Archive for the ‘Misc’ Category

If you want to see some box breaks with a twist, check out the Burger King’s box breaks. This guy busts box after box of high-end stuff and gets completely shafted every time, but he has a good sense of humor about it (with some naughty language).

Recently he put up a signed photo of himself on eBay to ease the pain of his latest Exquisite Box Break and it sold for $25!!!! I guess this guy has a real following of sympathetic viewers.

It’s even numbered 1/1. Anyways, check out his vids for a good laugh and if you are feeling sorry for him paypal him some spare change.

Tell me what you think about these David Ortiz 2007 Topps Sterling Jumbo Swatches #’d 10/10.
The World Series Patch is on eBay right now (See Auction here).

I still have some doubts that this is a fake patch. There are two sets of Ortiz Jumbo Swatches in 2007 Topps Sterling, each #’d to ten. Example:

However, as you’ll notice the pictures on the cards are different in the two sets. Now is it possible that Topps mistakenly used the same card template in both of the 10/10 cards? Well, we’ve already seen their quality control in this set. So the jury is still out in my eyes. I don’t want to jump to any conclusions. What do you guys think?

I have never been a huge fan of the Autographed Manufactured Letter Patches in sets like SP Authentic and Donruss Threads.

In order to even out the checklist, the card companies thought it would be smart to spell out all sorts of whacky things, in addtion to players’ last names. So you end up with cards like this (no K in Lincecum, Tim, Giants, or even San Francisco) and this (Letters with Yankee pinstripes?! Blasphemy!).

Well Donruss has upped the ante and included Autographed Letters in Donruss Celebrity Cuts, the follow up to Donruss Americana.

So now we have jersey patch cards of people who don’t wear jerseys. The letters spell out “Hollywood”, but are people really that desperate for Letter Patches? The auto’s aren’t very clean and bleed into the fabric and the patches are bland white on black. I don’t see real incentive to try and collect all the letters. At least with the sports letters you have the appeal of spelling the player’s name.

Who knows, maybe they will turn out to be a big hit, but it seems to me like Donruss ran out of ideas for possible sets and took the gimmicky, easy way out. End Rant.

On the whole, Donruss Celebrity Cuts actually looks like a really nice product. If you are interested in seeing the Dealer Brochure for Donruss Celebrity Cuts check out this thread on TCC.

Topps is at it again. The Boston Red Sox team card in 2008 Topps Series One has two variations, a normal card and a version with Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani digitally added. Giuliani, a self proclaimed lifelong Yankees fan, said that he was rooting for the rival Red Sox to win during the 2007 World Series, and those clever boys at Topps have added him to the Red Sox on-field celebration.

I really hope Topps isn’t going to make this a tradition in their Base Sets. I don’t like the idea of digitally altered cards becoming a regular hobby trend.

As a marketing ploy, it seems to be working really well. The Giuliani Red Sox cards are already selling for around $50. I wouldn’t expect those prices to hold up though. Like the Jeter/Mantle/Bush card, prices should come down a lot as more cards hit the market.

Here’s an interesting interview with a Topps Representative about the process of making a Relic Card. He takes you inside the Topps Relic Room where the Game Used relics that Topps uses to make cards are stored.

The Topps Sterling Barry Bonds Jumbo Swatch Card with the hat logo seen in the video has turned up on eBay. Click the picture below to see the auction.
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First there was Ex-Rod, and now Upper Deck is taking shots at Barry Bonds and Topps in two cards released with 2007 Sweet Spot Baseball. The first is a “Michael Buysner” rookie card, an obvious caricature of Michael Eisner, former Disney CEO and the new owner of Topps.

The back of the card reads:

Upper Deck welcomes this season’s newest rookie, Michael Buysner. After humble origins as a page for a top TV network and stints that included crashing a hamboni machine at an Anaheim hockey arena, he is now the topp dog searching for a way to bring Bazonka Joe into the 21st century. As Big Cheese of his own cardboard kingdom, he is enthusiastically searching for the baseball cards his mom threw away and no one will be surprised to see a new big budget film titled, ‘Bazonka Joe and the Temple of Lost Trading Cards’ in the very near future. Upper Deck wishes Buysner well – in the candy business.

note: Bazooka Joe gum is a Topps Product

Upper Deck has stated the public release of the card was inadvertent and has even issued notices asking customers to return the product. Despite this, the card doesn’t seem to be extremely rare and several have been sold for around $20-$25 on eBay, except for one poor sap who paid $310.

The Barry Bonds asterisk “autograph” card is much rarer, with a few sales already in the $1,200-$1,300 range. It isn’t serial numbered and no information on print runs have been released.

Check out the 756 below the asterisk. This is an obvious shot at Bonds’ breaking of Hank Aaron’s home run record and shows just how Upper Deck feels Bonds should be remembered in the record books. Bonds has an exclusive deal with Topps, which is why there are no real Bonds autographs in Sweet Spot or any other Upper Deck products.

Personally, I find these “mistake” cards really gimmicky. Topps got a ton of press on the mistakenly released Alex Gordon rookie and the altered Derek Jeter card and now it seems like Upper Deck is trying to drum up some publicity in a similar way.