I've been waiting for this day for over two years

Ordinary 2009 Topps, you say? Au contraire, mon frère...

I almost passed them up thinking that they were 2009 Philadelphia football.

Looks like I'll be hitting every single Target in the Southeast this holiday weekend.

My Trip To Target

Rage comics = The advanced stages of terminal writer's block.

This comic is dedicated to the poor schmuck who bought five blasters of Bowman and didn't even get one crummy base card of Bryce Harper.

2010 Topps Target And Wal-Mart Blaster Variations

Editor's note: You Know Who is in a BAD MOOD again. There isn't as much cursing this time though. 

I'm not buying any 2010 Topps Blasters because I'm still effing pissed at them for jerking us over so blatantly last year with the variation blaster bait and switch. Not telling us about the variations at all in series one was bad enough. But then cutting it back to two packs per blaster once we figured out their scam and got hooked is unforgivable to me. Screw you Topps, and your pretty, pretty variation cards. I finally got a couple of samples in the mail last week so I can at least show off what I will never buy.

In every Topps blaster there are ten eight card packs plus a patch card. Two of those packs are filled with these variation cards instead of base cards. Basically, in order to gimmick up their blasters like they've gimmicked up the set, they've screwed their customers again by making the blasters completely useless for set collectors. Between the inserts and the variations you're looking at maybe 52-56 base cards per blaster for $20. You can get that many with two racks for $10. At this point I wish Topps would just put out a $20 pack with just inserts inside and cut out the base cards altogether. Cut to the chase and cut down the clutter. I'm ranting again, aren't I? Well, screw it, I'm gonna rant away. My broke ass was all ready to sneak out $20 from the unemployment check to buy a Series Two Wal-Mart Black blaster last year and Topps bent me over and had their way with me. This is why I'm practically giving away the base cards while I work on the Yo Momma set. Topps has taught me that base cards are meaningless. Thanks, Topps for making me even more cynical. I appreciate it.

Each soulless Mega Mart Box Store gets their own variation type. Both Megalithic Corporate Entities flipped a coin and Target got to pick the Retro variation, while Wal-Mart got the Black variation. You know what the mom & pop hobby stores got? SHAFTED. No special inserts and no new Upper Deck to sell to try to keep their small business afloat. At least we're all winners now.

Rob M. sent me the Target card in a trade and The Collective Troll provided a Wal-Mart sample before he got cardjacked. Here are those cards for your viewing pleasure.

Target Retro Variation:

Here's the Hudson I got from Rob. Don't worry Rob, I've got your packages ready and I will hopefully get to the post office tomorrow if no more disasters strike. These cards are on retro cardboard stock, sort of. the backs are of the gray cardboard variety, but the front is actually fairly glossy with foil stamping. They use the old school Topps logo though, with is nice. I'm not looking forward to the new, hideous logo in series 2.

Here's the back in all it's grayboard glory. This is a good lesson in why Topps didn't use full color and teensy tiny print on the backs of their cards from the '80s.It's still pretty fun though. Too bad it would take about 30 blasters with almost perfect collation to build one set.

Wal-Mart Black Variation

This was my favorite of the two designs last year. I'm not so sure this year though. Last year there was a hint of a background on the card, now Tommy is getting swallowed by the void. Maybe it's just this card. The player still pops out and the splash of color looks very nice indeed.

As far as I can tell the backs are exactly the same. That's cool, because the backs are fairly well done this year.

So in review: Graaaar snarl grumble bluh.

If any one needs Topps base cards send me a link to your wantlist.

Target Twilight Zone

Last week was a really crummy one. I've spent most of the weekend in a daze trying to recover. After I finally got out of a disaster filled day at work I figured I deserved a couple of packs to cheer me up, so I dropped by Target on the way home.

