20,000 Hit Contest

By my records, I am currently at just under 20,000 hits (somewhere around 19,600 or so). I average about 40-60 hits a day, so I should hit 20,000 within the next week.

Here’s the deal. If you can take a screenshot of your browser window, showing that you are hit 20,000, post in the comments that you have it (then email it when I ask for it), I will reward you. I haven’t decided what with, as I want to custom-tailor it for the person who wins, but it’ll be worth the time.

Thank you to everyone who has viewed my site, and helped me get where I am, as well as to all of the card companies for their support.

Why Case Keenum Should Be a Lock For the Heisman

The college football season isn’t over, but as far as I’m concerned, the choice for 2009 Heisman should be pretty much decided. Yes, it’s a bit of a homer choice, but in my mind, it’s entirely justified.

Case Keenum should win the 2009 Heisman trophy going away. Do you want reasons? Well, let’s look at his stats this year, first of all. After 9 games, he has 3815 yards, 28 touchdowns and only 5 interceptions. He also has 3 rushing touchdowns. No other player in NCAA football right now can match him on stats.

The Houston Cougars are 8-1 so far, and the reason is almost entirely on him. Without Case Keenum at quarterback, Houston doesn’t beat Texas Tech, Tulsa, or Southern Mississippi. Possibly not Mississippi State and Oklahoma state. That means he’s the difference between 8-1 and anywhere from a 5-4 to a 3-6 record at this point of the system. The Cougars are 3-0 against BCS teams, including defeating then #5 Oklahoma State by 10 points in Oklahoma. He’s led three 4th quarter drives that won the game, including two in the final minute. Even the game Houston lost, he was flawless in, with five touchdowns and no interceptions. He’s thrown for over 500 yards in a game three times this year so far.

So let’s look at his competition:

Colt McCoy: 2447 yards, 17 touchdowns and 9 interceptions, with 1 rushing touchdown.
Tim Tebow: 1531 yards, 11 touchdowns and 4 interceptions, with 9 rushing touchdowns.
Mark Ingram: 1148 yards rushing, 8 touchdowns and 3 receiving touchdowns.

The only player that comes close right now to the same production is Mark Ingram. Here’s the thing though. Houston wins totally on the merits of its offense. Texas, Florida and Alabama all win on defense. Houston is ranked #1 in the country in passing offense, total offense and scoring offense, and 8th in passing efficiency. They’re also 116th in total defense. Texas? 16th, 25th, 3rd and 1st in total defense. Florida is 83rd, 19th and 11th, while they’re 2nd in total defense. Alabama’s 14th in rushing offense, 31st and 29th in the other categories, and 4th in total defense. Those three teams have defenses which can keep the other team from scoring, so their offense can blow the games wide open. Houston doesn’t. It’s all Case Keenum, all the time.

So let’s look at the common opinion that Houston doesn’t have the same strength of schedule as Texas (played Louisana Monroe, Wyoming and 2 Conference USA teams), Florida (played Charleston So., Troy, and has Florida International upcoming) and Alabama (who played FIU, North Texas, and has Chattanooga upcoming). I’ll go a step further: Let’s look at the games that they have in common.

Texas Tech: Both Houston and Texas beat them. Here’s the lines from each game:
Colt McCoy: 24 of 34 for 205 yards, 1 TD, 2 INT
Case Keenum: 38 of 58 for 435 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT, 1 Game-Winning Rushing TD

UTEP: Texas won, Houston lost.
Colt McCoy: 28 of 35 for 286 yards, 3 TD, 1 INT
Case Keenum: 51 of 76 for 536 yards, 5 TD, 0 INT

Mississippi State: Houston and Florida both won, Alabama plays them this weekend.
Tim Tebow: 12 of 22 for 127 yards, 0 TD, 2 INT and 1 rushing TD.
Case Keenum: 39 of 52 for 434 yards, 4 TDs and 2 INT

Yes, some of this is the system that Houston uses, but let’s be honest. If Case Keenum was playing for Alabama, Texas or Florida with big SEC receivers and more importantly, SEC offensive lines, he’d be putting up good numbers then also. If Tim Tebow or Colt McCoy played all the teams that Houston was….would they put up similar numbers though? So far, it doesn’t seem that way. This is why, to me, it’s obvious that Case Keenum is the best and only reasonable choice for the Heisman.

To Those Who Serve, I Thank You

I’m taking a slight detour today, to talk about something that I take very personally. While I may not always agree with our government or policies, and quite often may be very vocal about it, I have and will continue to have the utmost respect for those who serve and have served in our armed forces.

