All Good Things

If all good things must come to an end, then that's something I can live with... because it makes me appreciate those things a wee bit more.

The perfect example is the advent calendar Ryan sent me last month.  Advent calendars have a built-in end date.  So today, we'll see what goodies he put together for me for Day 19 through Day 25.

We left off with blaster box of 2022 Topps Series 2 baseball.  We'll kick off this post with another blaster box...

December 19th

2023 Topps Athletes Unlimited Blaster Box

Until I opened up this present, I had never seen or heard of this product, but according to Topps it is the first product of its kind as it features the best athletes from all four Athletes Unlimited sports leagues.

Based on their website, it's a network of professional sports leagues made up of elite women softball, volleyball, basketball, and lacrosse players.  This should be an interesting break, but I might sit on this box until I can figure out who I'm looking for.

December 20th

The unopened box streak continues...

2022/23 Topps NBL Hobby Box

This time it's a hobby box of NBL athletes.  If you're not familiar with the NBL, it stands for the National Basketball League that's located in the land Down Under.  Unlike the two previous boxes that Ryan sent me... I think I'll add this one to my unopened box collection.  I feel like this one will be more fun to open down the line if some of these guys eventually cross the Pacific and play in the NBA.

December 21st

The box streak might have come to an end... but the foreign sports league trend continues with twenty-one packs of 2022 Epoch JLPGA cards:

Looks like there are ninety cards in the base set... so there's a good chance I'll be able to complete it with these packs.  Ryan included these cards to help me get started:

Here's a closer look at one of the singles:

2022 Epoch JLPGA Top Singles #22

This should be a fun set build.  The best part is any duplicates will be added to my Japanese Athlete PC.

December 22nd

Ryan wasn't sure if I collected Garbage Pail Kids cards.

Well... of course I do.  I started buying them back in 1986 when I spent the summer working in Hawaii for my uncle.  One of the things I'd spend my money on was packs of this stuff.  Unfortunately... I didn't keep them after purging my collection in the early 2000's.

But in 2012, I purchased a collection at a card show for under $100 and it included complete sets of Series 2,3,5,6,7,8,9, and 10.  Plus a partial set of Series 4 that was only missing 5 cards.

Although I haven't purchased any of the newer products, I look forward to opening up the 2022 Topps Chrome GPK Series 5 hanger box in hopes of finding some cool refractors.

As for the micro figures, I already popped those open:

Each of them came with tiny variations of the original cards:

2021 Topps GPK Micro Figures Cards #3b

2021 Topps GPK Micro Figures Cards #10a

Super tiny... but super nostalgic and super duper cool.

December 23rd

Next up are the first packs I opened in 2024:

2023 Topps Big League Baseball

Ripped these open on January 2nd and pulled these:

It was nice to pull a Tatis base card, but this was my favorite pull:

2023 Topps Big League Roll Call Wildstyle #RC-13

While these were the first packs of the new year... next up were my final packs of 2023...

December 24th

The 24th present was this box of 2022 Topps Chrome NPB:

The actual box was a little damaged... but the cards were just fine:

Here are the inserts I pulled:

I recognize Masataka Yoshida (in the middle), but it looks like the hit of the box was this card:

2022 Topps Chrome NPB 1958 Gold Refractor #58-20 (#'d 37/50)

As much as I enjoy collecting NPB cards, I don't really know much about their players.  This is one of the exceptions.  The card show dealer with those Godzilla cards told me about him and his ability to hit the long ball.  The only problem is if he does eventually play in the MLB, it won't be for several years.  I guess the waiting game begins now.

December 25th

Japanese Beastie Boys Hello Nasty Advertisement

Many of you know that I'm a huge Beastie Boys fan, so this is quite the Christmas present.  I've never seen this before, but I love that it combines my interest in the group and my heritage.

It's printed on glossy poster paper with the following measurements:  7.125" x 10.125".  Not exactly sure how these were distributed, but Ryan thinks these were passed out at their concert in Osaka back in 1999.  If so... that's pretty flippin' awesome.

Not 100% sure how I'm going to display it... but this is way too cool to be tucked away in a binder somewhere.  I'll figure out something.

Holy smokes.  That was a ton of fun.  But like I stated at the start of the post... all good things must come to an end.  As bloggers, we're constantly reminded by the extreme generosity passed around our community of collectors.  This custom built advent calendar is just another reminder.

Thank you Ryan for putting this together for me.  I truly appreciate the time, effort, and money you put into such a generous care package.  Looking forward to getting together soon and catching up.

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!