I need to explain my dressing habits here. I work in a business casual office. This means khakis. I pretty much wear khakis all the time now since the only place I can find jeans I like is 40 miles away at an outlet mall. Now that the fashion is to show off your ass crack in jeans, the ones found at local retailers are not for me. So I wear the khakis. My shoes are some black no-slip sneakers. I wanted to go walking after work one night but I was wearing dress shoes. I found these shoes on sale for 8 bucks and got them and since they are all black, they sort of look dressy if you don't stare at them. Here was the mistake: I usually wear polo shirts to work. I like them better than button downs and I'll wear them if I can get away with it. So on Fridays I have this red polo I like to wear. I feel like Tiger on Sunday at the Masters when I wear that to close out a week and lately I have needed that feeling. I think you know where I'm going with this.

So I'm in Target at the card aisle. Not much there. Some A&G, Philadelphia, a few packs of Heritage and some new Topps Basketball was the only stuff I was remotely interested in. I'm halfheartedly pawing at a pack of A&G when a guy comes up next to me wearing the exact same thing as I am. Red shirt, khakis, black shoes. He starts looking through the packs too and I lose concentration with what I'm looking at and decide to go off and maye get a soda instead. Then I see another person dressed like me. And another. HALF THE STORE IS WEARING THE EXACT SAME THING I AM. Which is obvious now, since my Tiger Woods victory outfit is basically the Target Dress Code. Freaked, I get the hell out of there and go to Wal-Mart, where I found this:

Retail Obak!

With Old-timey players!

Retail Goodwin!

With Pretty Clouds!

And some more American Heritage. I got the want list ready to post tomorrow. I'll show off the Goodwin, Obak and AHH later this week, I jsut wanted to get that embarassing story off my chest first.

Why the hell am I watching Caddyshack 2

Seriously. Dear God, that movie is dreadful. Just the friggin gadgets Jackie Mason uses makes it too embarrassingly painful to watch. Not even Ted Knight could have saved that mess. I need to do something productive to break me away from the mesmerising awfulness. Like post the third pack from my retro Target box. This is the one with the good card!

Pack 3:
313 Jamey Carroll
157 Haren & Webb Classic Combos
176 League Leaders AL RBI
270 Tris Speaker SP variation
TTT11 Nick Markakis
144 Matt Tuiasosopo RC
322 John Buck
214 Scott Elbert RC

Wooooo! Got my first SP variation. I always associated Speaker with the Red Sox, but he actually played more years with the Indians. Too bad I don't know any Indians fans who would want to trade for this thing. The short print variations thankfully are not printed on the retro stock. They are too tough to find in teh first place, we don't need three different versions. I just sorted in the retro cards into my set and this turned out to be a not-so-good box. Most of the cards I got I already had a white or black bordered version. Even the Topps Town cards were doubles down to the Gold card. Oh well, nothing left to do but DANCE

Hello mah baby, hello mah darlin, hello mah ragtime gal...

Look at Matt dancin! Dance Matt, dance! I think he's doing the French Mistake.



Ok, good news is I have my Topps Series 1 want list together. Bad news is I'm not posting it right away. I have about 10 other packages to get together before I start on a Topps trading binge. I'll post it soon though. Also, the video for this box break will hopefully be posted tomorrow night. Maybe Tuesday. Labor Day at the latest. I've got all the cards scanned so I can keep doling out bits of the box until I get my act together. Back to Caddyshack 2...

OH GOD THE GOPHER TALKS IN THIS ONE

2009 Topps Series One Target Retro Blaster - Box summary and patch

The video break is still in production, but I want to start showing off my Target retro blaster box. I'm going to just spoil the whole thing at the outset and let you know exactly what I got in the box:

65 base cards
1 SP variation
9 Topps Town code cards
1 Gold Topps Town code card
2 Turkey Red
1 Legends of the Game
1 Gold Parallel
1 Patch card

