Break Goodies and a Contest Reminder

Our almost quarterly review of Affordable Group Breaks cards. 

 

Before we get into it, here's the big reminder: the 15th (!) annual Cards on Cards college bowl pick 'em thingy is fully functional and ready for your sweet picks. There's only a couple of days left at best to sign up and at least get your first few picks in, and there's nothing to lose -- so why don't you go and win?!

With the big stuff out of the way, let's check out some cards from the Affordable Group Breaks. As you might know, Colbey from Cardboard Collections has run these things for a long time, and they're always well within my budget.

The 2022 Topps Chrome Sonic set has been well documented by now. I think Topps was riding high off the pandemic trading card boom and basically threw in a cash grab without a lot of regular collectors noticing. What was disguised as yet another Topps Chrome configuration was actually a thing of its own, with the base cards and their slimy parallels only bearing minute differences from the regular Chrome set. Switch up a few meaningless numbers on the back in the fine print, and maybe move the Topps Chrome logo around on some of the cards and... hey, you've got a brand new product, baby! Anyway, I hate this all and it's annoying that it took some of us well-meaning collectors almost two years to understand this.

Here's something that's easier to digest: Topps Pro Debut! This was my, well, debut with the current year Topps minor league product.

It's quite a bummer that this is going to be the only semi-mainstream MILB product for 2024, but the regular flagship design looks nice on these cards. Travis Honeyman is looking like he stole something here. If not a base, then maybe some of Winnie the Pooh's stash?

A quick glance at Luis Rodriguez's B-Ref page shows that he's logged time at both corner positions, catcher *and* pitcher, which makes me think that the organization doesn't quite know what to do with him.

On one hand, I feel like I bought a decent amount of Topps flagship cards this year, but considering how many common inserts (and parallels) I'm lacking, I'm not so sure. Here's one that's fairly pedestrian, except that it's Ozzie.

1989 Topps cards still do pretty much nothing for me, but they had some quality designs.

Colbey snuck in a few Blazers cards. Nice! You might be wondering why I'm featuring a junk wax era Buck Williams card I've probably gone through twenty of through the years.

Well, check the card number here! It's actually a Tony's Pizza card in disguise. I actually had one of these, but this one was a serious upgrade in condition. (If I recall, the card I booted out of my binders was not drenched in pizza grease, it was just beat up regular style.) I used to eat a fair amount of Tony's Pizza back in the day, but I didn't encounter any Fleer basketball cards in their packages until the following year's set, which was unnumbered.

Panini put out some fun Halloween-themed sets for their NBA and NFL licenses this year, in the guise of small packs you could distribute in lieu of Halloween candy. I'm pretty sure 99% of these were scooped up by adults, though. The rookie cards in the football set feature these extreme close-up headshots, which are only a half a tick better than seeing players photographed during off-season workouts in practice garb without pads. I prefer the college photos that they usually put in the regular Score sets.

The orange jack-o-lantern cards are apparently the base cards. These green cards with bats on the borders are a common parallel. I'm just glad they're still making Brian Dawkins cards!

Let's head back to baseball, because this is still a baseball card blog (I think?) There was a decent chunk of card from Panini's latest extremely unlicensed Donruss set, which included a Diamond Marvels parallel of Cardinals prospect Won-Bin Cho.

I also snagged a nice red-and-blue parallel of Albert Pujols, who was a year or two removed from playing in MLB, making him apparently safe for this set.

And let's not forget Waino, who also shut things down before this set came out. This one is a regular blue parallel, which is numbered to 149 this year.

Speaking of Adam Wainwright, I also landed a 2000 Fleer Gamers bat card of the dude that was traded for Adam Wainwright. There were other players involved, but those two were the primary players that are still discussed today. Well, maybe not today exactly. Maybe it'll come up on a question in Baseball Nerd Bar Trivia one of these days.

Contest Winners and Cards from Oren

 

If you won something, say something! 

