Total Blaster 1 & 2

A few days ago I came across the pre-Black Friday sales Blowout Cards was doing, and while there was a lot of nice stuff at good prices, what caught my eye was a deal on 20 Total Memorabilia Blasters from 2014. The normal price on this was $400...and they were on sale for $99.11. That's more than I like to spend at one time, but I couldn't pass that up. Each one sold for $20 when new so that's some major savings. And I had very little of the set, too, which meant that in theory most of the cards would not be duplicates. I had only two blasters worth of the set, plus a couple of multi-piece relics I purchased on the secondary market. (Retail finds are usually single piece).

Well, they arrived yesterday and I determined that I was not going to open them up all at once, and spread out the fun, with my target date to finish opening them on January 1st. That came out to 1 box every three days after I did two the first day.

Just for fun, I decided I was going to blog about each box. I have not been posting too much NASCAR stuff lately but this will give me 19 posts between now and January. If I follow through with my plans...I don't always.

I also came up with a way to take better pictures of the cards too. Press Pass was making every insert mirror foil and the depth of the relic pieces make 3 out of 5 cards per pack tough to scan...so photos it is!

Box #1:

 Each pack contains one base card, one parallel and 3 inserts, one of which is guaranteed to be either a relic or an autograph. Most of them are from this insert set, single relic pieces, most of which are tire chunks but there are also cards with firesuit pieces and maybe some other stuff. I only had three base cards going in and the Almirola was one of them.

They go up to 4 relic pieces per card and each version has a different color foil. The silver foil single relic pieces are the most common. this Biffle piece shows quite a bit of cording in the tire as well, something I like to see even if it does mean that it's from well inside the tire instead of the surface that touched the track or the sidewall.
The Acceleration and Hall of Fame placques are mirror foil.

Box #2:

 Oof, a duplicate already, pulling the same Acceleration Brad Keselowski from both boxes. With only one base card per box, I don't think I'll complete the set, even though it's typical Press Pass microscopic 50 cards. I needed the Kurt Busch card shown here.

Now that's a great tire piece! This looks like it's got burn damage from the burnout shown on the card. I love race dated relics, too. I wasn't expecting this card, I forgot this insert was in the set.

And that's box #1 and 2. Future posts in the series will have only one box per, in theory. I'm not really known for my follow through, after all. I'm hoping I pull more of the truck tires from the first Eldora dirt race. I pulled Austin Dillon's from a blaster my brother got for me when the set was new. It's a fairly small insert, I think six or 8 cards, so maybe I will be lucky enough to complete it...or, barring that, I will get closer to it and be able to pick up the missing cards on ebay or COMC or something.

3 Packs of Dave & Adam's NASCAR Hit Parade 2

A few weeks back I Documented 4 packs of Dave & Adam's Hit Parade series 1. A few days ago the three packs of series 2 I ordered arrived and now I'll show what I got in them- again, I got some great stuff!

This is my favorite card I got out of them...it turned out to be the second card out of the first pack. Autographed relics are not something I have a lot of. I think this may be the ONLY autographed patch in my collection!

This card made a good run as favorite...it goes well with the autographed version I pulled myself.

I pulled two more of the Prized Pieces sheetmetal cards. The Keselowksi has a great pattern. I'm up to 4 of these now.

Each pack contained a copy of this Tony Stewart tire card.

Here are the remaining relics:

And here are the autographs. I got some good ones. (Of course, I consider ALL of them good ones...)

 

So, all in all, another great round of packs. I hope they keep doing more of them. Always a good day when you can add more than one Cup champion's autographs in one day (Kurt Busch 2004, Kevin Harvick 2014)



Box Break- 2013 Press Pass Showcase

I'll be honest- I hate the so-called "super premium" sets...the ones that cost an arm, leg and kidney to buy...and I've mostly stayed away from them. Not by choice, but because medicine must come before cards. Each box of Press Pass Showcase sells for roughly $225, so, in all the years they've done it, I've never done a box before. Until November 17th, 2014. Dave & Adam's put the box on sale for $100. For 16 cards, that's still a lot of money...but I could justify spending that. And besides, I may never have another chance to do a box of Showcase, so why not?
Now, in a normal box break, I would not post every card. For instance, I did a box of 2014-15 Hoops a few weeks back and ended up getting several hundred new cards- to see them all, that's what the Trading Card Database is for. I would post highlights- the standard hits, and whatever I deem as highlights. But at 16 cards, for Showcase, I will attempt to post them all.