Not a bad break at all, SPs are about 1:12 boxes so I was really fortunate on that. There are usually about 4 inserts per box so that was right on the money as well. One thing you should know: blasters are absolutely not the best way to build the set. You're basically paying for the patch card and getting a few base and insert card in on the bargain. For the same twenty bucks you can get about 10 hobby packs with 100 cards in them, two jumbo packs (if you can find them) with about 100 cards and a good shot at a hit, 10 packs of retail with 120 cards, 2 cereal boxes with 110 cards or 4 jumbo packs with 144 cards. A blaster gives you 81, but you have the patch. Since that's really the focus of the whole thing, here's the patch I got:

Ernie Banks with a Yankee patch from the 1960 All-Star Game. Ernie was the starting shortstop and had a hit in the second of two All-Star games in 1960. This card (and the Tom Seaver I pulled a long time ago) is up for grabs to anyone who has a Chipper Jones patch from a Series two blaster. And I mean anyone, I'll gladly trade this to a Cardinals fan who only wants it to taunt Cubbie fans in exchange for a Chipper.

Here's the first pack in the box:

205 Miguel Tejada
106 Marlon Byrd
257 George Kottaras RC
65 Mike Pelfrey
TTT18 Miguel Cabrera Topps Town
273 Brian Roberts
182 Daniel Murphy
49 Kazuo Matsui

Not great, but not terrible. The thing that really struck me about these cards is the numbers:

Easy

Difficult

Hard

Impossible

How the hell are you supposed to read these numbers??? I'm goin' blind here people. BIGGER NUMBERS - MORE CONTRAST. Don't make me drive up to Duryea to smack you people.

Here's pack two:

161 Brendan Harris
285 Justin Duchscherer
216 Emmanuel Burriss
147 League Leaders NL RBI
TTT10 Jake Peavy
137 Angel Salome RC
287 Greg Maddux
325 Dustin McGowan

Ah, I love that old curved T logo, even if it is foil stamping. The thing I really like is this:

Why couldn't Topps have done white numbers for the whole set?? Ok, maybe not for the ordange and yellow bordered cards, but all the dark blue, red and brown ones need white numbers. I'm bummed that the only cards I'll be able to sort without squinting are the league leader cards.

What I learned at Target yesterday

I got some contract work yesterday and once I had everything fixed up, packed up and shipped off I went to the Target looking for a blaster. I hadn't gotten a blaster in over three months and dammit, I needed a blaster. I did not walk out of the Target with a blaster, but I did come out with some nifty information.

Football cards are out in force

And not just Press Pass, Sa*Ge Hit and all the draft packs with the players in their college uniform. Real live football cards. The three I noticed were Playoff Prestige, Upper Deck Draft and Bowman Draft Picks. These are all still draft pick heavy sets, but the football card season is now officially underway.

Playoff Prestige was actually available in rack packs, the first time I've ever seen a rack from a Donruss, um, Panini product. 16 cards for 5 bucks. Prestige is a product I've consistently ignored and I wouldn't have noticed it at all if not for the rack pack. It is the product that fits Gellman's vitriolic rants against retail packs perfectly. For the past 7 years or so, retail Prestige meant one thing: 5 cards per pack for three bucks with one jersey card per box that got cherry picked the moment the box got put on the shelves. To add insult to injury, the card designs were all boring as sin and the one per pack rookie card subset had about 100 players so the rookie per pack you pulled is more likely than not an undrafted free agent that is barely hanging on to a practice squad spot. Apparently there are short prints and variations in the set, meaning I will avoid this like the plague. At least they're giving you more cards in a pack now.

