Thursday, November 16, 2017

Mega Blast


It's just a blaster with a big box. 

Topps Chrome Update has been an odd retail-only end of the year cash grab since 2013, but this time around they dropped all pretenses that someone might actually want the plain old flagship update packs in another configuration. With a $5 jump in price, this is just a blaster in a funny package. You get 7 packs of the small Chrome Update set, with each pack containing 4 cards. With Target selling all Topps cards at 10% off this week (along with my 5% "red card" discount), I convinced myself that this was a good idea. I don't know that anyone actually puts together sets of Chrome cards, but they make nice trade bait at least.


Altuve took home AL MVP honors today, which was nice to see. I was waiting for the writers to screw this one up, actually. Unfortunately, this All-Star photo isn't the one with Altuve standing next to Aaron Judge, but that would have taken too much of the focus away from this truly amazing player.


I'm not sure how Topps can convince itself, let alone us, that this is actually a rookie card.


The requisite insert set for this product is a Rookie Cup reprint set. This isn't really a bad thing on paper, but I'm pretty sure I have the actual Harper card from 2013 so this doesn't seem like anything special.


And then, of course, there's the weirdness with old designs on new(er) Chrome cards.


The NL ROY runner-up DeJong will probably be a forgotten trivia answer in a couple of years, but his future on the field is exciting nonetheless. The Cardinals were decently represented in this 100 card set.


This was essentially the hit of the box, a low numbered (06/25) red refractor of one of the game's top sluggers. I feel like he's under-collected.


Again, not a rookie card.


It's a former Cardinals guy in another uniform. This is always weird to see.


Speaking of soon-to-be forgotten trivia questions, the 2017 NL MVP vote was certainly a strange one. The top two vote getters were neck-and-neck (Votto was narrowly edged out by Giancarlo Stanton) but you had to look down to 3rd place before finding a player on a playoff team (Goldschmidt).


Yadi may not have received any MVP votes, but he's #1 in our hearts!

3 comments :

  1. Solid box! I could give the red Goldy a good home if it's available. Hell, I'd be interested in half these cards you featured, but I'm trying not to be greedy. I'll bring the stack of Cardinals I've been building for you to work today and hope to hand them off to you soon.

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  2. Glad I'm not the only one who doesn't treat this Judge card as a rookie card. Topps has gotten carried away with the whole rookie card logo.

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  3. Plus 10% employee discount for me, so I bought a box as well. I'll be putting a pack up on APTBNL this weekend, unless you beat me to it, you busy poster you.

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