All posts by dpatera

2015, Box Break, Hobby Box, Hockey

2015-16 O-Pee-Chee Hockey Hobby Box Break

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This release is pretty much what you’ve come to expect over the recent years. It’s a modern release on old fashioned cardboard stock. The base set is 500 cards, with an additional 100 SP cards featuring marquee rookies and legends.

The box has 32 packs of 8 cards, but no guaranteed hits. There are a few parallels included, but not much in the way of inserts really. This is much more a set builder release than many of the other current options.

This box contained:
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2015, Hobby Box, Non-Sport, Star Wars, Topps

2015 Topps Star Wars The Force Awakens Series 1 Special Edition Hobby Box Break

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This is a bit of a different release from Topps for the opening of the new Star Wars film, The Force Awakens. They are offering two different configurations for Hobby Boxes this time, which seems to have caused some confusion in the market place. The first is a traditional box containing 24 packs of 8 cards, with a chance at various hits including autographs and relics. The second one (featured here) is the special edition with 24 packs of 6 cards each, with no hits.

It seems a little bit different to not have the chance at autographs, but with the usual long odds of getting any desirable ones, this seems like a decent alternative. It is targeted more to the set collector, while still including inserts as well as parallel cards.

This is the first series of movie cards and seems to cover approximately the first third to first half of the film. Given the recent release, if you are avoiding spoilers, you may not want to look at the cards yet, although I don’t think this first set is very filled with spoilers you would not have gleaned from the trailers before the release.

The set contains 100 cards, along with various subsets featuring Behind the Scenes shots, Movie Scenes, Locations, among other details.

This Box contained:

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2015, Baseball, Basketball, Blaster Box, Box Break, Football

2015 Panini University of Michigan Wolverines Blaster Box Break

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This is a little bit different kind of release.  Panini is releasing these for a number of different schools.  The full 50 card set features recent and historic players from the University of Michigan’s storied history, in baseketball, baseball and football.  There are also the occasional school history cards, but no hockey players are included.  There is also an Honors insert line, featuring award winning players, as well as memorabilia and autograph cards.  The memorabilia and autograph subsets feature a pretty small checklist, but it sounds like some of the more desirable players are in shorter supply.

This box advertises 10 packs, with 8 cards per pack.  There should also be one autograph or memorabilia per blaster box.

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2015, Baseball, Box Break, Topps Heritage

2015 Topps Heritage 51 Collection Box Set Break

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This is a little bit different release for this year. Normally, the Topps Heritage release features a single year from the past, and shows current players on cards from that design. Every year, the normal set design moves up one year, but this one is a bit different. It seems to be a one-off to just feature current players on 1951 Topps designs, in a box set format.

The box features
1 Full 104 card set
10 Mini Red Back Parallels
5 Mini Blue Back Parallels
3 Mini Green Back Parallels
2 Mini Black Back Parallels
1 Mini Gold Back Parallel
1 Autograph Francisco Lindor

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2015, Baseball, Box Break, Jumbo Hobby Box, Topps

2015 Topps Update Jumbo Hobby Box Break

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The Topps Update set is an old favorite from this time of year.   You expect to see a lot of mid season rookies and players who are traded.  It has a pretty good selection, but some major names, like Schwarber, are curiously missing.  I suppose it is just an effort to keep some rookies in series one next winter.

Another major change you find this year is the expansion of the base set to 400 cards, after many years at 330.  Even series 1 and series 2 were only 350 cards each this year.  One thing that really stands out to me this year, involves the stamped buyback cards in the packs.  I like the idea, but it seems like they should really up their game a bit.  I realize some of these are are 55+ years old, but I’d still hope they would at least not have rips through the cards and other serious damage.  It’s fun to pull an old card, but it loses quite a bit when it looks like it was pulled out of a garbage pile.

 

The box has the standard configuration for jumbos featuring ten packs of 50 cards each.

 

This box contained:

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