30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Monday, September 2, 2019

Box and Pack Busting Birthday Bash

Good morningToday's post is jam packed with stuff I opened up over my birthday weekend, so I'll keep my words down to a minimum and let the photographs do the talking.


For a few years, I've been chasing down a copy of Buster Posey's 2010 Topps Emerald rookie card, which was a stadium giveaway.  Last Sunday, I purchased a complete set still sealed inside of its original package and opened it up on Friday night after grabbing dinner with a friend.

2010 Topps Giants Emerald #1

Sadly... since Posey is the first card in the set, it was more susceptible to damage and ended up with a soft bottom right corner.  The good news is the rest of the set was clean.

Here's a look at my other two Topps Posey rookie cards for comparison purposes:

2010 Topps #2
2010 Topps Target Throwback #2
2010 Topps Giants Emerald #1

I also decided to finally bust open my two blaster boxes and four value packs of 2019 Topps Chrome:


I've been really good about abstaining from retail card purchases... until my recent trip down to Southern California.  That's when I dropped over $80 on what you see above in hopes of pulling one or two Tatis or Guerrero rookie cardsSpoiler alert... I pulled neither.

I won't bore you with the garbage I pulled.  Here are the five best cards I pulled (in my opinion):

2019 Topps Chrome #204
2019 Topps Chrome Sepia Refractor #204
2019 Topps Chrome #152

2019 Topps Chrome Negative Refractor #158
2019 Topps Chrome Greatness Returns #GRE11

Trust me.  This break was ugly.  Thankfully my final two breaks were not.

A few weeks ago, Ryan (SumoMenkoMan) hooked me up with two packs of UFO cards from Japan.  My original plan was to keep these intact for my unopened pack collection, but he talked me into busting them open.

Here's a look at what the packs look like:


Each pack contained one card...

Pack #1

I'm not exactly sure what's going on, but based on the back of the card it looks like this photograph might have been taken in 1952.

Pack #2

This second card clearly features a UFO.  I'm excited to add both of these cards to my Japanese trading card binder.

Thank you Ryan for hooking me up with these two interesting packs of UFO cards.  Looking forward to hanging out again in a few weeks.


And rounding out this post was a birthday box sent to me by Rod over at Padrographs.  Here's a quick snapshot at the contents in the box:


The first thing I saw when I opened up the box was a copy of the Beastie Boys Book:


I bought this book last year at Barnes and Noble when I went up to Portland, but ended up returning it because there were cheaper copies online.  I never actually got around to picking up another copy... and now I won't have to.

He also included two more issues of SI for Kids... which means I added two more sheets of cards to my collection:


Plus there were two team bags filled with cards... some of which were signed:


These are the first Los Angeles Lakers autographs I've added to my collection in quite some time.  Plus there were a few autographs that I felt deserved a closer look...

2010 Rittenhouse Lost: Archives #8

I only watched maybe 10 to 20 episodes of LOST, but I definitely remember Daniel Dae Kim's character and his gorgeous wife.

Custom Card by Rod

I saw this card last week on Rod's blog, but didn't get to see the card back until last night when I opened up this birthday package.  That's when I learned that Mr. Yoshiwara was the first Asian American general manager in professional baseball.  And his father was a member of the Army's 442nd Regiment, 100th Battalion during World War II.  Talk about real American heroes.


And arguably the coolest card in the package was this signed custom of Mr. Padrographs.  This is my third custom card of him... and the second signed card.


If you look at the complete contents of this care package, you might notice three custom cards he made of me.  He actually included a bunch of these for me to pass out, which was very generous of him.  All he asked in return was for me to sign one of each card for his collection.  I've already taken care of this... and will be sending them back to Oregon in the next few days.

Thanks Rod for another awesome care package!  As I've gotten older in age, most of my birthday presents come in the form of dinners (from friends and family) or gift cards (from students).  So it was a pleasant surprise to open up an actual birthday present.

