I'm still not sure if Wally World blasters are all black cards or if they are some sort of 'hot box' for people to chase. Before I rip it open, let's look at all six sides of the box and see if the word 'black' or 'border' is used even ONCE.
Front of the box:
"10 packs plus One Retired Legend Commemorative Patch Card!"Nope, nothing about black bordered cards there. There is a warning that THESE CARDS MAY KILL YOUR CHILDREN though. Never feed new baseball cards to your kids, folks. Give 'em some nice '87 Topps to chew on. Good roughage, that.
Back of the box:
Same as the front except in horozaontal format and Topps is no longer concerned if your children die. There is a nice ad for their Legends of the game insert set though. there isn't one for black bordered cards though.Right side of the box:
A-Rod's rump. His best side. Everyone sees Alex is a cheater now. I don't. I see him like Ken Lay or that Bernie Madoff guy who stole money from Sandy Koufax's charity. They did something illegal to make massive amounts of profits and people looked the other way for a long time until the shit finally hit the fan. Give me a good old fashioned cheater any day.Ok, commentary over. Toppstown.com ad. 10 code cards inside! 1956 world Series Patch! Actual Card may Vary! 10 packs, 8 cards per pack, 81 cards per box. No black. No border.
Left side of the box:
TONS if info here. There has to be a mention of black border parallels here, no?UPC code.
Approximate odds:
Gold parallel 1:10
Platimum parallel 1:21000
Base varation 1:119
Legends of the game 1:8
Legends gold parallel 1:2600
Legends platinum paralle 1:10000
Turkey Red 1:6
Black border stealth parallel 1:???
No purchase necessary blah blah blah
Legends commemorative patch cards: I'm gonna get Don Larsen, I know it. Maybe Yogi will be jumping in his arms at least.
Top of the box:
Same as the front minus A-Fraud and plus Topps Town.Box bottom.
Ok. There's where tOpps hides all the legalese crap. They snuck the black border stuff in here to fool us.Distributed by... blahblahblah... no future value... blahblahblah... official licensee... blahblahblah... Mantle IP holdings ltd... blahblahblah... Williams family enterprises... blahblahblah... CMG... blahblahblah... Consumer Product Safety Commission... blahblahblah...
topps.com
1-888-GO-TOPPS
MLB.com
MLBPLAYERS.com
That's it.
No mention of black borders anywhere.
Effing Gimmick Bullpuckey.
Ok. Time to rip. Watch this lovely video while I start shredding and posting. Remember to hit F5 every so often kids!
Squished picture with Japanese subtitles! WOOOOOOO! Let's open this puppy!
First pack...
WE HAVE BLACK!!!
285 Justin Ducsherer218 Emmanuel Burriss
270 Grady Sizemore
TR48 Nate McLouth Turkey Red
TTT17 K-Rod Topps Town
306 Javy Vazquez
29 Jerry Hairston
33 Jose Guillen
Pack 2:
313 Jamey Carroll167 Aaron Harang
263 Elijah Dukes
250 Josh Hamilton
TTT18 Miguel Cabrera TT
Topps Attax code
191 Victorino Postseason
156 Carlos Pena
237 Aaron Cunningham
I can't believe I'm saying this, but this stuff looks GOOD. the Turkey Red in the first pack is a good omen for two in the box. Grady and Hambone are the two best cards so far.
Pack 3:
140 Brandon Webb243 Chase Headley
157 Combo D-Backs
TR28 Delmon Young
TTT22 Lincecum TT
120 Mark Tei$eira
291 Cris Coste
34 Brandon Inge
Let me rephrase: this stuff looks good in person. It doesn't scan worth a flip. The second Turkey Red showed up quickly. Now we're shooing for a Turkey Red hot box!
Pack 4:
117 Ron Gardenhire255 Joe Crede
176 AL RBI Leaders
TTT23 Hamilton TT
10 Dan Uggla
292 Francisco Cervelli
45 Brad Ziegler
17 BOBBY!!!
Honesty time, I wanted the Bobby Cox card from the first nanosecond I saw that first Wal-MArt blaster break. I am now happy.
Pack 5:
295 Derrek Lee205 Miguel Tejada
201 Combo - Salty Ham
206 NL ERA leaders
TTT24 Bruce TT
293 Brian Bixler
109 Tom Gorzelanny
317 Jarrod Saltalamaccia
This box is rather Ranger-heavy so far. I think that's three Hamilton cards aleady.
