That's Gold, Kerry!

A #CrackinWaxMailDay times two, featuring merch @CrackinWax and @LiteralQuirk merch. 

 

Another week, another round of box breaks from Crackin' Wax. Actually, make that two weeks worth of breaks. Where does the time go?

I bought in to no less than two quarter case breaks of the brand new 2020 Topps Gold Label. I always try to avoid anything that costs significantly more than a blaster and/or nets you fewer cards than your typical pack, but I've had a really hard time resisting Gold Label over the year. They're the stupid shiny thing I should be making fun of, and certainly would have made fun of a decade ago on this blog, but I can't help myself now. (Someone, please send help!)

There are two Cardinals in the set, but then you can multiply that by three (for each "Class" level). This isn't some weird blue parallel as far as I know. This is just my old scanner being weird, I guess.

There are black parallels as well. So you can take that two multiplied by three and multiply it by two again to get the number of unnumbered non-auto and non-memorabilia Cardinals cards in the set. I think this is a black parallel, anyway. They aren't super obvious, but the background has a darker look than the rest.

This is the face of a guy who didn't quite know what he kind of throws he was expecting to receive when he joined up with the Cardinals in 2019.

The drool-worthy thing about Gold Label is the autographs. As you probably know well, I'm not an autograph fiend or anything. I still think it's weird collecting signatures of other adults for no apparent reason. To be fair, collecting in and of itself is kind of weird. I'm getting weirded out just posting about this. Anyway, let's just say that these cards are really cool looking because they're thick and heavy and gold metal plated all around the border. I have several of these now from a few different sets they've released recently, and I kind of want them all.

I wanted them so much, in fact, that I entered yet another quarter case break and ended up with another autograph. There's a pretty solid amount of Cardinals in the autograph portion of the checklist (rare these days, oddly enough). I mentioned in the chat room of the first of these breaks that I was hoping a Goldschmidt auto would be pulled, but as always I'm happy to get a card of anyone in a Cardinals uniform.

Topps 206 Wave 4 was finally shipped, and I bought in to that break as well. I didn't end up with any of the parallels this time, but I snagged multiple copies of each of the two Cardinals in the bunch. RIP the great Lou Brock.

2020 Topps Heritage Minor League appears to have been an under the radar release, and Crackin' Wax seemed to have scored a big deal as these break slots were among the cheapest I've ever purchased on the site. I completed the whole team set (okay, it's just five cards) including this short printed Nolan Gorman card. The cards are printed on completely different stock than the normal MLB Heritage cards, unfortunately. I'm pretty sure they were printed in the Topps On Demand facility, as they feel almost exactly like the Topps 206 cards -- thinner and kind of slick. The short printed Gorman card is actually significantly larger than the rest of the non-SP base set, which is interesting I suppose.

Let's roll the clock back a week, and time travel to 2015. The previous week's worth of breaks included 2015 Gypsy Queen. I already had all of the common base cards in this set, but did well to score this short printed Lou Brock card.

The Ozzie Smith mini came out of the hobby box exclusive pack of mini photo variation cards. At least, I think that was what was happening? In any case, I needed this. Any Ozzie addition is a good addition.

Speaking of good additions, it was fun to snag a numbered (to 499) framed Carlos Martinez parallel.

I don't have a lot to say about this year's Topps Fire. It's... not great. Last year's set has been the only one I've liked, but I have absolutely no idea why I would even recommend it to anyone.

On the other hand... it's another KK auto! It's obviously a sticker auto, but it's numbered to just 75.

Finally, in the RNG RTG (random team generation) department, there wasn't a ton to post about aside from this Juan Soto jersey card. To be fair, it's a great looking card for a company with no MLB license. This is exactly what you want in a Panini card. This also means that I bought a slot in a Panini Chronicles break, which is pretty much like setting money on fire. It's a set that's mostly focused on rookies, but it's unlicensed and there's barely any cards in a box. Let's pretend this didn't happen. Still, it's nice trade bait?

And there was merch! Crackin' Wax likes to throw in some freebies randomly from time to time, and in successive weeks I ended up with an LQ pin and a Crackin' Wax logo pin. I'm kind of tempted to take these to a polling place and get people to vote LQ or CW just to confuse people. Of course, it's too bad that Oregon doesn't have polling places anymore.