Box Breaks Upcoming!
Hey everyone,
With school starting I’ve been spending a lot of time in my classroom getting it ready so I haven’t had a lot of time to post here since returning from my trip down south. I did pick up a box of 2016 Stadium Club which was a blast to open. I’ll gladly post a review of it if you would like.
I had 3 boxes waiting for me when I got home:
2000 Ovation
2000 Showcase
1997 Metal Universe
I’m going to review them in that order and will have a review up by Friday evening. I hope everyone is doing well and you’ve added to your collections as I have. Things will slow down collecting wise for a bit but I’ll keep the readers updated if any major additions come along. Thank you for checking in 🙂
~Matthew
Epic Mailday : 2 out of my top 3!
When summer break began, I knew I was going to have a little extra free time since we teachers get the summer to ourselves 🙂 It hit me that this was as good of an opportunity as I’d get to try and put my A-Rod collection back together. While it’s been a little spendy, it’s been a fun ride so far. I found my way to FreedomCardBoard thanks to Corockies, and ever since then my collection has taken a Huge step forward.
One member suggested I make a wantlist so I decided to make a top 3 most wanted cards. It’s been a month since I made that list and I’ve been fortunate enough to purchase 2 out of the 3 cards on that original list!
#1 on the list was this beauty:
1999 Ionix HoloGrFx (1:1500 Packs)
If you’ve read my Ionix breaks from this year, you remember that I mentioned that this HoloGrfx insert was my most wanted card, after selling the first one I ever had 4 years ago. They fall at 1:1500 packs which isn’t even one per case! I wonder how many were produced…my guess is 50 of each player but it may be as many as 100.
A big shout out to gradedeflator on FreedomCardBoard for hooking me up. He originally posted it in the 90’s Insert Thread that has a huge following after I mentioned how nice his Piazza HoloGrFx was. We then cut a deal for it and it was waiting for me after my Alaska Cruise.
#2 on the wantlist was this sweet insert from 1997 Donruss:
1997 Donruss Power Alley Die-Cut (#d to 250)
Donruss has some wonderful looking inserts and they, along with Leaf, are knowing for their serial #d inserts in the 90’s. These also come in a non die-cut version which are #d to 1000. While this card is #d to 1000, the first 250 were die-cut versions. I remember seeing Magicpapa’s Griffey and thinking I had to find the A-Rod. Well 7 years later, I finally have one in my collection.
A big thanks to George Kalfus at freedomcardboard for messaging me about this card. One just popped up on eBay and I knew it would cost a pretty penny or three for it. George messaged me the same day 🙂 I absolutely love it man, thank you!!
I bet by now some of you are wondering what #3 was right? Well just to get it out there that I’m looking for it, it’s this card.
The owner at the time was a user by the name of cubuffs13 who is on sportscardforum. I remember seeing this card for sale many years ago and passing on it. Let’s hope on shows up one of these days.
Before I sign off for a few days I have a couple of things to look forward to in the future.
First off, I have two 2000’s boxes coming in after I get back from my trip to Arizona. A box of 2000 Showcase, and 2000 Ovation. There’s a slim chance to find something spectacular but they should be fun breaks for me regardless.
Secondly, I will be in Arizona and should have some time to swing by some card shops while I’m there and also pick up my 1996 and 1997 Fleer Metal sets my buddy has been holding onto for me. I’ll be sharing those and the story behind them next week. Until then, thanks for the read and thank you to everyone who keeps me excited about collecting still, especially all of you are FreedomCardBoard.
~Matthew
After NINE LONG YEARS…
…my 1998 Flair Showcase Row 0 set has been completed!
Hey everyone, John here! I had to update everyone on a long outstanding project of mine that has FINALLY been put to rest! Back in September 2007, I decided to do something I thought was crazy and attempted to collect all 120 1998 Flair Showcase Row 0 cards. Seeing how there are only 250 possible sets to be completed and many individual cards are likely sitting in collectors’ personal collections, I knew it wasn’t going to be an easy task. For several years, I had been stuck needing just three cards to complete my set: #3 (Frank Thomas), #9 (Mark McGwire), and #16 (Livan Hernandez). I had come close to winning a couple of these cards in the past but to no avail. To be honest, I had pretty much given up on the set until my OSB co-author Matthew reminded me about it, asking if I had ever completed the set on this old mailday post. Shortly thereafter, I started scouring eBay once again and was fortunate enough to find a seller who had ALL THREE cards I needed. Needless to say, I did whatever it took to make sure those cards landed here! To show you how difficult this was, here’s the breakdown of this set’s print run:
Cards #1-30 (250 of each)
Cards #31-60 (500 of each)
Cards #61-90 (1000 of each)
Cards #91-120 (2000 of each)
All the years of searching through various online hobby forums, eBay, Sportlots, and others I can’t even think of right now has paid off! The entire set has been scanned to my Photobucket account and can be found here. But let me just post a teaser pic for you guys here. I know there’s at least one card on this page that you would love to have Matthew. 🙂
Old School Hits: 1998 E-X 2001 Destination Cooperstown
In the 90’s there were a select few inserts that fell in packs at extremely rare odds. One example were the HoloGrfx Inserts I mentioned earlier at 1:1500 packs. I’ll talk more about these next week 😉 Another example are Cramer’s Choice inserts from Pacific. These came in at a rate of 1:720 packs. You would like to think that an insert that is that hard to find in sealed boxes would not only get you really pumped over pulling one, but have the looks of something extremely unique.
Here we have one of those types of cards. These inserts, Destination Cooperstown, come from Fleer E-X2001 and fall at 1:720 packs. This being a case hit, makes them very hard to come by if you can even find a loose box of this stuff. They are the only card other than Pacific’s Ornaments inserts that come with a piece of string attached to them.
Just imagine what this would look like inside a sealed pack?! This set features 15 of the game’s top players and were made to resemble luggage tags. Finding a copy of this card with the original string is even harder which makes this Alex Rodriguez one of my rarest cards I own to date.
They tend to sell anywhere from $45 to $400, which is what a Griffey sold for in June. Here is the checklist for those that might be targeting one of these for your collection. I’d like to thank chippercards.com from the Freedom Card Board forum for selling this to me. He’s an awesome guy!