Rockies Team Sale from Tomahawk Chopping

A couple of weeks ago Derek from Tomahawk Chopping busted a couple of hobby boxes, 2012 Topps Opening Day and 2012 Topps Heritage, as a sort of cathartic therapy.  It usually works for me too.  After getting his Braves out, Derek decided to sell the rest in team packages for a very reasonable price.  I jumped on the Rockies, because I had not bought either of those two sets at that point.  It turned out to be a win-win situation, Derek got his therapy and I got my Rockies.  Let's take a look at what I got, starting with the Opening Day set.

Here are the three Rockies which do NOT appear in Series 1.  This is one of my favorite aspects of the Opening Day set.  You get a nice preview of the stars from Series 2 without giving everything away.  I really like the Carlos Gonzalez card.  The Cuddyer is a Photoshop job, but I don't have any problem with Topps shopping Opening Day cards, because he will be a Rockie on Opening Day.

The next trio do appear in Series 1.  The combination of the Seth Smith card and the above Michael Cuddyer card give us an approximate date range for when OD goes to press.  Cuddyer was signed on December 16th while Smith was traded to the A's on January 16th, at least according to when I posted about them.  This would mean OD goes to press sometime between those two dates.  I'm sure there are other teams that could make a narrower date range, but it's a start.

The final three Rockies OD cards are also from Series 1.  The Dexter Fowler is still my favorite Rockies base card of the year so far.

I got one blue parallel also.  The only difference between this card and the Wal Mart blue parallel is the Opening Day logo (well that and the serial number of course).  I don't like that.  I think OD parallels should have changed colors to perhaps green or even the classic gold border just to set things apart.  The Tulo is celebrating his Enos Slaughter-esque first to home run to win a game last June.  Topps must have a lot of surfers employed in the design department.

Much like 2011, the Rockies are well represented in the inserts from Opening Day.  Including the Superstar Celebrations above, I got 4 of the 8 Rockies from the insert sets.  I like the elite skills set, although since Carlos Gonzalez only plays at Wrigley at most 3-4 times a year, I don't think that qualifies him as an expert at playing the ivy.  It is a cool photo though, actually both elite skills are great photos.

The Heritage box was not AS kind to me, but I still knocked out a decent chunk of my team set needs.  First up is the first Rockie cards for both Tyler Chatwood and Ramon Hernandez.  Chatwood was acquired from the Angels for Chris Iannetta, while Hernandez was signed to replace Iannetta on the same day.  That's a nice piece of accidental symmetry on my part.

The other two Heritage cards I got were the Jorge de la Rosa with the ever present tree in the background.  The same tree is in the background of the Tulowitzki and the Chacin.  I think it makes a nice back drop.  I also got the solo Drew Pomeranz card.  Pomeranz is featured on this card as well as 3 of the Rookie Stars cards.  That is one of the reasons I am not collecting Heritage this year.

Derek also included some extra cards to each of the buyers in the break including one "hit."  My hit is this Jason Jennings swatch from 2005 Donruss Throwback Threads.  I needed this card and it looks really nice next to the dual jersey/bat card of Jennings that I already had from this set. 

Derek also sent me a few non-hits that I needed as well.  I really like how the 2011 Todd Helton Topps Chrome refractor scanned.  I didn't get any Topps Chrome last year, but I have started putting a dent in some of the Rockies from that set.  The Rex Brothers is a base card from 2011 Bowman Draft which brings me closer to knocking that team set out as well.

 

One team set that Derek did knock out (other than Opening Day of course) is the 2006 Upper Deck Future Stars.  The two cards shown above is the team set from 2006 Upper Deck Future Stars and Derek semi-bipped me with 3 of each.  I have no problem with that, but if anyone needs one or both of these guys just give me a shout.

Thanks for the nice break and the generous additions Derek.  They have found a good home.