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!

If Anything Can Bring Me Back, It's The Good Ol' Red, White, And Blue

Well, it has officially been close to (if not more than) two months since my last post. In it, I mentioned that I had a death in the family that sent me into a tailspin and I needed some time to get my sh*t back together and become a productive member of society again. Somehow, I accidentally deleted that post. I'm not sure when/how I did that.

I guess now is the time that I get going again. Though I haven't been blogging, I have still been collecting. I've mentioned in a few posts that I have been participating in some group breaks with a particular breaker. During my sabbatical, I participated in a few more breaks, mostly for Panini's Stars and Stripes product. This set is focused on the various Team USA baseball squads.

Why this product, you ask? Well, Steven Gingery is in the set. Who is Gingery, you ask? Gingery is the ace of the Texas Tech baseball team...at least he was entering this season, but he tore a ligament in his elbow and had to have Tommy John surgery early in the season.

Regardless, Gingery went in the fourth round to the Cardinals in the 2018 MLB Draft. I'm hoping he shows up in the Bowman Draft product later this year.

Anyway, let's get to some cards. Some cards are packed up, so I only have a few to share.

This is the base auto in the set. Though there are a few players that feature a sticker auto, most are on-card - including Gingery.

However, the dreaded sticker auto makes an appearance on these Silhouette relic/autos. To make matters worse, the signature goes off the sticker. Oh well, such is life, am I right?

This is perhaps my favorite card from the breaks I have participated in. It's numbered to 25, and all of the patches are awesome!

I will be all-in on next years Stars and Stripes, as well. A friend of mine - who I met in the card shop in Lubbock - will almost certainly be in the product. Josh Jung (pronounced like "Young") is Tech's starting third baseman. He was selected to play on the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team this summer, as soon as Tech is finished at the College World Series (hopefully winning their last game!). Josh is predicted to be a first-round pick in next year's draft, also. Regardless of how things play out, it's been cool to have him as a friend, and I am beyond happy for him and all of his successes!

2017 Elite Extra Edition

My LCS had box of 2017 Elite Extra Edition for sale for a really good price. Though I'm not normally a Panini guy, I decided to give it a try. The box came with eight guaranteed hits, at least six of which were autos.

This is a base auto from the set. It's an on-card auto. Most of the autos in the set are on-card, though there are still a number of sticker autos.

There are also auto parallels. This is a diecut "Status" parallel featuring Detroit's Alex Faedo, numbered to 75.

The box contained a number of parallels, also. Unlike Topps, these parallels really pop.

Some parallels are diecut, like this one. 

My box had two relics. The first was this one:

This jumbo Future Threads relic features a jersey swatch from Rhys Hoskins, numbered to 99.

My last relic was this:

A jumbo patch auto of Ynmanol Marinez, now a member of the Miami Marlins organization. It's a nice patch and a low number. The only problem I have is the sticker auto. But hey, it does no good to complain now. 

I enjoyed this break. Having seven autos in my box (though not all are shown here) was pretty awesome. I also really enjoy the parallels. As I mentioned above, they really pop and stand out from what Topps would consider a parallel. 

A Matt Harrison-Centric Post

Player collections can be funny, at least for me. I can go weeks or months without adding a single card. This is especially true when you are down to pretty much a handful of low-numbered cards as the only ones you need.

Such is true with my Matt Harrison PC. It feels like an eternity since I picked up a card that I needed for this PC. But, as the cardboard world seems to go, I've added three within the last month. Crazy.

First, I received a care package from none other than Greg, the mind behind the Plaschke, Thy Sweater Is Argyle blog. A while back, I sent a 2016 Topps Gold Label black-framed Julio Urias auto to Greg. Greg said this package was for that card, but I am pretty sure that he has already sent me something for it. I guess this means that I will have to keep sending all the Cory Seagers I pull his way!