 

As of Monday, another college basketball season is in the books. That also concludes contest season here at Cards on Cards. Here is your big list of winners:

• 1st Place: bivlo (blitmeat)
• 2nd Place: rl16
• 3rd Place (tie): mds2942 (Chaos is a Bracket) and AngelsInOrder
• WoRsT pLaCe: mintxcore and josh.worley (Worley360)
• Championship Game Prediction: Brandon L (UConn 75, SDSU 62 - actual score UConn 76, SDSU 59)

If you are one of the winners (or "winners"), please get in touch with me as soon as possible so I can get your address and discuss your prize(s).

Meanwhile, here's another lovely batch of Cardinals cards from reader Oren. I was able to increase my Topps gold (the real gold) collection by a couple of notches with this package I got back in December.

Jack Flaherty has kept his ERA down over his first two (healthy, we presume) starts of the 2023 season, but he's been walking dudes at an alarming rate. Hopefully that doesn't become a thing.

Along with the tidy J.D. Drew autograph card is this striking blue insert from the 1999 Fleer Mystique set. I like it a lot.

More gold! Mooooore gooooold!

Tim Cooney made it to the big club in 2015, but my memory of this has more to do with remembering he has a card in Topps Update that year than of any recollection of seeing him on the field. Memory is weird that way.

Is this still the Players Weekend logo? Was it ever?

This insert from last year's Topps Chrome set leans a little too close to "Ben Baller" territory for me. It's always nice to get another Yadi insert card, though.

Last, but certainly not least, is this fancy encased Alex Reyes auto-patch card from the 2017 Panini National Treasures set. I wonder if Panini will continue to make sets like this in the future as they only have retired players and (apparently) minor leaguers to draw from now.

Thanks again to Oren and everyone who participated in my contests this year!

A Flock of Group Breaks

 

The latest batch of @flywheels box break goods shows off some interesting parallels. 

 

More fun stuff from Cardboard Collections Affordable Group Breaks hit the mailbox awhile back. This time around, I did pretty well in the parallel department with my chosen Cardinals selections. I also added a few more cards to my collection that represented another bird team.

The 2003 Fleer Box Score set features actual newspaper box scores as a background motif, although these games have nothing to do with the actual team represented on the cards. I snagged two of the 1st Edition parallels from the set, which feature an all-silver background and are numbered to just 150 copies.

Switching over to a much newer set, this final (?) offering of Panini Absolute baseball came with all sorts of parallels because, well, it's Panini. I'm told this is a Lava parallel, although I'm not seeing any indication of heat or fire here.

In the times following 9/11, the American flag was seemingly everywhere, and that included baseball cards. I landed a sizeable chunk of needed cards from the 2003 Upper Deck 40-Man set and also wound up with this patriotic parallel of one of the top players that I collect.

More parallel madness? Check out this Holo Silver card numbered 99/99 from the '99 Pacific Paramount set. I'm going to throw this up on eBay as true "eBay 1 of 1" and sell it for 99 thousand dollars. It will work. Trust me!

A couple of the football breaks were right within my sweet spot for the green bird team ('90s, pre uniform-change.) SkyBox made a lot of fun looking NFL sets right out of the gate, none of which I could really afford back in the day.

I still don't even really know what Collector's Edge was or why they felt like serial numbering every single card, even though they were printing them by the truckload like everyone else. I do know that these look cool as hell, comic book style font notwithstanding.

Bird-Themed Teams

Bird cards from @forgotaboutblay because apparently that's all I collect. 

 

A comment someone Erin* made to me the other day made me start thinking about sports teams and their mascots. A lot of sports teams have animal mascots and nicknames. A lot of NFL teams do not. For whatever reason, I've ended up mostly gravitating towards bird teams (Cardinals, Eagles, Ducks -- not pictured). Dennis from Too Many Verlanders sent me another stellar batch of cards back in June that happened to feature those bird teams.

It's always exciting to add another Jim Edmonds card to my collection. I'm guessing somewhere out there is a version of this where all three players have their own memorabilia piece. Maybe there's one that just has Edmonds? Or just Rolen?

Rick Ankiel gets two memorabilia chunks of his own, both a bat and a snippet of his clothing. The default background for these cards show a row of batting helmets. I wonder if there are any embedded helmet piece cards.

Here's another card with multiple opportunities for jersey chunks, but only the white portion is real. Were these card companies toying with us?

This might be my favorite card of the lot. It's an on-card autograph from Topps Total on a design I'd never seen before. The "Signatures" script has a very '80s cafe look to it.

