Going for Gold

Chasing more framed autographs with @midwestboxbreak and Topps Gold Label. 

  

I don't usually get sucked into any particular product all too often, but I apparently can't help myself when it comes to Topps Gold Label. After scoring a couple of the framed autographs for my team collection in previous breaks, I bought into an 8 box PYT (Pick Your Team) break from Midwest Box Breaks for a very reasonable price.

Paul Goldschmidt is the guy whose autograph continues to elude me, although it still makes me wonder why I decided to be into collecting signatures of dudes in the first place. It's really not my thing. I did snag a couple of unsigned Goldschmidt needs, with a Class 2 and a Class 3 Black entering my collection.

After previously getting a KK auto and a Junior Fernandez auto, this Rangel Ravelo was new to me. There's 4 Cardinals in the set in total, so you now know who exactly I'm missing.

Hey, it's... another Rangel Ravelo? Not bad. His signature is a little bit different here as compared to the previous card.

And for good measure, I ended up with another Junior Fernandez framed auto. Three Cardinals autographs out of eight boxes? That's definitely beating the odds, especially when this is a set with only one expected auto per box.

Midwest Box Breaks throws in some bonuses for new people, which is really nice (and probably encourages people to come back!) I had actually bought into at least one of their breaks in the past, but the only one I could find in my records was from back in August 2019. In any case, it's really nice when you get something extra that you weren't expecting.

These two Twins cards (they're not actual twins, that would be weird) will be heading to the trade box, which is looking more like a box and a pile these days. I should probably get a little more reorganizing done around here.

Chrome, Mini, and Don't Forget the Donuts

A bunch of @CrackinWax breaks on the latest #CrackinWaxMailDay brings the shiny donuts. 

Last week was a bigger week for me in terms of buying into breaks. This latest crop from Crackin' Wax included purchases from the latest Chrome, Prizm and Optic sets (Optic not included!) as well as a cameo from a new Panini Absolute set and last year's "on-demand" Topps Mini product.

The Chrome boxes proved fruitful to me, as I was able to land a few refractors this time around. Let's just pretend that you can see the rainbow effect on the DeJong and Edman cards here.

This orange Jack Flaherty is numbered to just 25. Consider me very pleased with this one!

 

Rangel Ravelo is one of those career minor league types, but he showed a little bit of promise when he finally got the call last season with the Cardinals. In any case, autographed Chrome cards continue to look cool as they're all done "on card".

Panini's new Absolute set is weird in that it's both expensive and unlicensed (of course), but as part of a "mixer" (a box break with multiple products) I at least ended up with this one example from the set. It's a silver numbered paralle. If anyone actually has any of the base cards from this set that can be spared, please let me know.

Topps Mini, in its more recent "On Demand" configuration, is always a bit of a gamble considering that at it's base price point you just get one jumbo pack per box while the set is huge. I can't imagine putting together the entire set, which contains mini versions of all three flagship series sets, but people are spending crazy amounts of cash on cards these days. I was super fortunate to land this low numbered Ozzie Smith insert parallel along with a Tommy Edman Update rookie card.

A lot of the cards from this week's breaks came from the 2020 Panini Prizm set. I think this was my third attempt at trying to get some exclusive "donuts" parallels from the Quick Pitch version of Prizm boxes, and it finally worked out this time. This red Tommy Edman is numbered to 149.

I also ended up with a needed Goldschmidt insert. Not bad! Now I just need the 732 other versions of this card, probably.

My randomly assigned team in this break fared even better than the Cardinals, though, as I ended up with 3 different Diamondbacks numbered parallels. It's just unfortunate that I haven't really traded with an Arizona collector in awhile, to my recollection. This one is numbered to 199.

It's weird to think about Bumgarner in another uniform (and clearly he is still wearing the Giants uniform here), but that's life in 2020. There's only 15 copies of this card... wow!

Out of the three, this is the one I'm most likely to want to hang on to. Instead of donuts, this is actually some kind of snakeskin parallel. I like it! Gallen looks like one of the better young pitchers in the game right now, which makes it all the more unfortunate that he was originally a Cardinals draft pick. That Marcell Ozuna deal stings a bit. Of course, the Marlins flipped Gallen for a different prospect, so what do they even know?