Pack #1

The first card out of the box is a Carl Edwards insert, which is actually printed on clear plastic. Serially numbered 093/299.

Second card out turns out to be my favorite of the entire box! Dale Earnhardt Jr. has been my driver since Ernie Irvan retired and Dale moved to Cup in the same year. I have never had a lot of luck pulling multi-piece relics but I pulled a good one here. This is the second piece of sheet metal I've pulled from Dale Jr, the last coming all the way back in 2002.

First base card, #19 Mark Martin. Good design. Mark has been around since they raced chariots...not really but it sure seemed like it at the end. Odd twist of fate- my only other previous Showcase base card, which I was given as a gift, is of Mark, from the 2010 set.

The next card is a subset of Tony Stewart. I like the base card design better...what a shocker! The serially numbering, which didn't scan all that well, is 170/349.

The final card in pack #1, is a gold parallel of Dale Earnhardt Jr. The subset looks better with the gold bracing. The serial number is 58/99.

Pack #2
The second pack starts out with another clear card, of Jeff Burton. 218/299.

The second card out is a firesuit of Michael Waltrip. And what a big piece of firesuit it is! In fact, I think this may be the largest relic in my collection. Second largest for sure. As I was typing up the insert checklists to post to the Database, I realized this was actually a gold parallel of the basic Prized Pieces insert. The gold foil and being numbered to 25 tell you that fact.

The base card for this pack is Kyle Busch. Not my favorite, but also not my least-favorite driver in the set, either. SN116/349.

Another Dale Jr. card, can't complain about that! This is a different subset, but neither of them are really worthwhile, cards of the cars would have been much better.

Parallel for this pack is Tony Stewart's base card.

Pack #3
 The final full pack. I knew there was going to be an autograph in this one, or so I thought.

Finally, a car shot! Also printed on clear plastic, this is serially numbered 279/299. They even managed to get a special paint scheme. I'm glad they went with the Jimmy John's car instead of a fake censored Budweiser car, as well. I know it's not Press Pass's fault, but I loath the goofy fake junk they have to put on the cars instead of the real sponsor.

Now, what should be the autograph. But it's not. I got a redemption. I loathe redemptions- I have terrible luck with them. I am still owed cards from both Fleer and Upper Deck, (I know I will never get them) but the worst thing is I usually get the redemption cards after they have expired- I once pulled one from a Topps NBA set literally the day after it expired. If I ever own a card company (a lifelong dream) there will be no redemptions whatsoever- all cards will be inserted into packs. I'll post what the autograph is when it arrives from Press Pass- I need to hold out for a mailday post. I don't have a lot of mail days anymore.

Card #3 is a Joey Logano base card. SN081/349.

Another Elite Exhibit subset, this time of Kurt Busch. It's numbered 174/349.

The gold parallel for this pack is of Travis Pastrana. I was surprised to see he was included in the set, and he's already out of NASCAR- the money ran dry. It's SN73/99.

Bonus Pack
Each box of Showcase includes a one-card bonus pack, which could be one of two low numbered parallels, or a special rookie card of either Danica Patrick or Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (Press Pass totally ignored the fact that Josh Wise also ran for Rookie of the Year in 2013)

As it turns out, I got the rarest parallel of all, the Purple set, serially numbered to 13. This card, #55 in the 60 card set, is SN 06/13.

Overall, I am very happy with my box. It was definitely worth the $100, but had I spent $225 I would have felt ripped off. I was very unhappy when I did the box, not knowing for sure if the autograph would ever actually appear in my collection, but I am now fairly sure it will. It's of a driver I've always wanted, so I am looking forward to getting it.