Bowman Draft Picks are on the shelves too and it was somewhat jarring to see Bowman baseball and football out at the same time. It was a good idea from Topps to get rid of those awful Draft Picks and Prospects and Rookie Progression sets and replace it with Bowman which is supposedly the home of the rookie card in the first place. I saw a base card at a shop and the set looks good if you like the typical Bowman design. Black border, color coded, etc. etc. I'm utterly sick of Bowman so I didn't even pick up that base card of Warrick Dunn for a dime. Bowman football has jumbo packs too, but I wasn't impressed. Let me set the stage for you: there's rack packs of Prestige hanging up and just to the right of them are jumbo packs of Bowman. The packs of prestige had sixteen cards each. The jumbo packs of Bowman had seventeen cards each! Oh ho! Topps gives you more cards! How generous. Oh wait, just to the left of the Prestige racks are rack packs of 2009 Bowman baseball. 20 cards per pack. So Topps tried to one up Prestige by adding an extra card, and then completely undercut themselves by screwing the football collector out of three cards as compared to baseball. Apparently football cards are just more expensive to manufacture than baseball cards.

Upper Deck Draft has a pretty red wrapper with the official NFL Draft logo on it. I liked last year's set because it combined the Press Pass college uniform cards with actual NFL players. This was the pack I was actually slightly tempted to buy, but with collecting money tight I was able to maintain focus and pass it up because I also learned this:

I have completely lost interest in football cards

Now, ask me again in September when games are on and Topps is on the shelves, but right now I could not care less about football cards. It might be the heat, it might be the economy, it might be the fact that baseball is in full swing, but football is completely off my radar. I should probably think about selling or trading or giving away or burning all my football cards just so I can use the boxes they are in for my baseball stuff.

There's new baseball stuff out there too

Series two Upper Deck and Topps are both out in full force. Blasters, jumbos, cereal boxes, loose packs, all that stuff.

I saw the following stuff from Upper Deck: Normal packs have 18 cards in them, Evan Longoria on the wrapper and an Upper Deck U code inside for three bucks. Hobby packs have 20 cards and a much better shot at a jersey or auto in them for $5 a pop. I saw two versions of HUGE VALUE rack packs of Upper Deck. The first one is orange and has Cole Hamels on the wrapper. It has 36 cards including two exclusive StarQuest cards inside, but no inserts. The other is bluish, I don't remember who is on the wrapper and it has 36 cards and two Rookie debut cards instead of StarQuests. All I want from '09 Upper Deck Series Two is the Goodwin preview cards so no fat packs for me. If you really like Upper Deck U, get a rack pack, because the code inside is good for one month of play. There were also a bunch of blasters there with 10 packs (presumably 8 card packs like in Series one blasters) including a guaranteed jersey card. Avery dollar I spend on base Upper Deck is one I can't spend on Goodwin Champions, so I resisted the temptation of the UD2 blaster, but I may falter before the year is out.

Topps had a bunch of stuff out there too. Single packs with 12 cards for 2 bucks were plentiful. There were also a few cereal boxes with Jackie Robinson on them. I only saw 4 boxes and all of them were Jackies. Same as Series one, the cereal boxes have 50 or so cards in them including 1 of each of the insert sets and a bonus gold refractor of a legend all for ten bucks. You can see a samble one opened up by Night Owl if you like. I didn't have anything to write down the special refractor cards on, and my mind was too frazzled to memorize them after a long week.Luckily, this guy knows jut about everything about Topps cards and has the lists here. They also had blasters of series two in there where I learned...

Holy Crap, Chipper has a patch card in Series Two Blasters

Anyone pulling a Chipper patch, name your price. I have Tom Seaver and Mike Schmidt patches. I also have autographs, relics, whatever. I NEED that Chipper. There are also patch cards of Greg Maddux and John Smoltz in there too. I might trade the Seaver for Maddux, maybe even Smoltz, but I'll only trade Schmidt for Chippah. The UPC code on the side blaster was a 10 meaning they are normal old base cards and not the retro version with the old timey Topps logo. Remember - 10 or 11 on the UPC code means normal cards and 12 or 13 means the black border or old style variations. Save yourself some heartache and check that UPC code so you know what you're getting. Which brings me to the last thing I learned at Target:

I probably waited too long to buy a Throwback Blaster of Topps Series 1

Not a single box there. This store had at least 5 of them the last time I was there too. Sigh. That's what I was looking for when I walked in the store and I struck out. Now that Series two blasters are out I'm not feeling good about finding the Throwback blasters anymore. There were plenty of 2008 Topps Updates and Highlights blasters there though. Failing in my quest for Throwback Topps, I kept my wallet in my pocket and headed to the local card shop instead. What I got there will have to wait for another post.