Oh I almost forgot... Rod also sent me my latest addition to my Prime Number PC:

2018 Bowman Chrome Prospects Purple Refractor #BCP116 (#'d 250/250)

Well that's it for today.  I hope all of you are enjoying your holiday weekend.  My thoughts are with all of you who have been hit by Hurricane Dorian.  I've seen some videos and it's straight up scary what Mother Nature is capable of.  Hopefully all of our friendly bloggers out there on the East Coast are safe and sound.

Happy Labor Day and sayonara!

15 comments:

The Shlabotnik Report said...

I wish either of my teams had sets like those Emerald Nuts sets.

I watched every episode of Lost and while it didn't start out this way, I developed a healthy crush on Yunjin Kim (the "Gorgeous Wife", aka Sun)

SumoMenkoMan said...

Oh wow, what a variety! Not sure what is going on in Pack 1 of the UFO. Crazy. Let me know what you think of the Beatie Boys book.

Steve at 1975BaseballCards.com said...

Happy birthday dude!

The Lost Collector said...

Happy birthday! Lots of good stuff there.

Nick said...

Happy (belated) birthday, my friend! There's a documentary about those Mavericks teams on Netflix called "The Battered Bastards of Baseball," and Yoshiwara is mentioned quite a bit in it. I highly recommend giving it a watch if you can.

Johnnys Trading Spot said...

Happy labor day. I had never seen those Emerald cards/sets before. I guess I need them.

Sean said...

Happy birthday! Love those UFO cards. They were produced by a company called Amada, which did a lot of card sets in the 80s. According to the back of that one from 1952, it is a picture taken that year from a NATO aircraft carrier conducting training in the North Atlantic. I guess that tiny dot in the sky is supposed to be a UFO or something?

Paul said...

Great stuff! Those UFO cards are cool, never seen anything like those before. And that Daniel Dae Kim auto is nice too. Lost was one of my favorite shows and I'd like to someday finish all of the Inkworks card sets from back in the day.

Nick Vossbrink said...

Those Emerald Nuts sets are awesome. My son got the 2012 set for his birthday and I had no idea they included almost 40 players and coaches. They make the current Topps Team sets look like the waste of money that they are and I'd love it it Topps did ~40-player sets for each team instead. I wouldn't miss Total if I could just get a team set for each team instead.

Big Tone said...

Happy Birthday ,bro!Kinda late ,I know.Awesome schwag ,though!Can't go wrong with Pete Polar Bear Alonso and Jeff The Squirrel McNeil (And I hate both of those nicknames btw ) ;)

Collecting Cutch said...

Happy birthday!

Jon said...

Happy belated birthday! It was nice to finally see what those UFO cards looked like, not quite what I expected, but still pretty neat. They seem to be pretty hard to find online, which kind of sucks, although I probably wouldn't be able to afford them even if I did find any, so I guess it doesn't really matter either way.

Fuji said...

the shlabotnik report - me too. would love to have at least an emerald nuts a's team set

sumomenkoman - i'm wondering if some of these ufo cards are puzzle cards... where a few cards come together to form a larger picture

steve at 1975baseballcards.com - thanks

the lost collector - it was a solid birthday weekend that included cards, friends, family, and more cards

nick - thanks buddy! i just added that movie to my watchlist. now i just need to find some free time to sit down and watch it.

johnnys trading spot - i'll send you my set. you just need to grab a buster

sean - thanks for the info. when it comes to japanese cards, you sure know your stuff

paul - i used to have Lost on one of my playlists. maybe one summer i'll sit down and binge watch it

nick vossbrink - i'd love to see the topps flagship cut back on subsets and focus more on 40 man rosters

big tone - thanks. i'm even later. didn't realize i hadn't responded to comments in over a week

collecting cutch - thank you kind sir!

jon - it's so weird that they invest as much money into the packaging as they did the one card that came inside of it.

Jafronius said...

Belated happy birthday!

Fuji said...

jafronius - thanks!