While it isn’t something that I talk about much, I entered the United States Army in late 1991. It wasn’t exactly my choice, but that’s not important. I made it through basic training at Ft. Knox, KY, then went to my AIT at Ft. Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis. Once I got there, I found that I couldn’t breathe. I went from running 2 miles in about 16 minutes to doing good to finish in 25-30. We couldn’t figure out what was going on, and I knew that I was going to fail to make it out of advanced training due to it. I found out that as long as you were in training that you could go home at any time by simply telling your company commander that you wanted out. I was nineteen and stupid, so I did that, and ended my military service after a little bit over six months. Legally, this makes me a United States Veteran. Compared to those who are serving overseas, who have fought and died for my right to bitch about sports cards or anything else I want, I feel like a pretender.

Both of my grandfathers served in the Navy. Both were in World War II, and one was in Korea. My stepfather was a Marine, although he missed Vietnam, he still served honorably in Japan. The men and women in our armed forces fight and die every day to secure the freedoms which we take for granted on a daily basis, and freedoms which our own government seems willing to rip from us under the excuse of ’security’. Many of these men and women are scared. Many may not agree with why they are where they are, or what they’re asked to do. However, they follow their orders, and perform their duties honorably, because it has to be done. I may question why our government is sending people to die in wars that are not our own, and that is my right to do so, but I will never disparage the men and women of our armed forces for doing their jobs and duties.

To everyone who has served in the United States Armed Forces, or is serving currently, I thank you. I thank you every day, but especially today, November 11, 2009. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you.

-J

2010 Topps Preview

While we’ve seen photos and information on 2010 Topps Baseball, now we have the checklist (Excel required), which includes much more information on what will be involved, as well as checklists for all of the insert sets.  For me, there’s a Classic Combos card featuring Lance Berkman and Mike Hampton.  Um….okay…..  Personally, a more classic combo is Berkman and Oswalt, who are both career Astros, as opposed to Hampton, who was an Astro, left, and returned.  Tommy Manzella gets his Topps RC, and Jose Valverde has a card (which I won’t collect) as well as Mike Hampton (ditto), but unless I’m missing someone, that’s it for the Astros, other than the team card.

The silk cards make their comeback as well, with 100 cards in the parallel set.  Now, Lance Berkman (want) and Miguel Tejada (don’t) are both in it, which makes absolutely no sense.  If their base cards aren’t until series 2, why the hell would a parallel of them be in here, unless series 2 doesn’t have silk cards at all?

Now we have our insert sets.  First up is a 58 card set titled “The Cards Your Mother Threw Out”.  Presumably these are reprints of classic cards from the past, and include cards from Mickey Mantle to Alex Gordon (reprint of 2006 Topps?).  Now, most of these don’t really fit.  I mean, if your mother threw out a 2006 Topps Alex Gordon (which Topps pulled in the first place) or a Tim Lincecum rookie….it doesn’t really fit.  Still and all, there’s a Nolan Ryan in the insert set, and I’d like that if nothing else.

Following this is a 25 card History of the Game insert set, which has Ryan’s 7th No-Hitter, which I want, but … not so sure about this insert set, really.  A 30 card Tales of the Game set is next, and these look very interesting.  The amusing thing is, card 30 is the one most of us wish never happened:  Topps dumps 1952 Cards in the River.  There’s going to be some Hall of Fame buybacks, which aren’t yet determined, which intrigue me if Nolan Ryan’s involved, of course.  Then there’s a 30 card Past and Present set.  These feature stars of the past with stars of today.  Now, it may be just me, but this set would be much more interesting and topical to me if it was stars of the past with up and coming stars of today.  Something about seeing Mickey Mantle and Chipper Jones, or Johnny Bench and Ivan Rodriguez just really doesn’t do it for me.  Nothing here to interest me as a collector, either, other than the obligatory Nolan Ryan card.

Next up is a 60 card “When They Were Young” set, presumably featuring child/baby photos of the players.  Lance Berkman and Hunter Pence are both in the set, so those two I’ll definitely want.  Next is a 50 card Peak Performance set, with stars from the past and present.  How you can have Steve Carlton in this set and not Nolan Ryan, I don’t understand.  I’ll skip that insert set entirely.  There are also 45 autographed Peak Performance cards, 10 relic autographed ones, 20 jumbo relic cards which haven’t been determined yet, and 82 relic Peak Performance cards.