2009 Topps Target retro

Scott at Hand Collated sent me a few of the Target 'retro style' cards from their #12 blasters (remember to check the bar code, kids!) in that package with the Mayo Chipper Jones. I haven't gotten a blaster so this is the first I've seen of them. Take a gander at Brian McCann:

As you can see from the very dark logo and nigh-invisible name at the bottom, that Topps kept the foil on the retro cards for some reason. I'm not entirely sure what foil has to do with retro card (unless you're talking about 1965 Topps embossed inserts) but you have to have foil nowadays for some reason. The front of the card is quite slick and glossy. They remind me a bit of the 2001-2002 Topps Archive sets, although those were so glossy they were practically varnished. These are definitely glossy though, but more like the All-Star rack pack inserts of the '80s.

I was more surprised at the backs to be honest. When I first heard about the retro styles I thought they might be printed on really retro stock. Like 1991 Topps dark cardboard stock with the big curve in the card from coming off the roll of cardboard that Topps got leftover from a cereal box manufacturer. Of course that would never fly in today's market, so I shouldn't be disappointed. I can hear the Target executive now: "Wal-Mart got neon cosmic bowling cards and we got... leftover crap??" Nah. you won't get '80s cardstock in an '00s product ever again (well, usually). This stuff is a lot sturdier, you can see three layers of cardboard sandwiched in there. Two white sheets on the outside and a layer of brown cardboard inside. As a result, these are some sturdy card, thicker than this year's Heritage. As much as I wanted to see that old brown cardboard ont he back, with this design it would have been a very bad idea. There's way too much tiny text on these backs, on a brown background they would be almost unreadable. The slightly off-white gives a bright enough background to read the card while maintaning the retro feel.

Overall I think it's a neat idea for Topps. the Wal-Mart black borders are really cool looking but these will probably appeal to collectors looking for a more solid version of the Topps set. The base set cardstock does seem a little flimsy, these cards have some heft to them. Here are the others Scott included in the package:

Casey Kotchman

Omar Infante

James Parr

Good stuff and nowI can say I've seen the target Retro cards. Thanks again Scott!

TARGET MADNESS - Part 2: Basketball Relic Repacks

Here's some more of the useless crap I got from Target this winter while I was bored to death waiting for the '09 products to come out. If only American Heritage or Mayo Football had been out (or if Heritage High Series hadn't been so annoying) I might have avoided this stuff. When you've got a serious pack ripping itch and you're standing in front of a card aisle filled with Updates & Highlights, Bowman Football and The Tale of Despereaux packs panic sets in and you buy stupid stuff. Target has had these blister packs on sale for a couple of months now with two packs of basketball cards and a memorabilia card for $5.99. This was actually one of the more sensible stupid worthless things I could waste my money on to tell the truth. I like basketball, my Hawks are looking good for a playoff spot and you're getting a 'hit' in every package for 6 bucks. Ok, so the hits are utter garbage and you're buying two moldy old packs that didn't sell in the first place for full retail for the priviledge of pulling that garbage, but at least I wasn't buying $20 repack boxes.

I'm not going to admit to the exact number of these things I've picked up, but I will show off the first one, the best one and the worst hit I pulled. So now you know I bought at least three, which is more than enough to be able to mock me mercilessly.

