It's Heeeeeere.....

It's in my hands right now. I softly caress it's plastic shrink wrap. The wrap that will momentarily be ripped from the box and discarded on the floor as I tear into this box. Watch this space, I'll post the wrappings and box toppers and such in a little while. I just need a little alone time with my box first.

All right, I'm back. Here's all the wrappings and stuff from the box. Once again I got screwed on my set sticker and there were no box toppers at all. I thought there was supposed to be a rookie redemption card in there? Maybe they stuck it in a pack. Here's the box bottom with typical legalese.

No Barry Bonds logo, thank God. Hopefully we're done with him. Mantle's back in full force though. I never noticed it before but Mickey's logo says "BRAND MANTLE". Mickey was a MAN, not a brand! How do you think his kids feel knowing their daddy was a brand. Then again they're getting all the licensing fees so brand away I suppose.

I scanned the box bottom in a little higher DPI this time, so just click on it to read the autograph and relic groupings. Looking at the autograph list I see that there are some big names in there. David Wright, Chein Ming Wang, David Ortiz, Vlad Guerrero and Joba lead the pack. Mark Teixeira and Jo-Jo Reyes represent the signing Braves. The relic list is fantastic, there are hardly any clunkers at all in there. Scott Thorman is easily the most terrible relic of the bunch. At least if your guaranteed autogamer is a relic you're very likely to get somebody good.

There is also a serial number stamped on the inside of the flap. I shall scan it and post it, for I am insane.


Here's the wrapper:

The sell sheet prominently featured A-Rod so I'm pleasantly surprised to see Pujols as the Series Two spokesman. No circles on the wrapper this time, just Albert in front of a solid field of red. Topps is really pushing the red this year. Red belongs on wrappers and not borders so I'm cool with it. I tried about ten times to scan the odds on the back of the wrapper, but this is the best I could do:

It's a pretty terrible scan, don't even bother clicking. I'll type out the odds instead:

Gold Parallel 1:5 (about 7 per box)
Black Parallel 1:63 (a little better than 1 in every other box)
Platinum Parallel 1:12500 (fuggedahboutit)
Printing Plates 1:900 (1:25 boxes)
Mantle Story 1:18 (2 per box)
Trading Card History 1:6 (6 per box)
Topps Stars 1:6 (6 per box)
Year in Review 1:6 (6 per box)
FatHead Instant Win 1:52,718

Ok, a brief pause here. FatHead instant win cards? You mean those things you stick on the wall? The ones with the goofy commercials that air at 3am on ESPN? I hadn't heard of this before now. Maybe Topps is accepting ads in their packs now? It's one way to generate revenue I suppose. As long as they don't chop one up into one inch squares and put it in cards I'm cool with it. You're looking at about one in every 1500 boxes so you'll likely never see one.

All-Rookie Team 50th Anniversary 1:5 (about 7 per box)
All-Rookie Team 50th Anniversary Gold Parallel 1:740 (about 1:20 boxes)
All-Rookie Team 50th Anniversary Relic 1:2378 (about 1:66 boxes)
All-Rookie Team 50th Anniversary Autograph 1:13017 (it's harder to pull an autograph than a 1:1 Platinum card?)
Silk Collection 1:300 (about 1:8 boxes)
Presidential Stamp Collection 1:600 (about 1:16 boxes)

Here's all the Highlights autogamer odds. Add 'em all together and you get 1 per box somehow. Is there anybody with a statistics degree out there that can confirm this?

Autographs:
Group A 1:28,927
Group B 1:923
Group C 1:2550
Group D 1:15,370
Group E 1:814
Group F 1:3254

Autographed Relic 1:17,356 (easier than autograph group A which is the best group of the bunch)

Relics:
Group A 1:85
Group B 1:108
Group C 1:651
Dual Relic 1:6354

I can forget about a Teixeira autograph, but maybe the Jo-Jo Reyes and Thorman cards will be easy to find. There's gotta be a WHOLE lot of Oswalt and Reyes relic cards out there if those two alone pack out a 1:85 packs. Methinks Topps messed up the odds again. Or the groups. Or just makes them all up thinking no one will notice.

1956 Mantle Reprint Relic 1:43,030 (!!!)
Historical Campaign Matchups 1:6 (6 per box)
Historical Campaign Matchups Cut Signatures 1:80,000 (one cut sig in every 2,222.22repeating boxes. I might have to buy a second box at those odds)
Commemorative Patch Relic 1:792 (down to 1:22 boxes for this one)
Campaign Letter Patches 1:2642 (about one in 73 boxes)

I forgot about the Letter Patches cards. Thing the fake Letters Upper Deck puts in SP that people collect the whole name of their favorite player and then scans them and puts it in their .sig file on the Beckett messageboards. Now think about them doing it for Obama and McCain. It'll take about 400 boxes worth of packs to spell out either one of their names, so good luck with that. Imagine if Richardson and Huckabee won the nominations. Oy!

Home Run Derby 1:125
Topps FatHead Sweepstakes 1:107,600 (I'm not sure how this is different from the instant win card above)

Well that's what could be in this box. What will I get? Who knows. We'll all find out soon. Here's the first card from the first pack in the meantime:

Matt Chico of the Washington Nationals. Oops, make that the Columbus Clippers. This box is starting off hot!