There’s a 50 card Turkey Red set in Series one, with a Nolan Ryan that I want.  There’s a 10 card MLB Exclusive Patch program, which isn’t determined, and then Ticket to Toppstown.com with 30 cards, presumably replacing the Toppstown cards from this year.  Sketch cards make their comeback, as well as a World Champions subset of 5 autograph cards, 5 auto-relic cards, and 15 relic cards.  There are also 186(!!!!) hat relic cards, including four Nolan Ryan ones that’ll cost me a fortune to try to get, which means I won’t.  There are then 66 In the Name relics, which presumably are manupatches, with Hunter Pence the only one I might possibly be interested in.  Finally, there are 15 Past and Present relic cards, and a 1961 Mickey Mantle reprint relic card.

I just want to point something out here.  This is the problem with the card industry as it stands right now.  This is a 330 card basic set.  Given that it’s Topps, there’re Gold, Black (or whatever will replace them) and Platinum paralells.  That’s 330 base, and 990 parallels.  Then there are the 100 silk parallels, and 333 insert cards.  Then there’s a staggering 370 relic cards,  50 autographed cards, and 15 auto-relics.  Considering that this is the base set, this is really overkill.  I was originally considering buying a box of these, but given that there’s maybe 6 inserts I want, and only a couple of base cards, I think I’m going to pass.  C’mon, Topps.  Quit overloading your product with inserts and junk ‘hits’, and give us solid product.

2009 Topps Finest Football Mini-look

Thanks to Guru on Blowout Cards Forum, we’ve got some looks at the just-released 2009 Topps Finest Football.  He also was lucky enough to pull what is probably the best hit out of the entire set, a Mark Sanchez patch auto superfractor 1/1.

I’d like to say, first, congratulations on the pull.  Beyond that, though, I really don’t like the concept of throwing this patch window on the card like that.  Cards with GU and Patch pieces really need to be designed around that, as it’s obviously going to be the focal point of the card, especially when you throw in an autograph.

That brings me to the autograph itself.  This card would look ten times better if Topps had used clear stickers on the autographs instead of these big white squares.  What’s the point of having using refractor technology when you’re going to cover up the bottom third of the card with this crap?  You can’t tell me that Topps couldn’t get people to sign clear stickers.  This is nothing but design failure, in my mind.  Finest is always a nice looking set, but this really detracts from it.

Let’s be honest here.  I’m getting kind of tired of the manuletters.  They’re autographed, which is nice, but good god, you can barely see the player on the card itself.  Why not make it a nice insert with a good picture of the player, and a spot designed for the autograph?  These are rarely game used and they’ve run their course:  Let them die for 2010.  Not that anyone’s listening to me, because the generally clueless masses tend to love this crap.

I like the design on the base cards and parallels, which makes me happy, as I collect those.  Blowout Cards has these for $87, and here is where you can snag them.  eBay seems to have them for about the same price on BIN, with completed sales running from $80 to 90.  Anyone want to pull me a Texans team set + my other guys?

This is why I love eBay

I know, I routinely pimp things I find on eBay. I can’t help it. Considering the options right now, I’d much rather spend $100 on cards on eBay, and get things I actually want for a reasonable price.  What I generally do is go through the list of players I collect, and look for the genuinely rare (or in the case of Nolan Ryan, vintage) items, and decide ahead of time what I’m willing to pay (rarely more than $20), and go from there.  Right now, I’m spending approximately about the money it’d cost me to buy 2-3 boxes of cards (about $200 a month), and getting quite a bit of very nice stuff.

What I’d like to do is highlight some of the things I’ve been lucky enough to win, which are now part of my Houston-based collection.

2009 SPx Andre Johnson Shadowbox /100 for $13.25 after shipping.  This is a case hit out of a recent product for less than the price of a single pack.  By the way?  These cares are beautiful.  I’d like to simply applaud Upper Deck for coming up with something that looks astounding and is highly collectible.  I still need to get a Slaton, and autographed variants, but those may take a while.

2008 Playoff Prestige Matt Schaub Xtra Points Black 9/10 for $4.24 after shipping.   I know, there are so many parallels and so many sets, that it’s impossible to collect them all.  Still, for $4, this is a nice pickup, in my opinion.

2006 Topps Chrome Lance Berkman Red Refractor 40/90 for $4.49 after shipping.  This is a higher #’d card than I’d usually use eBay for, but the red refractors were a pain in the ass to pull, from what I recall, so I felt it was worth the money.