Probably two thirds of the packages I've seen had the same two packs as this blister had: a 2007-2008 Bowman Draft Picks and Stars pack and a '07-08 Fleer Hot Prospects pack. The memorabilia card is wedged unprotected inbetween the two packs

2007-2008 Bowman Draft Picks and Stars

59 Jason Terry
124 Alando Tucker RC 0813/2999
16 Pau Gasol Chrome
11 Yao Ming
28 Zach Randolph

You know why I'm not really upset at Panini getting an exclusive NBA license? Because it means Upper Deck finally got smacked by some of their own hubris, and because it means that Bowman Basketball is dead forever. Bowman Basketball is the lousiest, rottenest most worthless useless dog of a set ever. Five cards in a pack. One of the cards is a Chrome parallel. Base rookies are serial numbered and short printed 1:7 while Chrome rookies fall at 1:9 packs. All this for $2.99, the same price as Baseball and Football Bowman only with half the cards. To. Tal. Gar. Bage. Too bad, because the cards look decent. This pack isn't terrible, as I got a Yao, I'm a fan of Jason Terry from his Hawk days and the rookie I pulled actually made the team (although is recovering from knee surgery now). It's still not a good product which is why this pack is on the front of most of these repack blisters.

2007-2008 Fleer Hot Prospects

5 LeBron James
10 Yao Ming
30 Jermaine O'Neal
SC-11 Walt Frazier Supreme Court
$2 off Spalding Elevation Basketball

Typical Fleer semi-premium type set with 4 cards in a pack for 3 bucks. I got tired of these kind of packs in 2003, but I can't complain about this one. King James, Yao and to top it all off a card of Clyde Frazier. Not bad. The coupon is expired though, so no new basketball for Dayf.

Here's the big hit hiding between the two packs:

2006-2007 Topps '52 Style Kurt Thomas jersey

Well that's pretty neat looking. It's got the retro '52 charm but is just different enough to not trigger the involuntary twitching I get when Topps reuses that same damn design for the 500th time. Kurt's not a star or anything, but he's had a nice career as a power forward who can grab some boards.

Here's the best package I've gotten. The packs aren't great, but the hit was spectactular. I should have quit while I was ahead.

2007-2008 Topps Trademark Moves

48 Dennis Rodman
38 Chris Bosh
79 Jared Dudley RC 0668/1999
31 Shawn Marion
10 Tim Duncan

I hope Panini continues to put retired players into their sets, because that's one thing I've really liked from Topps the past few years. To be fair, Upper Deck did it too as long as you didn't mind that their retired players were Michael Jordan, Mike Jordan, MJ, Michael Jordan (23), Michael Jordan (45), His Airness and Michael Jordan. No Wizards allowed. The card of The Worm is nifty. Yeah, he was is a flake, but he also focused on defense and rebounding in an era of scoring titles and ESPN highlights. So good for him. Every time I pull a Tim Duncan card I keep thinking he's one of the stars from the '80s. That shows just how much I hold his game in high esteem. The rookie card is decent as Dudley is still on an NBA roster playing off the Suns' bench. I consider an NBA rookie card pull to be a success if the guy actually plays in the league. This mindset is from pulling literally hundreds of second round and free agent signing scrubs out of mid-'90s packs.

2007-2008 Upper Deck blaster pack

185 Carlos Boozer
JC-10 Jordan Chronicles
68 LaMarcus Aldridge
34 Jason Richardson
13 Rudy Gay

I've seen more and more of these skinny blaster packs in repack stuff. This is a half pack, not a real pack. I liked the Upper Deck basketball design better than the '07 baseball one. Taking out that border on the right makes the photo look much better. The pack is ok, there are some minor stars and a Jordan card. I hate Michael Jordan. I can't stand him. He's so freaking annoying and I'm tired of hearing about him. He lost that damn dunk contest in Chicago too, everybody knows it. Hey Panini - lay off the Jordans. It's a new era, do new things. Except for the Topps retired player stuff, keep that up.

