Yay, Box breaks ! (yay)

I have several box breaks to show, even though most are pretty much uneventful. But if card blogging was only about showing off cards with monetary value or super rare inserts, I'd been out of the game for a long time now. It's funny because in my line of work (I work in a comic book store) I deal with collectors all the time. People who only want specific limited editions or first editions only. They are willing to pay a lot of money to have that one book of which only 300 copies were made, all signed. Being a collector myself, I should be able to understand them. Truth is, I don't really. But hey, to each their vices, and at least their money goes to me.

Anyway, for Christmas I got a bunch of stuff, including cards.

At the very bottom of that pile, there's a box of 2002 series 1 Upper Deck. I plan on getting a box of every series of flagship Upper Deck from 90 (I don't really know if 89 can be found, and I already have the Griffey rookie) to 2010. I can only rely on websites that offer combined shipping, otherwise I'll end up paying $70 for a box of cards, so that limits my range, but I'll get there some day !

There were no guaranteed hits in that box, so I'm glad I got one, even if there's Roger Clemens on it (I've always had a soft spot for Posada, too bad he lost his on the HOF ballot). I seem to remember those came 1:240

UD has always been great at designing inserts, except for a short period when they overdid it with foil everywhere. Nothing too exciting there, but solid designs nevertheless. And here's a nice list of PED users

Here's a design I really like ! Looks like it was a Braves hot box.

Woohooo, new Griffeys ! I already had some from that subset, generously sent to me by Junior master Junior Junkie, but not those. UD grabbed every opportunity possible to include Griffey in their products. It must be a nightmare to be a Griffey supercollector.

Bret Boone...ah well.

As is the case with Stadium Club, flagship UD is all about photography. Nothing really fancy this time, but still nice to browse. The backs are somewhat lackluster so I won't show them, but I like the overall look of the cards. Simple efficient design

Some household names and players I like.

You can hardly ever go wrong with horizontal shots !

Those weren't on the Christmas pile, but I bought a bunch of packs for our transatlantic triple break (more on that another day), and treated myself to a few extras, including 12 fat packs of 2016 A&G. I really like what they did with this year's design. Besides that, it's business as usual, with some minis :

Happy to get some Blue Jays, of course, including a black bordered.

I didn't notice at first that that Mendoza (had no idea who she was before seeing that card) was hand-numbered. I still don't know who I could possibly send this to, but it's still a fun card to have.

Even though the fat packs were completely random and chances of not getting any hits are high, I did get one. But then again, it's as if I hadn't really gotten one. Nice orange, though. But c'mon, who cares about Greenberg's tie ?


So there you go. Always fun to bust open packs. Can't wait for the next ones, but I need to save up a little bit first, each shipment costing me a couple hundred dollars each time. Maybe I can reach out to my clients and launch a kickstarter. They'll understand...