Needed a few more things from Walmart so I had to make a quick trip. Lo and behold they got the new 2011 Topps Chrome football blasters in this morning. This almost never happens here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Usually we get them a week after they start hitting retail shelves on the east coast. Anyway, I broke my blaster on video. Shiny stuff inside.
Enjoy.
Had to make a run to Walmart on Tuesday to get my oil change. While waiting I ventured over to the card aisle and discovered the return of the Walmart Value Box. Here we get 5 2011 Topps Update, 1 Bowman Chrome HOBBY pack, a Topps Diamond Giveaway Code and a special Bryce Harper “Bowman Chrome” refractor for $14.99. I bought one and did something I rarely do … I broke it on video.
Enjoy.
2011 Topps Hope Diamond Rod Barajas /60
The two codes yielded a 1981 Dave Stieb and a 1981 Dave Petry. Three hours later the Petry was traded on the Diamond Giveaway site for a 1976 Dan Meyer, 1980 Jim Mason, 1983 Fred Lynn and 1983 League Leaders card w/ Lamaar Hoyt and Steve Carlton.
I had the good fortune of getting to a Target on Wednesday just minutes after the vendor stocked the shelves with new items, including 2011 Bowman Chrome baseball. I tell you, it’s a wonderful feeling to walk through the doors and see from about 100 feet away the sight of new packs.
So I dove in.
I bought a blaster and a few of the Value Pack Rack Packs.
The basics: The blaster offers eight packs for $19.99 while each Value Pack offers three basic retail packs (same odds as loosies and in blasters) and a single pack of three green xfractors for $8.99.
What’s great about all of these packs is they offer a shot at the same cards that are in hobby packs, save for the superfractors. This means the basic chrome prospect autos are available in retail packs. Someone is going to pull a Harper Chrome Auto out of a pack at Target, or WalMart, or Kroger, or whatever. Awesome, right?
One problem: Autographs fall one in 77 packs. They are one per box (18 packs) in hobby.
Anyway, the price points are obviously a lot more palatable than that of the hobby prices, which I imagine are eclipsing the $5 per pack point in some places.
Anyway, here are the better cards I pulled in my packs. And yes, I actually hit an auto.
Did you know Bryce Harper is in this product?!
Calm down, I said that facetiously.
I got Bryce from the Past:
(And yes, it is dead center on both sides)
2001 Bowman Throwbacks
Bryce from the Present:
2011 Bowman Chrome Prospect
And Bryce from the Future:
2011 Bowman Chrome 2021 Bowman Chrome Future
Always nice at this point to see Bryce Harper in my packs. Too bad none of them were covered in ink. That said, I did manage to pull this auto:
2011 Bowman Chrome Prospects Autograph Starling Marte
I know I showed off my Bryce Harper 2001 Bowman Chrome throwback above, but I also puled these two:
2011 Bowman Chrome 2001 Throwbacks Brett Lawrie
2011 Bowman Chrome 2001 Bowman Chrome Reprint Ichiro rookie
The Ichiro is the Japanese version.
But perhaps the nicest card of all came from one of my retail exclusive packs:
2011 Bowman Chrome Prospects Green Xfractor Brett Lawrie
Dead center. No print lines. No scratches. Just beautiful.
After attending Wednesday’s San Francisco Giants parade, I decided to stop by my local card shop for a few Bowman Chrome packs. What I walked out with was four of those and a pair of Donruss Elite Extra Edition packs. Figured I was having such a good day, maybe the vibe would carry over … and it did.
Out of the two Elite packs, I pulled this sweet “Terrific” Tom Seaver Private Signings ball leather card serial numbered to 10 copies. In a different time, I would keep the card for my collection, but I think I’ll toss it on eBay and put the proceeds toward a few vintage rookies for my collection.
2010 Edlite Extra Edition Private Signings Tom Seaver /10
The base cards were base cards. I pulled nine prospects for my rookie/prospect collection and a Pam Anderson card, which is a nice bonus I suppose. For a long time I was opposed to this product, but I actually kind of like it. This might not be the end of my Elite breaks. Or maybe I’ll just buy a base set.
2010 Donruss Elite Extra Edition pack 1 (missing is the Seaver shown above)
Elite Extra Edition pk 2
Like most hobby shops, the Bowman Chrome was slightly overpriced. At $4.95 each pack, I figured I try a few and get the hell out. I didn’t pull a Strasburg auto, but managed to snag a prospect auto of 17-year-old Miguel Sano, who is the fourth best autograph available in the product, according to Freedom Card Board. With resale value anywhere from $25-$60, I think I might toss it on eBay too to see if I can flip it into another long-sought-after vintage rookie. Perhaps a Willie McCovey or Willie Stargell, or both, depending on the end price. The card is mint … my scanner just scanned it really dark and messy.
2010 Bowman Chrome Prospects Auto Miguel Sano
I won’t waste your time with scanning the basic Bowman Chrome veteran cards, even if though there is a Luke Hochevar refractor. But here are the Chrome prospects. As you can see I also pulled a USA card of A.J. Vanegas.
2010 Bowman Chrome
Bowman Chrome is Bowman Chrome, but I do take issue with two of these cards. First off A.J. Vanegas had a Bowman Chrome card in the basic Bowman Set. He was part of the USA Under 18 set. Not entirely sure why they decided to make yet another one here. At least they used a different picture. Point should be made though that the new Vanegas card is NOT his ‘First Bowman Chrome Card” as the logo suggests.
Which of course brings me to the second card I have an issue with: Craig Clark. He, too, had a card in basic Bowman. Hell, they even used the same picture. (see below) The cards from the two series are IDENTICAL except for the actual card number and a white border on the new card. The first one is card No. BCP27. The one from the newly released Bowman Chrome is BCP111. It also should be noted that Craig Clark has a signed version in the first series. Not sure if there is another in the new release.
Top row is new, bottom is old
With the hype surrounding this years release of Bowman baseball, it was impossible to pass on this. I love this product, but in recent years it has waned on me. Too much nonsense, not enough punch. Typically Topps holds back the good stuff for its Chrome and Draft releases. This year, though, basic Bowman carries a ton of hype, probably the most I’ve seen since 1997 when Jose Cruz Jr., Hideki Irabu and Travis Lee were all the rage. Anyway, jumbo boxes are what you want, but you’re going to be charged an arm and a leg for them. They were $165 at my local shop … and they were sold out before they hit the shelves. And so I settled for a regular box at a fraction of the price. Here are the goods:
The box didn’t yield any of the Strasburg autos, which are what are driving prices through the roof, but I did manage to get his base Chrome card, as well as his two insert cards — Bowman Expectations (Tim Lincecum is on the other side) and Topps 100 Prospects. I also managed to get Chrome cards of two of the other hotter players in the set, Donovan Tate and Aroldis Chapman. I was really hoping for ones of Dustin Ackley and Bryce Harper as well, but that didn’t happen.
As you can see, I beat the odds and managed to get two autographs. A basic box of 24 packs is “guaranteed” to have one Chrome auto. The jumbo boxes have three, hence the big price jump. My two autos were OK: Josh Thole “RC” and Prospect Wil Myers, who had a Elite auto a few years ago. The box also yielded two refractors serial numbered to 777 copies; Bo Greenwell and Jeff Antigua. My box also had two base parallels, one blue and one orange, both of which were “rookies:” Charlie Morton (/500) and Eric Young Jr. (/250).
One word of warning: The Chrome cards in these boxes are coming out scratched, especially the refractors. If you collect Chrome, you know this is always a problem. But these are pretty bad.
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