All right. Here's the jersey card that had me dancing in the streets:

2005-2006 SP Game Used Edition Kevin Willis Authentic Fabrics Jersey

Wait, what? I built up this card like it was a Joba Superfractor and it's this?? HEY. I watched Willis kick ass at the Omni in the '80s, and this card has a Hawks logo on it, even though the jersey swatch is from the Spurs. This is my favorite hit, not yours. What else did you expect from a repack crapper?

Now that you are thoroughly underwhelmed by the best hit, just imagine the horrors I have awaiting for the worst. Actually, don't imagine it, just look at it right now:

2006-2007 Bowman Sterling Sergio Rodriguez Autograph

I was kind of surprised to see a Bowman Sterling card in there. I guess it's not that bad a card, and Madding at the very least would be happy with it. Sergio is actually logging minutes on the Blazers' bench. But great googely moogely, just look at that terrible signature. This thing rivals Gellman's favorite autograph stinker, Chris Johnson. Plus it's a holographic sticker auto on top of some weird Chrome texture. And yes, there are autographs in these repacks, just expect terrible ones like these.

Thank Jesus that Heritage is a little over a week away. I need to be spending my money on something I actually collect instead of buying more of these things, even if the Willis is in my top five pulls for the year so far.

Topps Target and Wal-Mart Exclusive Inserts

Ok, remember how last year Topps put exclusive T205 inserts into packs at Target and Dick Perez art cards into packs at Wal-Mart? Remember how cool they were? Do you want to know what the exclusives are this year? Well let me show you.

This is a Legends of the Game insert card. These are 1:4 packs and can be found in both Hobby and Retail packs:

Here's the checklist for these puppies. 25 cards in all, pretty hefty player lineup:
LG1 Cy Young
LG2 Honus Wagner
LG3 Christy Mathewson
LG4 Ty Cobb
LG5 Walter Johnson
LG6 Tris Speaker
LG7 Babe Ruth
LG8 George Sisler
LG9 Rogers Hornsby
LG10 Jimmie Foxx
LG11 Lou Gehrig
LG12 Mel Ott
LG13 Jackie Robinson
LG14 Johnny Mize
LG15 Pee Wee Reese
LG16 Roy Campanella
LG17 Ted Williams
LG18 Roger Maris
LG19 Bob Gibson
LG20 Mickey Mantle
LG21 Roberto Clemente
LG22 Thurman Munson
LG23 Carl Yastrzemski
LG24 Nolan Ryan
LG25 Cal Ripken Jr.

Fun, huh? Now, here's the exclusive Target insert for 2009:

Look familiar? Yeah, same design just with gold foil and gold frame. There are ten cards in the set, inserted in 1:4 Target packs:

LLG-1 Williams
LLG-2 Robinson
LLG-3 Ruth
LLG-4 Wagner
LLG-5 Gehrig
LLG-6 Ryan
LLG-7 Mantle
LLG-8 Munson
LLG-9 Ripken
LLG-10 Sisler

I haven't pulled a Wal-Mart insert yet, because I bought an Upper Deck blaster instead. I filched an eBay scan for educational purposes until I come across one of my own:

Yeah. These are the Platinum version, also 10 cards falling at 1:4 Wal-Mart packs.

LLP-1 Williams
LLP-2 Gibson
LLP-3 Ruth
LLP-4 Campanella
LLP-5 Cobb
LLP-6 Young
LLP-7 Mantle
LLP-8 Johnson
LLP-9 Clemente
LLP-10 Foxx

It does look like the photo is different on the cards though as seen from this Target Ruth. Making things a little more complicated is the fact that there are also Gold and Platinum versions of the non-exclusive insert cards that are serial numbered to 99 and 25. These are a LOT tougher at 1:1725 packs for the gold and 1:6800 for the platinum. The cards are nice and all, but Topps really cut down on their insert sets this year. It's ashame, since there were some nice ones last year like Trading Card History and the 50th anniversary Rookie Cup cards. Too bad. The ones they have are decent at least.

