Not one, not two, not three...but 5 box breaks ! (woohooo)

For my birthday, I decided to treat myself to several boxes of cards. I knew I'd pay $100 in S&H + customs for a $170 total value in boxes, but it's ok. I'm 38 now. I'm a big boy. I deserve some nice things in my life. Even if they're made of cardboard.

One of the boxes I got was for our monthly box break with Matt, of Bob walk the plank fame. It took me a long time to choose, but I finally put aside a box of 2005 Bowman Heritage and chose a box of 2009 Signature Stars. I don't know if I made the right choice, as we didn't hit anything major, but at least there were 4 hits in the box, and we each got 2.

So those are the base cards. Nothing spectacular, but I still like them.

 No idea who he is (I checked baseball-reference, and I still don't). But he's only 22, so who knows, maybe one day I'll see him on the mound and it'll ring a bell.

Ok, him I know. A nice card (too bad it's a sticker auto) of a player who's having a very solid season so far.

With every D&A order over $75, you get free packs of cards. As a joke, I chose 5 packs of Prizm (I absolutely hate Prizm), figuring I'd send them out to Matt, as a prank and private joke (bob walk the prank would've been the title of the post). But I can never resist unopened packs of cards.

Inserts/parallels, including a certain very hot guy (well...hot....you know what I mean)

And at least I got the Griffey and Molina for my PC. So that wasn't a complete waste of time and free money.

Next up, a box of 2005 Upper deck pros & prospects.

At least, there was an auto in there, along with that Tejada relic. An auto of an absolute nobody, but an Australian nobody, so that makes it half interesting.

I really like the base set. The box yielded a complete one (well, minus numbered SPs that is), with few duplicates. Too bad there aren't any action shots, as pitchers are always shown pitching, and hitters hitting (except Jeter who got a special treatment), but it does give some kind of unity to the 100 card set. And I need to decide whether I consider the Delgado a Blue Jays card or not...

Next : 2002 Rookie Update.
I didn't really pay attention as to what I was buying (I just knew it was cheap), and I didn't realize there were three different sets in there until I started sorting them out. Yeah, I'm not very bright....

 Diamond Connections

Sp authentic.

And finally, Spx.

Along with associated hits, including a nice Glavine and a good looking auto of someone I've never heard of.

Oh, and by the way, Mr Upper Deck (yeah, it's a mister, a miss would've never gone with such an easy scheme), those are not cards. Never. So when you write that there are 5 cards per pack, and include 4 + 1 like those, I feel cheated. Don't do it again. Thank you.

2013 Heritage hanger packs x2 (16 in all)
You all know what the base cards look like, so I'll get right down to business and show the hits.

 Not every day that you see a hand numbered parallel (because yes, this is the gold parallel of the normal relic version). I got a lot of Orioles cards out of my various boxes.

SPs ! Including the sought after Bryce Harper. I wonder why that is, btw ? It sells for about $20, even though it's only seeded 1:4 with 75 total SPs. Doesn't look like a really tough pull to me. I must be missing something.

 Blue bordered parallels (yeah I know, Captain obvious)

 And finally, I got one numbered chrome in each hanger, including the refractor on the right, and both are Tigers. It's a conspiracy !

Ad finally, I also picked up a hanger box of 2012 Archives (hoping for a fan favorites auto, but no luck there)

Inserts and SPs !

More inserts, including a nice Rod Carew Topps cloth.

So there you go for my box break recap.
I realize that I prefer largely boxes with at least 200 cards in them. Much more fun to open and sort. The problem being that shipping costs are way more important on those (for obvious reasons), despite junk wax and 90s boxes being dirt cheap. There's no perfect world...I still had a ton of fun opening those up, and I plan on going for more really soon !

Oh, and while I'm at it, here are a couple of Ebay pickups :

A nice use of the Hot gloves design, with a cool game used baseball embedded. Plus, you can see the stitches, so that's a plus.

And finally, I picked this one up when I saw, thanks to the Fire Safety cards sent by Richard, that Gary Matthews had coached a couple of seasons for the Blue Jays. Plus, it's an Archives auto, so you can't go wrong with those !