Anyway, here's the card at the center of that package:

This comes from the 2004 Just Rookies set. The card always makes me crack up - who's the poor schmuck in the lower-left that had his faced blurred and half cropped out? One day, I'll figure it out. This is the black version, numbered to only 25!

Just a couple days before receiving the package from Greg, I won an eBay auction for the following card. It arrived the day after Greg's:

This is the 2013 Topps ERA leaders black printing plate from Series 1. I honestly never thought I would see this card or, even if I did see it, I had even less confidence I would win it. I guess I'm fortunate that David Price and Jered Weaver have kind of taken a step down from the star players they were in 2013 (well, Weaver retired, but Price certainly isn't what he was). 

I always hate the "1 of 1" tag on a printing plate. It is misleading. I think we should petition Topps and all other card companies to label printing plates as "1 of 4." That's a losing battle. 

Finally, I noticed another card hit eBay that I have been looking for since I began collecting Harrison's cards. I had seen others in the set and fell in love, but Harrison's never popped up anywhere...until last week. Behold:

The 2011 Topps Lineage 1952 Canary Autograph of Matt Harrison! These are limited to only 10 copies. I love the gold shimmer (hey Fuji, not a gold refractor, but I think that Gwynn would look good with this background, too!). The only "knock" I have on the card is that it's a sticker auto. Regardless, I love this card. It looks perfect to me (the scan is a little off because of the crop), so I am thinking about sending it in to PSA to get slabbed to keep it that way.

So there you have it: three cards in a month for a player collection I haven't added anything to in a while. Do you have any player collections that you are finding it hard to add cards to?

**UPDATE** Naturally, after I finished and scheduled this post, I won an auction for yet another low-numbered Harrison that I needed (for less than $3, at that!). I'll get that post up as soon as I receive the card!

Fuji, My Man!!!

Back in September, I pulled a Clayton Kershaw relic from '17 Heritage High Number. Fuji, the blogosphere's resident wise man, left a comment saying he would be happy to relieve me of the Kersh. I was happy to send it his way. 

Fast forward a month or so. I received a bubble mailer from way out west from one Mr. Fuji. I was not prepared for the awesomeness that was inside.

First, a disclaimer: in my haste, I failed to scan all of the cards - I only scanned those that needed images on the Trading Card Database (more on this in a later post). However, these cards were awesome and I'm happy to share them!

First up:

A sweet Tier One relic from Michael Young! I really love Tier One. I've always wanted to purchase a box to see what kind of luck I would have with it, but I just can't bring myself to pay that much. So when someone sends me a Tier One relic, it goes without saying that I get a little excited!

The second card I scanned was even better, if you can believe that:

Michael Young auto from UD Ovation Spotlight Signatures! What? An auto! Fuji, you really outdid yourself! I was and still am at a loss for words on this package.

As I mentioned, there was even more in the package, I was just a dope and forgot to scan all of them. Fuji, I really can't thank you enough! I'm on the hunt for cards to send in a return package!

Harry Mail Day!!!

My collecting habits have really slowed lately. I bought a box of '17 Series 1 and massively underwhelmed. I didn't pull any color parallels (other than three golds and a few rainbows) and the auto was forgettable. It was probably the biggest disappointment since I returned to collecting. I'm somewhat excited about Heritage, but even then, I have mixed feelings as I hate the '68 design.

Nonetheless, I still have a few saved searches on eBay that I check daily. One of which is for my main PC, Matt Harrison. The cards that I don't have tend to be lower-numbered parallels, so it isn't often that something pops up that I don't have. However, this week was different. This caught my attention immediately:

This is the copper rose parallel of the 2013 Tier One Crowd Pleaser auto. This card has alluded me for a few years. As a matter of fact, it is the card I was waiting for (redemption wise) and gave up on (receiving the Johnny Bench Museum Collection auto as a replacement). So I don't know if the card was recently fulfilled or if it was one of the few that was actually signed initially. Either way, it doesn't really matter - all that matters is that I have it now.

Perhaps this is a sign of things to come this year for the Matty H PC. One can hope, right?