Box Break: 2018 Elite Extra Edition - The Hits

Last week, I shared the various parallels I found in my two boxes of Triple E. Today, let's take a look at the hits.

Justus Sheffield Triple Materials

Jon Duplantier Quad Materials

Corey Ray Purple USA Materials

Travis Swaggerty Red USA Materials

Nick Margevicius Future Threads Auto Relic

Kevin Sanchez Gold Future Threads Auto Relic

Charlie Saum Emerald 15U USA National Team Signatures

Brady House 15U USA National Team Signatures

Durbin Feltman Base Auto

Lency Delgado Base Auto

Josiah Gray Base Auto

Nick Schnell Base Auto

Jackson Goddard Emerald Stats Die-Cut Auto

Jose Cosma Blue Aspirations Auto

Jose Garcia Blue Aspirations Auto

Cadyn Grenier Red Status Die-Cut Auto

Luis de la Cruz Purple Aspirations Auto

Steven Jennings Emerald Auto

Tristan Pompey Emerald Auto

John Rooney Tie-Dye Aspirations Auto

That's a lot of ink. If I am being honest, I have never heard of many of these prospects, though a few ring a bell. Regardless, it was still a fun break and the cards are beautiful and colorful. I am happy to have all of these in my collection!

A brief post, but sometimes those are the best kind.

Wait, What Happened To 2018? (OR, Blaster Madness 4: 2019 Elite Extra Edition)

Back in December, my scanner went bonkers. At least, I thought it did. Last week, I was working on my dissertation when my laptop started going crazy. It turns out that my laptop was the problem, as it was creating issues by misreading external hardware code...or something like that. The repair guy tried telling me, but I openly admit I don't speak tech.

What I do know is that I had to get a new laptop. Late last week, I did just that. I hooked the laptop up to the scanner and everything seems to work!

I scanned in some cards and then opened Blogger...and realized it has been more than two months since I last posted. Wow. Granted, I was having issues scanning, but if I'm being honest with myself and you, I must admit that I didn't have the motivation to blog, anyway. Last year was a tough one for me. I won't re-hash everything that made it that way, but I am glad it is over. One of my personal goals for 2019 is to work harder on being more optimistic and to not let minor setbacks turn into major roadblocks for me. Part of being more optimistic and happy means spending more time doing the things I enjoy. So, today I write.

The fourth blaster of my Blaster Madness series features two blasters of 2019 Panini Elite Edition. This is the first Panini baseball product of the year (I believe) and features many of last year's drafted players, most of the various USA National Team players, and many unsigned foreign (specifically Latin American) players. Each box contains five tota cards, two of which, on average, are hits (autographed, memorabilia, or autographed memorabilia cards). 

I snagged two looking for a specific player, but more on that later. For now, let's see how I fared.

Each box also contains one exclusive pink parallel. One of my pink parallels was of Rangers' prospect Juan Pablo Martinez. Sadly, this was my only Rangers card. Martinez was signed early in 2018 - with money the Rangers tried to give to Shohei Otani before he signed with the Los Angeles Devils - and was MLB.com's second-ranked international prospect going into the 2018 season. He split the 2018 season between the Rangers' Dominican Summer League team and the Spokane Indians.

This is the only numbered parallel in either of my boxes, and it happens to be the die-cut version numbered to 99. Appearing on the card is Cristian Santana, international free agent, not to be confused with the man of the same name in the Dodgers organization. I couldn't find much info on this Santana.

The only autograph appearing in either blaster is of another international free agent, Luis de la Cruz. It's autographed and it's legible, so it is automatically better than 95% of current autos, though it still isn't impressive. Again, I couldn't find much info on this player.

My first relic appears as a quad relic of Shane Baz. Baz was a first round pick of the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2017, going 12th overall. He was traded to Tampa Bay last year as a PTBNL in the trade that sent Chris Archer to the Steel City.

The second relic I found featured two swatches from Kyle Lewis. Lewis was the 11th overall selection in the 2016 draft, going to the Mariners. Can we talk about these swatches though? How often do you see a card numbered to 49 have such amazing swatches? Beautiful!

The last hit left that sinking feeling...

Womp womp womp. 

So there it is! I've decided that I am going to give away the points AND the Lewis relic. All you need to do is post about your favorite memorabilia card in your collection and then post a link in the comments below. I'll create a recap of the posts and then select a random winner from the comments! Don't have a blog? No problem! Tweet about your favorite memorabilia card and post a link to the tweet in the comments! The contest runs until February 22 at Noon central time. Ready, set, go!

I (Sort Of) Won Gint-A-Cuffs X! A Post-Mortem

Okay, so I didn't actually win Gint-A-Cuffs X, per se. That honor belongs to Spankee, who clocked in with 127.5 points. Topps was kind enough to send a couple of boxes of Ginter as prizes, so I was fortunate enough to win the second box trough random selection.

The Commissioner was kind enough to send that box to me earlier this week, and I decided to go ahead and score it to see how it would do when lined up against my contest box. I didn't do a pack-by-pack breakdown, but I did list out all of the scoring cards and scan a few of them. Let's take a look! (Also, check out my concluding thoughts on Gint-A-Cuffs X and 2018 Ginter, in general, after the scoring, and see my set needs here!)

+14 Favorite Team/Players

+1 Adrian Beltre

+1 Rougned Odor

+4 Joey Gallo (FP)

+2 Bryce Harper

+2 Kris Bryant

+2 Barry Larkin

+2 Jim Thome

-11 Damn Yankees

-1 Gary Sanchez

-1 Babe Ruth

-1 Rickey Henderson

-1 Miguel Andujar

-1 Aaron Judge

-1 Hideki Matsui

-1 Roger Maris

-1 Aaron Hicks

-1 Aroldis Chapman

-1 Clint Frazier

-1 Reggie Jackson

-1 Misc.