2009 Donruss Certified Andre Johnson Mirror Emerald Reebok Patch 1/5 and Fabric of the Game 3-color patch 8/50 for $25.99.  Do I really need to explain why this was worth that to me?   These are absolutely gorgeous cards, especially the Emerald, and they always sell well.

1972 Topps Nolan Ryan for $5.65.  This isn’t in great condition, as you can see, but I didn’t have this yet, and it’s a good price for a average-quality card.  I’ll upgrade it when I can.

2005 Donruss Throwback Threads Roy Oswalt Platinum Proof 4/10 for $7.76.  A bit more than I really wanted to pay, mainly because of shipping.  I’m sorry, but $3.50 for a padded envelope is crap.

2009 Donruss Classics Sunday’s Best Andre Johnson AU/GU 4/10 for $16.52.  Best reciever in the NFL.  Just sayin’.  Now, I do want to slap Panini upside the head for putting a single-color jersey swatch on an AU #’d to 10.  That’s inexcusable and horrible card design.

2007 Leaf Limited Matt Schaub Gold Spotlight 3/10 for $2.49.  This was an easy buy.

2009 Topps Lance Berkman Silk Collection 42/50 for $0.99.  Shipping is combined with the following item, and these were very hard pulls to begin with.  Very nice product.

2008 Bowman Lance Berkman Red Border 1/1 for $20.43.  My first 1/1 of Berkman, so I’m very pleased with this one.

2007 Donruss Elite Matt Schaub Status 4/24 for $6.95.  Nice, low-numbered parallel.  I already had the base and the Aspirations, now I have all three.

Now, with Christmas coming up, I’m giving away cards.  I have three 100 count boxes full of the Los Angeles/Anaheim/California Angels, packed and ready to ship.   How do you get these?  You need to leave a comment, and show either a link to a post on your blog/forum/Facebook page linking to this, or put your Twitter username and follow me on Twitter.  The first three that do so get the cards.   I’ll be doing more boxes for other teams, with the same rules, and I’ll announce them here.  If you want to reciprocate with Astros and Texans cards, I’ll be thankful, but that is not a requirement.

Where Have I Been?

So, I haven’t been posting for a while. One might ask why. More likely, it goes unnoticed, but I’ll explain anyway.

To be honest, most of the sets in 2009 have left me bored. I haven’t bought anything in a card store in over four months, other than a group break of 2009 SPX that got me a few game used cards, but really wasn’t worth the money I spent, which made me realize something.

For the most part, outside of opening wax, there’s absolutely no reason to buy product anymore. Every product is either a waste of money if you’re not a set collector (basic sets, possibly Chrome), or a complete gamble (anything else). Not only that, it’s a gamble that you’re almost assured to lose, no matter what you spend, unless you sell on eBay the minute you buy the product, and only if you buy the product within a week or two after it comes out. If you wait, the price will always drop. Compare prices of 2009 Topps Chrome singles versus 2008 Topps Chrome singles.

Beyond that, with my not buying product (other than a bit of 2009 Topps Chrome football retail), I don’t feel that I can really review products, so I haven’t been doing that either. Instead, I’ve been buying singles on eBay, including a case hit from 2009 SPx for $10 or so, and a number of parallels under 10. I’m happier doing this, and soon I’ll be giving away most of my cards, and trimming down to just my personal collection. I’ll probably buy cards in 2010, but if the card companies continue down this same road, and give us bland products that offer no true value, I’ll just buy team sets and singles off eBay.

Really, there’s little point in doing anything else anymore.

2009 SPx Football Review

If you’ve been reading this for a while, you know that I’m not a huge fan of the hit-per-pack phenomenon, simply because it’s nothing but a huge gamble, where you spend $20 or more to get one item, which is likely a single-color swatch of material, normally white, that you’d throw on eBay for $1 + shipping if you’re lucky.  Since 2007, SPx has been one of the major culprits of this, although it routinely sells quite well.  On Thurday, 2009 SPx Football went live, and I was lucky enough to take part in a group case break of the product, which allowed me to see 10 boxes being broken live, and to see a number of the cards going live.

The break didn’t concentrate on the base cards, and to be honest, SPx has never been about base cards, so I’m not really going to talk about them here.  Instead, what I’m going to discuss is some of the good and bad that I saw during this break, but first, let me link the two videos that are up, of boxes 1-4 and 5-7.  For some reason, the final boxes didn’t get recorded, but it shouldn’t affect our viewing.  Also, I would like to thank NDePaul99 for both holding this group break, and for linking to my blog from his Youtube videos.  Both were highly appreciated.

