Box Break - Stadium Club Part 2

I've held onto my 2014 Stadium Club hobby box for some time now, so it's time I got around to opening a bit more.  The first of three mini-boxes was a success in my book, yielding a pair of Red Sox parallels, some beautiful base cards, and some trade bait.  Time to crack into the second mini-box.  6 packs inside, 5 cards per pack...

Pack 1...

Leading things off is one of the biggest free agent starters still on the market.  Max is looking for a home for 2015 and beyond and can be yours for the low cost of $150 Million plus...

I pulled the base version of this Felix Hernandez card out of my first mini-box.  This one is a Gold parallel.

Love the photograph on this one, with Rizzo signing for a group of kids on a sunny Wrigley summer day.

Another great horizontal photograph.

Overall that first pack was a rather bland entry into the second mini-box.  Let's see if pack 2 is any better...

Hanley Ramirez is now the highest paid player on the Boston Red Sox roster.  That doesn't seem right to me, but we'll see how 2015 plays out I guess.

Rickey Henderson saved pack 2 from being a disaster.  I love how this photograph, and the framing of Henderson on the card, just screams "speed".

This was the first pack I've encountered so far that contained nothing but five base cards.  I wouldn't mind that in the least had they been a little more exciting.  Pack 3...

Not a huge fan of these Beam Team inserts.  Was hoping I'd pull either a Red Sox player, or at least a team that's collected by someone I trade frequently with.  Oh well, maybe in mini-box 3...

Half-way point, and this mini-box is shaping up to be a dud so far if I'm being honest.  Pack 4...

I had already purchased a Red Sox team set prior to picking up my hobby box, so this card is now in my pile to send off to Mark Hoyle (if you need it Mark?).

Here's a Rainbow parallel.  Pulled Wade Boggs in my first mini-box, this time Jose Altuve.  Not a bad guy to pull a parallel of given the season he just had at the plate...

Two great horizontal photos to end probably my strongest pack of the mini-box.  Pack 5...

Starting off strong with two HOFers...

...but then plunging right off the cliff with this.  I knew I was going to get scrub autographs, but now I have to do work just to get my card.  Redemptions annoy me on principle alone.  Never heard of this guy, which isn't surprising given that he plays for the D-Backs.

Finally, pack 6...

Snooze...

Sweet card.  Much better than the Mark McGwire Field Access insert from my first mini-box.

Closing out the second mini-box is one of the sluggers of my youth, Jeff Bagwell.

That was definitely nowhere near as good as the first mini-box.  Only 6 retired players compared to 10 in the first box, and skunked with a redemption autograph.  I would like to complete the base set, so it was nice getting a chunk of those cards regardless.

Sometime in the next few weeks I'll get around to ripping and posting my final mini-box, and putting up a want list for the base cards I'm still missing.  I can only hope the final installment of my hobby box will be more interesting than this one...

T206 Alfred E Newman - A One-of-a-Kind Gift From Shoebox Legends Sr.

I don't typically receive many sports cards-related gifts around the holidays.  This doesn't bother me, as I know it's an odd hobby and certainly a strange thing to pick out as a gift for someone to say the least.  This year though, my Dad created a unique hobby-related Christmas gift for me that I wanted to share here on the blog:

Cool, huh?  This is a one-of-a-kind, custom Alfred E Newman T206 card that my Dad took the time to create and print up for me.  Mad Magazine was around quite frequently when I was a kid growing up in a house with two brothers around my age, and I got a kick out of this the moment I unwrapped it.  The card is based off of the iconic T206 Honus Wagner, but thanks to my Dad's handiwork features the unmistakable, "only a mother could love" face of Mad Magazine's Alfred E Newman.

This thing is even cut to the right dimensions and features the Sweet Caporal T206 back, just like the first authentic T206 card I ever picked up!

To go along with the card, I even received an "uncut strip", which was a great idea.  I think the card looks even better in strip format:

That is just plain awesome.

Even the strip contains the proper card backs, in case I ever want to cut it up for distribution.  I plan on keeping this intact though and storing it as is with my other over-sized cards.

My father even went as far as to track down and fill out a PSA submission form for the cards, which was a hilarious touch and the icing on the cake to tie together a really awesome gift.

