My first group break- Spectacular success!

A few weeks back I signed up for my very first Group Break. My friend CaptKirk of the Database and his own blog ran a multi-box break and the price he was asking was not particularly high so I took a chance and purchased the slots for several teams.

I could not have guessed how well it would turn out when I began....but it was spectacular!

I took the Nets (always my favorite team), the Knicks, Thunder and Warriors. Had I know how much fun it was going to be I would have taken a couple more teams.

I took the Warriors and the Thunder because two of my three favorite players currently in the League play on those two teams- Steph Curry of the Warriors and Kevin Durant on the Thunder. I was hoping to get an insert or maybe a parallel.

Instead, I got these:

A Steph Curry autograph and a Kevin Durant relic parallel numbered to 25!

When I read CaptKirk's post about the box, all I could think was to quote Trevor Bayne when he won the Daytona 500 in 2011, "Are you kidding me? Am I dreaming right now?" Surely this could not have been happening to me...nothing ever goes this well for me. But here they are, in my hands..."not a dream, hoax or imaginary story!" This really did happen. I am still trying to wrap my head around this, it is so good.

This is also my first Thunder relic. They moved from Seattle to Oklahoma City in 2008, but I was not collecting the NBA at that time, and since I've gotten back into it I can't afford to buy boxes of each set issued, sometimes in multiple like I used to do, in fact I rarely get boxes at all anymore. Since I launched Cardboard History in November of last year I've done only one NBA box. So, I had not pulled any Thunder relics at all. Now, I not only have one, I have one of my favorite player on the team, and it's a truly rare parallel!

But that's not all!

I also got the Perry Jones autograph as I had the Thunder. The Magic were not claimed and Kirk randomed off the unclaimed teams, so I got Kyle O'Quinn's auto from 2013-14 Hoops. The Prestige autographs are hard to photograph due to the mirror foil they used- and I had to remove a few finger prints digitally, because I didn't take enough time to make sure the cards were clean before I took the photos. Oops.

But wait, there's more!

Lots more! These are the base cards, inserts and parallels of my teams. Some of these are going to be duplicates, but there are also more than a few new cards in here as well. Some of these are numbered, most are not. The Hoops cards of the past two years look great from the side, as well. The 2013-14 cards have no black border on top and bottom, while 2014-15 does. I did lots of retail packs of 2013-14 and a hobby box of 2014-15 Hoops so most of these are going into my trade stash...but I know I didn't have the Kevin Durant base card from 2014-15 Hoops before and there is one of them in there. I will be going and listing them in my paper listing as soon as I hit post on this post.

Kirk also hooked me up with the majority of the 1991 Topps American Gladiators cards, which I didn't know existed until I learned he had some. I loved that show when it was new, and when it was replayed on ESPN Classic a few years ago, I still enjoyed it. Looking through those cards brought back some great memories of when I was younger. I forgot to photograph them, though.

Thanks again Kirk! This was an amazing experience and if you do another, I will take the same teams and more.

Edit to add: I got 103 new cards from the group break. That does not count the Gladiators cards. And here's a scan of the Curry auto, just because...

I had so much fun with Kirk's group break, I also joined one for 2014-15 Panini Spectra on Dave & Adam's. It doesn't work the same, and it was much more expensive. It wasn't as much fun but I did get two great cards. My photo is blurry but you can see the refractor...err, I mean Prizm...technology and the Gary Harris card is serially numbered 4 of 5. I might do another with them some day but it would have to be something with more cards in a case. Quite a few people payed to get into that case break and got absolutely nothing....not even their money back.