Here’s part one, and here’s part two. (NSFW for language)

First off, this case was absolutely loaded.  Now, while he wasn’t looking at the base, and thus I don’t know how many of the Vick and Favre cards hit, all of the major rookies were hit, including three Mark Sanchez cards and two Ray Malauga.  Knowshon Moreno, Michael Crabtree, Matt Standford and Percy Harvin all showed up.

One major drawback is the fact that the triple-GU RC AU card is always in the same pack each box.  I’m not going to say where it is, but I’d be very careful about buying unsealed boxes of this product.  I’m not sure if the Shadowbox cards are in the same box each time, but I’d be careful of that also.

Speaking of the Shadow Boxes, these are absolutely gorgeous and Upper Deck needs to be commended here for totally raising the bar as far as giving us something innovative to look for.  Our case had two Shadow Box cards, and while neither was autographed, they’re still absolutely beautiful, as you can see in the first video at approximately 10:46.

For the rest of the GU and Autographed card variants, I’m going to take them in the order that they’re pulled.  The Rookie Materials Dual cards are very nice, with a minimum of wasted space, just a small section in the lower right, presumably where an autograph sticker would go if it’s an autographed variant.  The player picture takes up the left half of the card, and it honestly looks pretty damn good.

The triple-GU Auto RCs look … pretty much the same as last year, although it’s on gold foil instead of the silver from last year.  It looks better, but it still has the three football-shaped die-cut windows, and getting three swatches of the same color is a bit disappointing, although I expect each swatch to be one color, it’d be nice to have different colors overall.

The Winning Materials Dual look as good as the Rookie Materials do, with the swatch windows placed nicely on the right and no real wasted space.  Again, the player picture takes up a good half of the card, which is definitely better than only having a small picture.  The Xfactor Signatures also look very nice, with the auto sticker fitting in at the bottom and the card being dominated by the player’s picture.  I don’t really like the huge amount of open space on the right-hand side of the card, but it’s a minor gripe only to be honest.

The Winning Materials Singles also look pretty good, with the swatch almost in the middle of the card, and the not just placed in the same position as the Dual swatch cards, with two other spots that you’d think were normally swatch windows given to the team logo and the player’s number.  It’s the little things that make products work, and this definitely helps the design of the card.  Kudos here to Upper Deck.  Granted, it’s the same overall design as the dual Materials cards, but the placement of the swatch balances this out.

The Super Scripts autos are a step back, especially compared to the Xfactor cards, as almost the entire right-hand side of the card is blank.  I’m not sure if it’s because there’s a version of the Super Scripts that also come with game-used pieces, but it really is unbalanced, and needs to be more like the other type of auto.  Maybe making the Super Scripts auto horizontal instead of vertical could help, but I’m not honestly sure on this one.  The Super Scripts duos look just as bad, and really needed to have been horizontal to show off the players instead of using tiny windows for the player picture.

The rookie cards and auto’d rookies also look very nice, but again, there’s a lot of open space on the right-hand side of these cards, which I’m not certain why that is.  They still have nice-sized player photographs, which is highly appreciated.  Now, the Winning Dual Combo cards are …. really not good.  First off, it’s obvious that they use the same format for the dual player GU as well as the dual player AU, which means you have tiny player pictures on the left, the swatch windows, and then huge open spaces to the right. The dual-player GU cards really should have had their own design, perhaps vertical, with larger player windows and a spot to the right for the swatch.  The design works for the dual-AU cards, but it’s absolutely wretched for dual-player GU cards.

Now for the items that … really stuck out as being just bad designs.  First, if you’re going to have a patch card, or prime jersey, or whatever you want to call it, you need to make sure these cards have more than one color, and are patch cards.  I received a Matt Schaub ‘patch’ card that was a single red swatch.  Now, it may have been because this was a piece of the number, as it’s a thicker card, I’m not sure, but there were at least 2-3 of these in the case, and it’s very confusing on the collector’s end of things.  That being said, there were some nice patches in the box.

For the truly stupid decision, however, take a look at 20:26 of the second video.  We pulled a triple-GU card of Peyton Manning numbered to /10.  Here’s where the ludicrous set in:  It’s 3 GU pieces, no autograph….all white swatches.  The only thing that made this card ‘rare’ was the fact that it’s numbered to 10.  No card numbered that low should ever have white swatches.  Ever. This is the one card in the set that really made me think ‘What the hell is UD up to here?’.