Pack 6:
106 Marlon Byrd60 Mariano Rivara
128 Johnny Cueto
221 AL ERA Leaders
246 Postseason - Rays
TTT Dice-K TT
Attax code
220 Jay Bruce
48 Mike Napoli
Players seem to come in bunches. Two Dice-K's in this pack and another Bruce card makes an appearance.
Pack 7:
58 Travis Snider190 Chein Ming Wang
52 Marco Scutaro
238 Jorge Cantu
TTT19 Carlos Quentin TT
224 Max Scherzer
236 Kelly Johnson
198 Conor Jackson
Ooh! Look at the little sliver of background at the top of Kelly Johnson's card. Isn't it cute!
OH GOD. I'm liking this set. Must... Remain... Cynical...
GIMMICKS!
Pack 8:
316 Brian Stokes68 Kyle Lohse
229 Cesar Izturis
127 AL HR Leaders
TTT20 Berkman TT
David Wright, waste of space.
12 Andrew Carpenter
277 Asdrubal Cabrera
2 Omar Vizquel
No inserts in a while. Here's the scan of the box topper pack to whet your appetite. Yeah, it scans worse than the actual cards.
Pack 9:
124 Reed Johnson241 David Newhan
139 Postseason Stairs
180 Cliff Lee Gold #1700/2009
TTT21 Chipper Jones Gold TT
22 Combos - Price & Longoria
57 Jo-Jo Reyes
199 Ramon Castro
Chipper Jones Gold = Box is a success, gimmicks or no.
Pack 10:
75 Rich Harden35 David Price
147 NLRBI Leaders
LG25 Cal Ripken Jr. Legend
TTT21 Chipper Jones TT
282 Chris Lambert
166 Jeff Baker
98 Akinori Iwamura
Finally got the Legends insert. Two Turkeys, one Gold and one Legend is about right for a blaster. You can't see it too well on the scan, but the foil on the David Price card is slightly off center. I bet if I put it on eBay as DAVID PRICE ROOKIE ERROR FOIL BLACK 1/1!!! I'd sell it for a fortune.
OK KIDS! TIME TO OPEN THE PATCH PACK!
(drumroll....)
HOLY CRAP KIDS, YOU'RE ALL GONNA LIKE THIS ONE!!!
Ok. I'm torn. Part of me is appalled that I have something so evil and unholy in my house, but this card IS. FREAKING. GORGEOUS.
I don't know what to do with this. Trade it off? Sell it? Hold it prisoner and drive the Mets fans insane? I shall ponder this carefully. A brief respite shall ensue before the final denouement.
Ok. Stale Gum has a theory that these cards are a legitimate printing error or test proof that somehow got overproduced so Topps decided to pack 'em out anyway. This guy says all shall be revealed in a couple of days. I still don't know if all the Wal-Mart blasters have black bordered cards or if the Spies left me a hot box. I do know that doing an unnanounced retail-only parallel is:
Sneaky
Dirty
Low-Down
Underhanded
Gimmicky
Shenanigans
And this is how I feel about the whole thing!
These cards are freaking awesome, man. I think they look a hell of a lot better than the regular set and I LIKE the regular set. I know, I suck. I've lost all my cynical card curmudgeon cred. But they look good! They're like a trading card version of Cosmic Bowling, all dark and neon! If I knew with certainty that all the Wal-Mart blasters had black cards in them, I'd trade off my white bordered base cards and take my Heritage box money and just buy up a bunch of Wally World blasters and build the black border set. I like 'em that much. Pathetic isn't it? For now I'll sit back and enjoy the ones I have and wait for all this to settle itself out.
I don't know what the hell you're thinking Topps, but if you want to make this black border stuff a regular thing in series two and beyond I've got your back on this one. Just tell us next time, ok?
25 comments:
You caved. I knew it. Now watch as the blackness creeps upon your skin like some kind of alien symbiote...
Sincerely,
JayBee Anama
bdj610
All Black?
I think these might be intentional - what sort of printing would make the backgrounds also black, but have the player stand out so clearly?
The Grady Sizemore card looks pretty nifty. I'm not going to touch a Wal Mart blaster because of this... but they are kinda cool.
Wat does the back look like? normal?
damnit, damnit, damnit. These cards are growing on me ... Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
There is no Jeter card in this set, so least I am not tempted to go out and buy one.
