Napkin And Baseball Cards Sitting In A Tree…

K-I-S-S-I-N-G

First comes love, 

Then Comes Marriage,

The Comes Napkin Pushing a baby carriage!

( I completed the Finest Futures insert sets from 2011 Bowman by the way…)

Early Fireworks in the Mailbox

Ryan at the outstanding blog "This Card is Cool...My Life in Baseball Cards"  just made my day!   I recently was one of the winners in his surprise package contest.  I had only a vague idea of what I might be getting, but didn't know for sure until today.  What I got blew me away!

First, Ryan sent these 3 non-sport autographs:

Very nice indeed!  He also sent a bunch of entertaining non-sport cards:

My wife is a big fan of the Tudors, so she gets the Tudors card.  I'll keep the Betty Paige for myself.  The Topps Tribute card of the Tortoise and the Hare is really nice!  There were several of the UD Political cards which I think will be really fun to look back on over the years.  The "art card" at the top is a card of original artwork by wretler Jeff Hardy.  And of course, Ginter minis are always cool!

But the best part was the heap of 2011 Bowman inserts he sent!   Here is just a sampling:

There was about 40 insert cards in this package, which really made a huge dent in my Super Duper Checklist needs!

What a great way to start a long weekend, and thank you so much for the generosity to Ryan!

Wax Wednesday- Which $20 was better spent?

One of the pluses of living in Walmart's backyard is that there are a lot of Walmart stores around here, and they are usually run pretty well, and stocked pretty well.  This played to my advantage yesterday when I ran to the nearby Walmart to pick up a few things and took my usual jaunt over to the card section.  To my surprise, Bowman had just been replenished and the shelf was packed.  It was very tempting to grab it all, but I realized a) I don't really care THAT much for Bowman b) I couldn't afford it even if I did really, really want it and c) my lovely wife would... well it wouldn't be pretty.

So, I rationalized that some serious analysis was needed of the difference between a $20 blaster box, and (4) $5 rack packs.  So I bought the necessary data input and brought it all home.  I am still alive today, but only because I think I got pretty lucky with the pulls.  First, a comparison of the contents:

	Blaster Box	4 Rack Packs
Base Cards	29	29
Base RC	5	8
Gold Parallel	8	4
Orange Parallel (#250)	0	1
Blue Parallel (#500)	0	1
1st Bowman	16	16
1st Bowman Chrome	14	14
1st Bowman Chrome Purple (#700)	0	2
Auto	1	0
Bowman's Brightest	1	1
Topps 100	3	1
Finest Futures	2	3
Topps of the Class	1	0
Bowman's Best	1	0
International Base	1	0
Total Cards	82	80

I counted the cards in the blaster at least 4 times, and yes, I did get two extra cards.  However, I should have received 16 chrome cards but only got 14.  Maybe getting the auto or the Bowman's Best card in the blaster had something to do with the allocation, or perhaps the exceptions are explained somewhere and I am just too lazy to look into it. 

In terms of parallel cards, the rack packs came out ahead, hitting one blue and orange version.  I also got two of the purple parallel chrome cards in the rack packs, but none in the blaster.

In terms of inserts, the blaster was much better.  I really like the Bowman's Best set, but only got one card.  I also was excited to see a Tim Beckham auto in the blaster.

So how did I do with the real reason folks are snapping this product up?  Not too bad.  I got 3 Bryce Harpers:  2 Base and 1 Chrome.

Here are the highlights:

Blaster Box Highlights

Rack Pack Highlights

Of course, this experiment is a very small sample size, and the rack packs add a strong element of randomness.  I think the best way to come up with some solid conclusions and recommendations is to run this same experiment 4 or 5 more times.  Surely my lovely wife can't argue with that logic?

 



Bowman 2011 Rack Packs

Bowman 2011 hit the shelves of a local Walmart today, and of course, I had no control and bought a couple of rack packs.  Although I'm not especially hyped about Bowman this year, I was still somewhat pleased with myself for not loading up my basket with blaster boxes.   Bowman 2010 was one of the products that pulled me back heavy into the hobby last year when I happened to hit some Strasburgs, so perhaps if I repeat my luck with Bryce Harper,  I'll be back for more.  Here are the highlights:

Here are the base cards, gold parallels and a "Finest Futures" insert of Jason Heyward.  The Posada gold card asked to be held out of the scan, but I asserted my authority and put him in.  

The "1st Bowman Cards" of a bunch of guys I've never heard of.  Doesn't mean they won't be good, I'm just not familiar with them yet.

Finally, each rack pack includes 4 Chrome cards, so I got 8.  The purple parallels are numbered to 700.  No Harper, but who knows what sort of hidden gem there might be in here.  I also got 1 "Topps of the Class" insert card.

Overall, I actually like the design of the base card pretty well.  It's pretty clean and the silver type is nice looking.  The 1st Bowman cards don't do much for me, but maybe they'll grow on me later.  I'm going to bet I can buy a full base set cheap on eBay at some point soon, so I think I'm done with the wax.  I'd rather buy Gypsy Queen or even some of the $14.99 value packs I suppose until Topps Series 2 comes out.