A place where Colorado Rockies baseball card collectors (all 3 of us) can waste some time reading about our favorite sport. The Rockies and their cards will be the primary focus, but I like to go off on tangents as well so anything and everything baseball related may be covered here.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Sunday's Afternoon Blaster - 2011 Gems of the Game

Welcome to this week's Sunday Afternoon Blaster.  Today's edition is a bit different than all the others.  I have nearly picked my local Wal Mart clean on discount blasters, so when I was shopping at Meijer this week and spotted a blaster I had never seen before in their card aisle, I popped at 19.99.  In this blaster you get 10 baseball packs and 1 graded card.  I am not a huge fan of graded cards, but I am not as against them as most of my fellow bloggers.  They have their place in the hobby, but should not (and hopefully never will) be a primary category of cards.  Some of you are probably rolling your eyes saying...whoopdedoo a repack, but I have never purchased any type of repack before.  Why not take a shot.  No specific goals here, but a decent Gem 10 card might pay for the blaster.

Card coloration is it's availability

white = I'm keeping it
green = available for trade
red = already claimed/traded


pack one
2009 Upper Deck Series 1 (18 cards)

69 Carlos Zambrano - Cubs
13 Chad Tracy - Diamondbacks
45 Daisuke Matsuzaka - Red Sox
17 Jair Jurrgens - Braves
124 Ryan Spilborghs - Rockies
187 Joe Saunders - Angels
112 Fausto Carmona - Indians
472 Chase Utley checklist - Phillies
408 Travis Snider - Blue Jays
6728 YSL Hideki Matsui - Yankees
430 Josh Whitesell - Diamondbacks
443 Pena/Iwamura/Upton Team Leaders - Rays
263 Jason Giambi - Yankees
280 Eric Chavez - Athletics
246 Ryan Church - Mets
342 Kyle Lohse - Cardinals
308 Adam LaRoche - Pirates
315 Adrian Gonzalez - Padres

pack two
2007 Upper Deck Masterpieces (4 cards)

6 Kirk Gibson - Dodgers
45 Ken Griffey Jr. - Mariners
51 Delmon Young - Rays
38 Albert Pujols - Cardinals

pack three
2009 Upper Deck Goudey (5 cards)

70 Carlos Guillen - Tigers
60 Fausto Carmona - Indians
111 Ben Sheets - Brewers
195 Vernon Wells - Blue Jays
179 Rick Ankiel - Cardinals

pack four
2009 Upper Deck Goudey (5 cards)

98 Scott Elbert - Dodgers
64 Cliff Lee - Indians
227 Carl Yastrzemski SP - Red Sox
35-23 Yount/Braun/Gallardo/Fielder red border - Brewers - Spiegel
162 Ryan Doumit - Pirates

pack five
2008 Upper Deck Baseball Heroes (5 cards)

12 Josh Hamilton - Rangers
64 Miguel Cabrera - Tigers
185 Johnny Bench/Ivan Rodriguez - Reds/Tigers
94 Chad Billingsley - Dodgers
53 C.C. Sabathia charcoal parallel - Indians

pack six
2009 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions (4 cards)

32 Josh Hamilton - Rangers
60 Matt Garza - Rays
75 Carlton Fisk mini - Red Sox - AdamE
83 Akinori Iwamura - Rays - Spiegel

pack seven
2008 Upper Deck X (6 cards)

30 Brandon Phillips - Reds
100 Lastings Milledge - Nationals
72 Eric Chavez die cut parallel - Athletics
X-BU - B.J. Upton XPonential insert - Rays
4099 YSL Chris Chambliss - Yankees
41 Gary Sheffield - Tigers

pack eight
2009 Upper Deck Icons (5 cards)

71 Kosuke Fukudome - Cubs
59 Johan Santana - Mets
42 Grady Sizemore - Indians
22 Chipper Jones - Braves
85 Rick Ankiel - Cardinals

pack nine
2010 Upper Deck Series 1 (8 cards)

14 Esmil Rogers - Rockies
230 Humberto Quintero - Astros
282 Jeff Weaver - Dodgers
SB-112 Vladimir Guerrero Season Biography - Angels
CP11/CP12 Anna Kournikova(?)/Enrique Iglesias - Celebrity Predictors - Colbey
79 Ty Wigginton - Orioles
503 Darren O’Day - Rangers
579 Troy Tulowitzki/Todd Helton checklist - Rockies

pack ten
2008 Topps Series 1

117 Boof Bonser - Twins
45 Dontrelle Willis - Tigers
231 Casey Blake - Indians
244 Adam Wainwright - Cardinals
144 Jerry Owens - White Sox
YR58 Adrian Beltre Year in Review - Mariners
31 Ronny Paulino - Pirates
75 Felix Hernandez - Mariners
240 Jim Thome - White Sox
292 Mark Loretta - Astros


THE GRADED CARD

BCCG 10 - Mint or Better (not PSA, but maybe still big money)
1990 Upper Deck (ugh)
#771 Fred Lynn (really? someone sent this in to be graded?)














IMPRESSIONS
Design: N/A

Well, obviously I can't judge the design of a repack.  But I can say of the sets I got I like 2008 Baseball Heroes, 2007 Masterpieces, 2008 Topps, and 2009 Icons the best.  2008 Upper Deck X and both Upper Deck main sets are okay.  The less said about the other two, the better.

Inserts / Hits: D
I picked an insert in nearly every pack; some good, some not so good.  My favorite is the die cut parallel of UDX.  I think that set is starting to grow on me.  I also got another SP from 2009 Goudey which should be easy to trade which is always good.  After the first pack and getting another YSL card (and later one more) I admittedly cringed, but I did find an insert that is even worse than those.  The Celebrity Predictors are quite possibly the worst cards ever printed.  They don't even name the celebrities that they are satirizing, just a vague description.  The graded card is just a joke.  At least it is a 10 (even if it is BCCG), I might put it on eBay once or twice with a $10 price tag and see if anyone bites.  Stranger things have happened.

Value: F
Horrible, just horrible.  Actually if it was 50% off like my normal blasters it wouldn't be THAT bad, but still not great.

Rox in the Box: 3
Well I did have one thing go right.  I got 3 Rockies and needed 2 of them.  Granted they are not cards that are particularly hard to find, but that's 2 more I won't have to get later.

Will I Collect This Set: N/A
I wish this was a set just so I could skip collecting it.

Overall: D
Well my first foray into repacks did not go well.  My local Meijer was built within the last year, so there aren't any discount blasters there yet.  I will probably avoid cards from there for a while until they realize I am the only person in this town that buys cards and lower the price.  This experience has not completely soured me on repacks and I'm sure if I had picked one of the other 4 GOTGs I would've gotten at least a little better than a Fred Lynn.  I may try another one from a different store in a few weeks, but I am going to try the Wally World in the next town first.  Everything is for trade once again (excluding the 2 Rox).  Have fun claiming.

PS - Don't forget to guess right below this post.

4 comments:

Derek Hill said...

Damn!
Sorry to see that. I've seen one of those and thought about picking one up. I think that just changed my mind.

flywheels said...

I can't believe the graded card in the box...that is hilarious! Sorry to see the box was such a bust.

I am somewhat interested in that 10 UD Celebrity Predictors card if no one else is...

Spiegel83 said...

Hey! I'm interested in the Yount/Braun/Fielder/Gallardo red border. I am also interested in the 2009 Goodwin Aki Iwamura card. Thanks!

AdamE said...

I need that Fisk Mini card.