The NFL portion of the package contained this card of Michigan alum Jason Avant. Dennis probably has a few extra cards of Michigan players in the same way that I often end up with more dupes of the teams that I collect than anything else.

Finally, here's an interesting design concept. This "Freeze Frame" insert card contains something that looks like a slide in the middle. I would love to see more of these cards.

*A certain someone called me out for referring to her as "someone", so I have adjusted the post accordingly.

A Dodgy PWE Round-Up

 

Three envelopes from two Dodgers fans, including @nightowlcards and more. 

It's time to check out the contents of a few more envelopes sent with good ol' fashioned stamps. First up is one from gcrl / cards as i see them. This one was chockful of Cardinals, which are always appreciated around here and less appreciated in Dodgers-loving homes I'd imagine.

I honestly don't remember when Panini's Absolute set came out last year. It always seems to be one of those things that's released with very little fanfare, as if Panini is contractually obligated to put it out somehow. Panini base cards are always appreciated, just because I feel the vast majority of people I trade with primarily buy Topps stuff, and unopened Panini product can be absurdly expensive.

This Bobby Del Greco card from 1957 Topps could not be more different than those Panini cards. Old cardboard is truly the best cardboard, unless you're talking about an old box that's been slowly decomposing in your basement somewhere.

The second of three numbered cards in this gcrl envelope is from the 2003 SP Authentic set. Instead of just serial numbering all of the rookies in the set, it looks like Upper Deck also saw fit to throw some former rookies into the mix.

Ex-Cardinal outfielder Tommy Pham is featured on this purple parallel from the 2018 Finest set. Pham has had a lengthy injury history, but has nearly always been productive when he can actually stay healthy and on the field.

Last up is a red foil parallel from the 2021 Stadium Club set of the dean of the Cardinals. I don't think the term "dean of the [team]" is ever used anymore, but I remember it appearing on all of the Team Leaders cards in the 1986 Topps set, which I found fascinating as a ten year old. Did you get to wear some sort of crown or special belt for being the longest tenured player on the team? Probably not?

Envelope number two is from the world famous Night Owl Cards. This one is full of set needs, including a number of Allen & Ginter cards. I'm a bit surprised that I don't have all of the Dick Perez art cards from the first couple of Ginter sets, because I could have sworn at one time I had a huge stack of them.

Night Owl usually has a ton of minis lying around, or so I imagine anyway. I've been lucky enough to be the beneficiary of quite a few of his extras over the years. The Mark Reynolds is actually one of the rare unnumbered versions.

Here's a few more Military Leaders cards. I'm still hoping that Topps will make a World's Biggest Jerks mini insert set, or something along those lines.

Here are some very good animals. I'm not sure how the pony card ended up upside-down, but at this point I'm not about to fix it.

A Cardinals card did manage to sneak into the Night Owl envelope -- it's one of those sepia-toned parallels from the most recent Stadium Club set, non-Chrome edition.

The final envelope of the evening is also from a Dodgers fan, and it's gcrl once again! This is just a basic Adam Wainwright mini, but it didn't happen to be in my collection at all yet.

I didn't add a ton of George Springer cards to my collection last year. I'm not sure if it had to do with his move to the Blue Jays or just a lack of apathy towards adding to some of my player collections. I've still added a few things here and there, but I should probably take a look at who and what I want to focus on collecting at some point in the future.

Both envelopes from gcrl featured cards from the 2021 Panini Absolute set. This one is a green foil parallel of Ken Boyer's Statistically Speaking insert card. You don't see a lot of Ken Boyer cards in Topps products as they tend to stick to the same handful of retired players they have deals with.

Nolan Arenado hasn't quite reached Icon status in St. Louis yet, but if he can string together a few more seasons like 2021, he certainly will. A nice playoff run would do wonders as well.

This time around, gcrl included some set needs as well. Here's a few cards from various Topps Heritage sets, including a Sonny Gray short print.

We also have a few more Allen & Ginter inserts, including a barn, a huge tower and a mineral.

Thanks to everyone who has sent me plain white envelopes over the months (and years). Let's keep that exchange coming. It's always fun to open up the mailbox and see something like this pop out.