard worthless player collector parallel. this year #'d/2008 (for the year, isn't that clever)

Black - Standard worthless player collector rare parallel. this year #'d/57. And they took the Blacks away from HTA.

Platinum - Expensive card with a strange triangular sticker, that despite being not a rookie, a relic, or an autograph, and all together a shitty looking card, commands a high premium.

AU/GU Corner

2007 Highlights - Year in Review, featuring such stars as Dallas McPherson, Carlos Villanueva, and Eulogio De La Cruz, along with scrubs like Jake Peavy and Albert Pujols.

Projected odds : 1 in 120 packs (1 in every 3-4 boxes)

World Champion Autograph Relics - Featuring swatches from June, and featuring stickers signed in July. Only 500 of these were made, so it might be more appropriate to put these cards in the "chase" section.

Projected odds : 1 in 6080 packs (1 in every 4 cases or so)

Barry Bonds Home Run Triple Relic Cards - Showing that we are enticed by "keywords", such as "home run", "triple", "relic", "heritage", and "chrome". Odd. #'d/250.

Projected odds : 1 in 12160 packs (1 in every 8 cases or so)

World Champion Relics - Featuring swatches from June. Despite this, and the relatively high serial numbering, a JD Drew World Champion Relic went for $75.

2007 Highlights - 13 base set relic cards, white swatch, grey swatch, black swatch, you know the picture by now.

All-Rookie Team Autographs/Relics - #'d to 50 cards of Dwight Gooden and other phenomenal rookies. If you are super lucky, you can pull Dwight Gooden game-used cocaine residue.

MICKEY MANTLE
MICKEY MANTLE
MICKEY MANTLE
MICKEY MANTLE
MICKEY MANTLE
MICKEY MANTLE
MICKEY MANTLE
MICKEY MANTLE
MICKEY MANTLE

Okay, so now we're over that fetish. There are more Mickey Mantle inserts.

WHAT TOPPS THINKS

"YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAY!" - random kid after pulling Mickey Mantle.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS

"Fuck. All I got was a shitty Mantle Home Run history." - real kid, after pulling Mickey Mantle.

Let's face it. All these Mantle cards have been devalued more than the Zimbabwean currency.

now, for the ever-popular

CHASE CHASE CHASE CHASE CHASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

In the Name - cut-off, nasty looking game used all-star lettermen. 1/1's.
Campaign 2008 Cut Signatures - autos of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain, John Edwards, and... Fred Thompson? WTF? No Mitt or Mike Huckabee? Mitt even would have gone in with the baseball theme.

2007 Bowman DP&P Break

Store open. Paul think, "hmmm. store sell draft 60 dollar. paul has 60 dollar. paul buy draft". That's when Paul got perhaps the greatest hit of his life, barring all other days except this day. What did I really get?

Notable Chromes: Moustakas, Heyward, Parker, Bumgarner, Fairley
Refractors: Jon Danks, Yovani Gallardo, Ryan Braun (MIL)
Xfractors: Wendell Fairley
Auto: BDPP129 Matt Mangini AU

BDP is one of the rare products in which the auto is half the time not the best hit. The Mangini goes for around $8 on eBay and the Fairley $14. Adding that to the Braun ($3) the Gallardo ($0.27), the Danks ($0.02) and the chromes (about $9 put together), we have

$34.29 worth of hits! Woohoo! Ah well. Perhaps I can convince someone to trade the Mangini for a Michael Main chrome, using the constant yell of SAME BV to make them trade with me. Oh, and by the way that Beckett video was hilarious. eBay values really are the only values anymore.