Over all, the set is very solid at the box and case level, although be very careful about who you buy boxes from if the location of the Shadow Box cards turns out to be the same in each case, which I’m currently unsure about.  At the pack level, be very careful about buying these in a store and make sure that the store owner mixes the packs up when opening the box.  Otherwise, people can (and will) cherry pick the triple-GU-AU rookie cards, leaving you with little chance of actually getting them.  I wouldn’t even bother to touch these in single-pack form to begin with, and most definitely not on eBay, simply because I couldn’t stand spending $20 to get a single-color swatch of a player, period.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I would have to give 2009 Upper Deck SPx football a 7 out of 10.

Why I Love eBay

As most of you know, I’m a player collector, concentrating on Houston Texans and Houston Astros.  I also haven’t been buying much in the way of cards, even though I love busting.  I decided this week to do a bit of celebrating, and spent about the same as a mid-range box of cards, and got an incredibly sweet haul, as well as some filler GU/AU for my collection.

Tell me what you think, and tell me if you wouldn’t be thrilled to pull this level of product from a box break?

2003 Donruss Elite Andre Johnson National Convention Exclusive RC 2/5: $23
2008 Topps Chrome Uncirculated Gold Refractor Mario Williams 174/199: $3
2003 Fleer Patchworks Roy Oswalt 3-color, 4-break patch 35/100: $7
1975 Topps #7 Nolan Ryan ‘74 Highlights: $3.24
2005 Leaf Certified Gold Autographs Roy Oswalt 21/25: $7.99
1992 O-Pee-Chee Nolan Ryan $3.24
1999 Upper Deck Powerdeck Jeff Bagwell: $3.49
2007 Donruss Classics Significant Signatures Platinum Andre Johnson AU 8/10: $23.20
2009 Topps Chrome Copper Refractor Andre Johnson: $3.25
2008 SPx Rookie Winning Materials Patch (3 GU, single, 3 color patch, single) Steve Slaton 12/15: $9
2007 Score Select Hot Rookies Gold Zone Kevin Kolb 34/50: $2.51
138 Jeff Bagwell cards: $8.34
2003 Leaf Limited Monikers Roy Oswalt AU/GU /25: $8.50
2007 Artifacts Autofacts Michael Bourn AU: $3.49
2000 Bowman Chrome Roy Oswalt RC: $4.94
1997 Leaf Limited Star Factor Exposure Jeff Bagwell /40: $4.69
2009 Donruss Rookies & Stars Longevity Brian Cushing RC 19/75: $0.99
2009 eTopps Bud Norris: $1.84
2008 Upper Deck Documentary Seasonal Signatures Wesley Wright AU: $4.24
2009 Bowman Sterling Brian Cushing AU 431/499: $3.94

Total Spent: $129.89. Total # of ‘hits’: 8. Total # of Inserts and Parallels: 6.

Not bad, hm?

2009 Ballpark Collection Mini-Review

I want to preface this by stating that I have not purchased this product, and likely will not.  This is based on watching a number of box breaks, and looking at the product on eBay and elsewhere.

Boxes of this are selling online for $140-170, while packs can be found for around $45 or so, and each have guaranteed either 3 jersey cards, or 2 jersey cards and an auto.  The question, of course is, is the product worth it?

In looking at 390 current auctions available on eBay, and 254 completed auctions, I have to say….no, not unless you /really/ enjoy gambling.  This product really feels like a dump ground for swatches of material that haven’t been used elsewhere, and autograph stickers that have been kicking around for a while.

When in over 600 auctions I can’t find a single multi-colored patch in a mid-to-high-end product, that tells me something.  Sure, there’s a chance of getting HOF materials from the product and a slight chance at HOF autographs.  For the most part though, you’re going to get single, dual, quad, or maybe six or eight single-color swatches on a card, predominately white, with a few autographs, mostly of mid-level and below players.  When you’re spending $150-160 a box, on average, even getting eight to twelve GU and one to four AU in a box…really isn’t worth it.  After all, even if you average $10 per card, you’re only going to get back $120 out of the box, and more than likely you’ll average $5 per hit unless you hit a seriously good card.  That’s $60 out of a $150 investment.  Not a good return, and further proof that we’ve reached our saturation limit on game-used cards.  It’s time for the industry to wake up and smell the manure.