-1 Tyronn Lue

+3 Short-Print Mini

+3 Carlos Santana (#312)

+7 Black Border Mini

+3 Derek Jeter

+4 Jon Lester

+14 A&G Back Mini

+1 Babe Ruth

+2 Sean Manea

+2 Jacob deGrom

+2 Roger Clemens

+7 Joey Gallo (My FP)

+3 Short-Print A&G Back

+3 Anthony Rendon

+7 Red Brooklyn Back

+7 Justin Bour

+8 Baseball Equipment of the Ages

+2 Eye Black

+2 Modern Baseball Sunglasses

+2 Modern Catcher’s Mask

+2 Vintage Bat

+12 Fantasy Goldmine

+2 Bob Gibson

+2 Roger Clemens

+2 Tom Seaver

+2 Ernie Banks

+2 Greg Maddux

+2 Sandy Koufax

+8 Magnificent Moons

+2 Miranda

+2 Phobos

+2 Mimas

+2 Europa

+8 World’s Greatest Beaches

+2 Cozumel

+2 Bay of Angels

+2 Bondi Beach

+2 Trunk Bay

+12 World Talent

+2 Tzu-Wei Lin

+2 Yadier Molina

+2 Yoenis Cespedes

+4 Kris Bryant (FP)

+1 Aaron Judge (Yankee)

+1 Masahiro Tanaka (Yankee)

+3 Postage Required

+3 Two Penny Blue

+2 Indigenous Heroes

+2 Chief Cornstalk

+3 Flags of Lost Nations

+3 New Granada

+6 Baseball Superstitions

+3 Not Changing Seats

+3 Drawing in the Batter’s Box Dirt

+6 N43 Boxloader

+6 Caros Correa

+28 HITS!!!

+5 Billy Hamilton Full-Size Relic (Jersey)

+5 Michael Conforto Full-Size Relic (Bat)

+8 J.D. Martinez RIP CARD!!!

+10 Manny Machado Extended Mini (from Rip Card)

132 Points, Total!

That's right, had this been my competition box, I would have really won Gint-A-Cuffs! That rip card really put it over the top. I've never had a rip card before, and I swore that if I ever did pull one, I would rip it. Lesson learned! If I ever pull another one, I'll sell it! Now let's look at some scans!

Corre N43 Boxloader - 1 of 500

J.D. Martinez Rip Card

Machado Extended Mini - Front

Machado Extended Mini - Rear

Michael Conforto Full Size Bat Relic

Billy Hamilton Full Size Jersey Relic

Joey Gallo A&G Back Mini

Justin Bour Brooklyn Back Mini

Not too shabby! Everything except the Gallo is up for trade. I only ask that if you make a trade offer, please make it fair - don't offer to send me a ton of 80's and 90's junk wax! (I had a random person reach out a couple weeks ago and ask if I would trade an auto from a higher-end product for a bunch of junk wax....)

Now for some thoughts on my boxes of Ginter for GACX. Most of my commentary revolves around collation. My first box was short a hit. I ordered a second box, and it was also short a hit. I ended up buying a third box, and it had all hits in it. So did the prize box.

Beyond the hits, I also had issues with the inserts. The first box I purchased had zero "Magnificent Moons" inserts. Instead, it had eight "Baseball Equipment" inserts. Furthermore, both the first and second boxes had the same exact "World's Best Beaches" insert cards. 

Boxes one and two were clearly the problem boxes. Beyond the issues mentioned above, both boxes were nearly identical in the base cards included. Hell, the second box had the two copies of Christian Villanueva's short-printed mini (card #315). How the hell does that happen? That makes Ginter a very expensive set to build. 

Lastly, it's a bit of a bummer that Topps is now treating rip cards as hits. In the past, these were included in addition to the three promised hits. I won't complain on this one too much, especially since I had a rip card in my **free** box. It was just something that crossed my mind. 

Lastly, I want to specifically thank Mark for serving once again as our faithful Commissioner. Without his work, I'm not certain GACX would have happened! Also, a huge thanks to Topps for sponsoring the contest and providing prizes! As a winner (finally!), the prize was certainly appreciated!

Thanks for the read!

Some Recent eBay Pickups

I was originally planning on having an autopsy post to examine my Gint-A-Cuffs X entry, but some recent developments have convinced me to delay that post for a bit. Instead, I am going to take a look at a few eBay pickups I've received during the past few weeks.

The first couple of cards are from 2018 Panini Stars & Stripes. I've been trying to snag cards of Steven Gingery whenever I can. Gingery, a fourth round pick for the Cardinals in this year's draft, was the ace of the Texas Tech staff until he blew out his elbow in one of his early starts this season. I'm excited to see him get back to being healthy and to see how he will do in the Cardinals' system. This Silhouettes patch auto is numbered to 25.

This may be my favorite addition to my growing Gingery collection:

It's not autographed, but this jumbo relic comes from the player's nameplate. It's numbered 1 of 4. I really dig it.

I also snagged a couple of Matt Harrison cards. It's getting harder and harder to find Harry cards that I don't already have. However, there are still a few out there.

For instance, I didn't have this 2012 Prizm auto, numbered to 25. Now I do.

On occasion, I will intentionally grab duplicates of cards I already have, like this one:

This is the Brooklyn Back/Red Back of the 2013 Allen & Ginter mini. I know I have at least one of these already, and I believe that I actually have one or two more in my collection, as well. I gave all of $1.25 (with free shipping, if I recall correctly) for it, so it was hard to pass up.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading!