This is going to be a high-level box break instead of analyzing every single card I got. This was the third of three blasters I got of TriStar. I was planning to have Bowman Draft Picks be my draft set for the year, but reports of 2 autos per box caused me to check out TriStar and I was pleasantly surprised. Here's what I got:
37 out of 100 base cards (37%)
Including first rounders:
David Price (#1)
Matt Wieters (#5)
Matt LaPorta (#7)
Joe Savery (#19)
Tim Alderson (#22)
Michael Main (#24)
And Georgia Boys:
John Gilmore (Braves draft pick)
Nathan Vineyard (Woodland High School)
Protential Inserts:
Andrew McCutcheon
Matt Weiters
Josh Vitters
Parallel cards:
none
Farm Hands Autographs:
Michael Main Nick Noonan
Not bad for a blaster. Two autos, a decent chunk of the set and a few ok insert cards. The autographs are pretty dang good too, featuring the #24 and #32 overall picks in the draft. Plus I can amuse myself with Caddyshack jokes with the Noonan card. Noonan! Nnnnnoonan! They are both high schoolers so we won't really know anything about them until about 2013, but what the heck. The autographs drive the product for me much more than the base cards. An auto is an auto is an auto, and if I can pull them at least one per blaster instead of maybe one in 3 or four blasters like Bowman, then why not go for TriStar. They are pretty well designed too, the black and foil give it a classy look, there's a portrait and a logo and lots of space for the sticker auto. I've pulled 5 out of the three blasters I got and all the 'graphs look nice even though they are stickers. Only one of the five had the auto go outsie the sticker, but it doesn't detract that much. The boxes guarantee one auto, but I've gotten two in two of the three I've bought. It appears that they might drop one in four or five packs to make sure that at least one gets in every box. The box with only one auto had it drop in the exact middle pack. In the other two they were the first and fifth pack.
The base cards I'm not as crazy about. The foil background with a sort of '68 Topps burlap design is all right by itself, but why they decided to print the name in foil on top of the foil I'll never know. It's really hard to read the name without going blind. The excess of foil means lots of fingerprints on the cards too. If you open one of these up, have a pack of penny sleeves at the waiting and put them in immediately or you'll have your own draft pick CSI lab. The foil also dings very easily and I've gotten several cards with bad corners out of the pack. Other than the foil though it's an elegant design and I like the minor league team logos. The checklist is not bad either and unlike Bowman it's all draft picks (although a few are from previous years) and it's not cluttered up with coaches and basketball players like Elite. A 100 card set is also enough to get a good group of prospects while having an easily completable set. The Protential insert cards are your basic boring insert, but they are attractive looking and do breakup the monotony of all the foil cards.
Overall out of the three boxes, I've unfortunately gotten some bad luck with the collation and I'm only up to 70% of the set so far. I'm still mulling whether to pack it in and start trading or to press my luck and go for one more box so I can chase the Heyward auto. Wait till I post my want list and doubles list to start making those trade offers, I'm going to send out all my pending trades before I start new ones anyway.
Overall I'd rate this a very nice affordable draft pick set for those who don't want all the RC logo cards, chromes and other nonsense from Bowman and don't want to drop a fortune on Donruss. Time will tell if I actually care about this set 5-6 years from now. I have a '98 football draft pick (Peyton) set I still really like, and a 2002 Just set that's pretty loaded that's nice. A lot of my other draft pick and minor league sets though are gathering dust. Like I said before, the autographs drive the set and they will still be cool in the future even if the prospects never pan out.
These were special Affiliate packs put together by Tristar. One pack of Prospects Plus, a card of a Braves draft pick and a special instant win game card inserted inside a very shiny deck loader sleeve. I don't understand why baseball card manufacturers (or the guys who repack them more likely) don't understand that baseball card collectors don't like protective sleeves where one side is opaque. Great for Magic: the Gathering decks, teh suck for reading stats.
Here's the braves dude I got nestled inside the deck protector. When I first did a search on Tyler Stovall I found this. what?? How can he be a Reds draft pick and still have a Tristar card with Braves plastered all over it? Apparently there were two Tyler Stovalls picked in the 2008 draft. One by the Bravos in the 2nd round, the other by the Reds in the 20th. Our Tyler had a decent year in Danville in '09 but needs a lot more seasoning. Maybe I'll see him in Rome next year.
I'm not showing the whole pack of cards, I don't do that anymore. I will show the best card and the reason why I don't have to but any more of these things. Gordon Beckham, the pride of Georgia, looking surly while wearing an angry Kannapolis Intimidators cap. The face fits the cap. Grrrrrr! Gordon has been called up to The Show! and is having a nice rookie year with 10 dingers so far. Has Gordon got any real rookie cards yet? He'll look good in Heritage High Series.
David Kopp
And one more I forgot what it was and don't have scanned.
The base cards I'm not as crazy about. The foil background with a sort of '68 Topps burlap design is all right by itself, but why they decided to print the name in foil on top of the foil I'll never know. It's really hard to read the name without going blind. The excess of foil means lots of fingerprints on the cards too. If you open one of these up, have a pack of penny sleeves at the waiting and put them in immediately or you'll have your own draft pick CSI lab. The foil also dings very easily and I've gotten several cards with bad corners out of the pack. Other than the foil though it's an elegant design and I like the minor league team logos. The checklist is not bad either and unlike Bowman it's all draft picks (although a few are from previous years) and it's not cluttered up with coaches and basketball players like Elite. A 100 card set is also enough to get a good group of prospects while having an easily completable set. The Protential insert cards are your basic boring insert, but they are attractive looking and do breakup the monotony of all the foil cards.
Overall out of the three boxes, I've unfortunately gotten some bad luck with the collation and I'm only up to 70% of the set so far. I'm still mulling whether to pack it in and start trading or to press my luck and go for one more box so I can chase the Heyward auto. Wait till I post my want list and doubles list to start making those trade offers, I'm going to send out all my pending trades before I start new ones anyway.