In case you're wondering where he got this idea from, he knew that he wanted to give me a unique card for Christmas but wasn't sure what to pick out.  Well, it turns out there was an "authentic" T206 Newman created years ago as a joke for the man who at the time owned the Honus Wagner T206.  My Dad included the above print-out with the gift to clue me in, and I later found the page for the item on the Robert Edward Auctions site. 

Someone actually paid over $1,000 for that one back in 2007 if you can believe that!  The fact that my Dad reads this blog, actually pays attention to what his adult son finds interesting, and took time to make such a fantastic custom gift makes my copy priceless though.  Thanks Dad!!! 

I'm now resisting the urge to scour eBay for a bulk lot of old Mad Magazines...

Signature Sundays - Warren Spahn!

Since today is the final Signature Sundays post of 2014, I figured why not go out with a bang.  To that end, for this post I've got an autograph of one of the best left-handed pitchers in baseball history to show you, Mr. Warren Spahn:

While a 1965 reprint is an odd choice for Topps to go with for this Spahn autograph (which is actually a 2001 Topps Team Legends card), I was sold on it for a couple of reasons.  First of all, the '65 Topps release represented Spahn's final Topps card of his career.  Secondly, Spahn passed away back in 2003, so he doesn't have a million on-card, certified autographs out there.  At around $20, I couldn't pass up a chance to add an autograph of one of the game's premier southpaw hurlers to my humble collection.

Warren won an incredible 363 games, the most of any lefty and the most of any pitcher in the live-ball era, period.  I don't see this record falling any time soon given that it would require more than 15 consecutive 20-win seasons to even get within the ballpark.  His signature isn't half bad here either, especially given that he was around 80 years old when this card got signed.  At least it's pretty much legible, which is more than you can say for a good deal of today's ballplayers.

As 2014 winds to a close, I've still got a couple of posts left to conclude my 7th full year here at Shoebox Legends.  Looking forward to a great year 8 in 2015!

Pursuing Panini Prizm

I've received a couple of really awesome and unique card-related gifts and packages that I need to get to in the coming days.  With a stretch of time off work I hope to catch up on most of this, but in the meantime here's one I've had queued up for a couple of weeks...

When I picked up a few things from Dave and Adam's Card World on Cyber Monday, one of the items I added to my cart was a 24-pack retail box of 2013-14 Panini Prizm hockey:

I don't buy too much modern product, so I missed out on this set completely when it was initially released this past year.  I ran across one a few months back in a one dollar grab bag from my local hobby shop, and was impressed.  I'm a sucker for anything shiny, so at about a buck per pack I decided this would be a fun product to keep on my unopened wax shelf in my hobby room/office.

Four cards per pack, and I went ahead and opened up the first four packs for this post so that I'd have a decent variety of cards to scan and show.  Let's get started...

You've probably seen these 100 times by now, so I'll spare you the breakdown on the design.  I would imagine this is a set that you either love, or you hate.  I think the cards look fantastic.

In each pack that I've opened so far I've gotten three "base" cards from the standard short set (cards 1-200), and my fourth card has been either an insert, a short-printed rookie, or a parallel.  In this pack I got my first look at the Net Defenders inserts.  Not my favorite, but not a bad effort either.  I don't think I'll collect these though.

With half of the set (cards 201-400) comprised of short-printed rookies (half of whom I've never heard of), I don't think I'll bother trying to collect the entire set.  I like these cards enough that I'd love to complete the 200-card non-SP set and pick up a bunch of random inserts and parallels, though.  Pack 2...

Now this is an insert set I do plan to collect.  This card looks pretty stunning in person.  A keeper for sure, and with only 15 cards in this insert set I'd love to knock this one out at some point.  I believe I'm slated to pull something like 5 or 6 total inserts from this box, happy this was one of them!  If anyone has cards from this set available for trade let me know.

Pack 3...

My first rookie card.  These fall at 1:2 packs.  Fasth is now with the Edmonton Oilers (sorry Viktor).

Finally, pack 4...

Some solid goalie representation in all four packs so far.

Here's my first look at a colored parallel.  Of course I pulled probably one of the least desirable guys on the checklist in the form of Ladislav Smid, but these look great nonetheless.  What can I say, parallels are another collecting weakness of mine I guess.

My first Bruin!

Well, that was entertaining.  Got a nice representation of the set in those first packs with a rookie, a parallel, and a couple of inserts.  Best of all, I've still got 20 packs to go for a rainy day.  I see D & A's still has these 24-pack boxes for under $30, very tempted to pick up another...