But I do like the black.
Looks like I'll have to pick up a blaster. Damn!
Open a Mantle patch and it'll pay for the box. They are moving at ridiculous prices on ebay.
You'd only get a fortune for that Price card if you include all of those exclaimation points. :)
There is one of those Seaver patches ending in 2 hours on ebay. It is at 17 bucks. Seriously...I think these patches look pretty good but these prices are nuts.
Drool....
I think you got my blaster. Off to check your wantlists in case the Black Salty Ham is available. The other Ham too.... ;)
trade seaver? please?
What will it take to pull a few of those (Inge, Lambert, AL RBI Leaders, AL HR Leaders) out of your hands?
Wright waste of space? No clue about Seaver? I think we've disappeared.
What a difference a day makes, huh? I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one that doesn't hate this black set. Hence the lack of "OMGWTFBBQGIMMICKTOPPSISDASUXXORZZZ!!!" in my blaster review.
Oh, and thanks for the extra pub yesterday...
Yes, I have succumbed to the Dark side.
PunkRockPaint - every base card in the box was black.
Voltaire - These were definitely intentional.
Ben - backs look normal.
cardboardicons - !f ! do se!! the Pr!ce ! w!!! use an !nsane amount of !!!!!!!!!!!s
Matt - considering the odds of any specific card in the patch set is one in fifty BOXES It's a hell of a lot more economical to buy the one you want on eBay even if it costs more than the blaster. If there was an Aaron in the set I'd be hitting eBay too.
Hamiltonian/Grand cards - My original plan was to pick out the Braves and trade the rest. I'm awfully tempted to build a set now though. I don't know how hard these cards are to get though. If I do trade 'em you'll know about it.
SteveisJewish - I really like the card, but if an offer that I can't refuse comes up I'll take it. It's gotta be niiiiiiice though.
Dinged Corners - Wright waste of space is that stupid Topps of the Class insert that has been in every other pack for the past year. I may have inadvertently bungled the punctuation.
as for Tom Seaver= evil and unholy.
The Braves actually drafted and signed Seaver to a contract, but the moron Commissioner declared the signing illegal and actually put his rights up to a lottery. The Dirty Mets won and then proceeded to use him to beat us in the 1969 NLCS. Thus, evil & Unholy even though I like Seaver.
I'm not tempted to chase these. I still think Topps should have gave some kind of warning for unsuspecting blaster buyers (if it was intentional) But now that the cat is out of the bag I guess it's cool. People can collect the black cards if they want 'em and now they know where to get 'em.
Has it been established yet that ALL Wal-Mart blasters have NOTHING but black border cards in them?
I really want to collect this set, but I'm not wasting money buying up blasters looking for hot boxes. I've already spent more money on cards than I planned to this week and I haven't even bought my box of Heritage yet.
I haven't bought any blasters. I have been getting cereal boxes and jumbo packs. I feel those are a better value. The patches really don't interest me so I will stay with what I am buying.
I literally got up off the couch, got in the card, drove to wally world, and purchased a box of these. They too were all black. I also got a nice Ernie Banks 1962 All Star game patch.
I don't know what it is, but I really want to get my hands on some of the Yankee patch cards, as well as the Cal Ripken(s?). I'm also a fan of the refractor-y legends being put into the cereal boxes as well. Damn it, I vowed to cut back on my spending this year, and this is really giving me the itch to finally break down and bust a 2009 product.
I agree to an extent Dayf, but I still think that the current prices of these cards will drop like a lead balloon once more blasters are opened. In the meantime, you can buy blasters...sell the patches...buy more blasters. Seems like a reasonable way to build the base set.
"......." you and all your Reds pulls. If i get one more pack of Cubs, Cubs, Cubs, Mets, Yankees, Astros. Cubs, Mets I am going to personally drive my Freightliner into Topps HQ. And smile.
Damn. I just got back like an hour ago from the Faraways Walmart #2.
I struck out yesterday at Faraways Walmart #1 looking for the the GinterBaseCodeStrapsborgMaybeChromfactor Value Packs.
I make it to #2 today, and srsly score some Value Packs, and super cheapo OPCBB and Philly Football from last year. I was so blinded by the Strapsborg Chrome possibilities that I completely ignored any normal Topps Blast-ars.
Looks like I'll have to go back this weekend for my third trip to Wallsmart this year; already three times as often as most years.
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