TARGET MADNESS - Part 1: 08 Chrome Sorta Blaster

I did some stupid stuff this winter while waiting for the '09 stuff to come out. Well, all of it wasn't stupid, let's just call it imprudent. Inefficient. Unfocused. Most of the time my will broke down at Target although Wally World tempted me as well. Now that the new stuff is out, I don't feel quite as ashamed at buying retail repack junk so I'm going to show some of it off.

Here's the first thing I have to show off. You know those Target $1.59 junk wax boxes? Have you ever wondered where those packs come from? I have a theory that every so often the distributor pulls old unwanted blasters off the shelf, rips 'em open and sticks those $1.59 stickers on them. I've seen a few times where a product has exactly 8 packs in that box. I got 8 packs of '07 Bowman Heritage once in one of those boxes, exactly the count in a blaster. I can't actually prove that's what happens, but last month I saw it again. 8 packs of Chrome sitting nicely in the box. They were right next to a bunch of 2006 Upper Deck 5-card packs which I know were from blasters. Well, that would be the efficient way of doing it at least. Take the old blasters and plop 'em in the junk wax box. I saw the 8 packs as a discounted blaster in any case and picked 'em up in a fit of Target Madness. Here's the results:

Pack 1
122 Chone Figgins
150 Homer Bailey
176 Milton Bradley Blue Refractor
104 Matt Holliday
Checklist 1 of 2

Blue Refractors rock. The Cubs signing a malcontent DH to play in an overcrowded outfield rocks even harder.


Pack 2
72 Brandon Phillips
4 Stephen Drew
110 Aaron Harang copper refractor
209 Fernando Hernandez RC
Checklist 1 of 2

It looks like my knack for pulling Reds cards has continued over from my Timelines box. That's three in two packs. I'm not to unhappy with it, because I know a lot of Reds fans they can go to. I'm currently trying to wrap up a package for Joe, so as long as this guy doesn't need the copper Harang it's off to Joe. I almost hate to give up Harang though, he's a damn good pitcher.

Pack 3
110 Aaron Harang
204 Rico Washington RC
MMRC430 Mickey Mantle Home Run #430
148 Aramis Ramirez

Well, I say I like Harang and BAM! I get another one. Amazing. That's 4 reds now. Stupid Mickey Mantle ate my refractor. Grrrrrr. I'm showing off Rico instead.

Pack 4:
53 Yunel Escobar
TCHC24 Ken Griffey Jr Trading Card History
179 Livan Hernandez refractor
80 Jorge Posada

Ok, getting spooky now... Griffey is the fifth Red so far. Livan I can do without, Posada I can take him or leave him, but Yunel and Griffey are pretty cool.

Pack 5:
49 Scott Rolen
77 Carlos Ruiz
191 Edinson Volquez Xfractor
160 Pat Burrell

MAKE IT STOP. I'm going to get e-mails about my Reds-jo.

Pack 6:
181 Matt Kemp
178 Jo-Jo Reyes
201 Luis Mendoza RC Xfractor
25 Alex Rios

FINALLY. Now the Dodger fans can be jealous of me.

Pack 7:
124 Jacoby Ellsbury
TCHC37 CC Sabathia Trading Card History
211 Blake DeWitt RC Refractor
61 Gil Meche

This is either the third or fourth Blake DeWitt refractor I've pulled from a pack. I've lost count. The cool thing about this pack is I know someone who would want each and every one of these cards so I'm building good trade bait at least.

Pack 8:
192 Jeff Niemann RC
ARC6 Derek Jeter 50th Anniversary
97 Troy Tulowitzki Blue Refractor
121 Derek Jeter

Aaand we wind things up with the Jeter pack. The BlueTuloFractor ain't too shabby either. This wasn't the greatest 8 packs ever ripped but good lord have I got some trade bait. Now I just need to catch up on the trades I've got in process now. If you'll excuse me, I have some e-mails to answer...