After seeing all the fantastic Archives posts and reviews around blogo-land the past few days, my appetite was whetted for more of this fun product. My initial foray was a blaster box over the weekend, producing a nice yield of base and insert cards, plus a little relic mojo.
My second go-round with Archives was yet another blaster, this time nabbed from Wal-Mart in New Castle, Del. on my way home from the quarry. The results, as you can tell from the image above, were as splendid as the first crack. Two blasters, two hits, one happy dude!
I really love the Fan Favorites autos, and was drooling over some of them on eBay just yesterday (specifically the HoJo and Gregg Jefferies issues). I also ran into this Mickey Tettleton on a few occasions and was instantly fond of it. Mickey is one of my player collections, as he was one of my favorite catchers/sluggers when I was growing up. Naturally, I was giddy when I stumbled upon this on-card auto about halfway through the blaster packs. This card is a real beaut!
The Mickey auto wasn't the only excitement in the box...
I scored this gold rainbow parallel, too! As most other bloggers who also pulled these things have noted, you can't really appreciate how amazing these cards look unless you see 'em in person. Especially in the 1990 Topps format.
I found it interesting that the gold parallel was apparently a tougher pull (1:85) than the Fan Favorites autograph (1:62). I know the gold variant is numbered to /199, but I would've imagined an on-card auto to be much rarer a commodity. But, what do I know? Either way, I guess this was a pretty darn good blaster box considering that it contained a pair of prizes such as these.
As for the rest of the contents, well, feel free to skip this part if you're bored by base cards. But, I figure this is still a fairly new frontier and many of us haven't seen a lot of the base cards yet. So why not share?
I'm biased, of course, so I think this Doc Gooden is the best of the '72s that I've seen thus far. Though, the Pujols is pretty darn attractive, too.
Tom Terrific and The Kid were two of the biggest non-insert highlights of the box. The Morgan is no slouch, either.
I've been let down by the '85s to this point. The lack of action photos really irks me, and I just can't let it go. That being said, that Ted Williams card is hot!
As disappointed as I am in the '85 effort, that's how extremely pleased I am with the '90s. I love the job Topps did on the Nationals and D'backs color schemes. That Eaton card is visual candy! And how about that Pedro Alvarez card with the yellow cap working in symphony with the colored borders. Nice!
My two Fan Favorite short prints...
How come the "Tigers" on Fryman's card isn't trademarked?? Gasp! Anyhow, I've now collected Juan Samuel, Vince Coleman, Dauren Daulton and Travis Fryman from the SP list. The '93 design has never been one of my favorites, but I'm surely a Fryman fan.
Stickers...
Heavy-duty HOF activity on this four-panel sticker. I've got this one ticketed for the best Padre-lovin' card blogger in Texas.
Nothing new to add about these All-Star inserts; they're still great! I actually got two of these AS cards, but the other is already a duplicate for me -- Rickey Henderson. If anyone is interested in it, just lemme know!
And I'll finish up with an insert set that I wasn't too keen on during my initial review, but my second helping has started to sway me in the other direction. In this case, it comes down to player selection and the photo choices.
I'll just let the pictures do the talking here. All I can see is hair, hair which cannot be contained within a simple baseball cap. Give me more old-school jersey tops and era-specific hair styles and I'll be completely sold on this insert set!
And there you have it. Blaster No. 2 in the books, and it was the best one yet! Because nature and/or the universe always seem to balance out our fortunes, the next blaster I purchase will have zero hits and consist exclusively of duplicates, all of which will have either printing errors or dinged corners or both. But, I've been spoiled with these first two boxes, so I have no room to complain in advance of presumed misfortune. Instead, I'll focus on the positive and savor my lucky streak.
Just to be safe, though, maybe I'll switch to rack packs next time.
MK
Man, nice blaster pulls! I bought 1 blaster for my Take My Cards thing and the best thing I pulled was a Mike Trout Galleries die cut.
ReplyDeleteNothing wrong with that; those die cuts are awesome!
DeleteAnd yet another reason I'm upset that the only Tall Boys I pulled were of the current players. I'd put any of the retired player cards up against the current players cards and doubt it would come close.
ReplyDeleteYes, that's very odd. You pulled all the current guys, and so far I've pulled four retired. Collation??
DeleteI guess I know what I'm buying this weekend.
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks for hogging all of the hits! :)
No promises! I've also begun my doubles pile thanks to this box. Not many, but a few.
DeleteWould love to pick up that Rickey for my Henderson collection.
ReplyDeleteI'll set it aside for you, Adam...
DeleteMan, way to go on the hits! There are things that I don't like about Archives, but the auto checklist is top notch this year. Benito Santiago AND Fred McGriff?!? I'd be lying if I said that I wouldn't be buying a few rack packs to test my luck. Those gold foil cards are sharp as well, I like the serial numbering on the front. The Derek Holland card is my favorite so far from the '82 set.
ReplyDeleteI didn't think that I'd like the stickers (pulled one from a blaster as well), but that one looks great, whatever blogger you're sending that to will definitely dig it.
Yeah, I saw that Benito auto. Holy cow, what a cool card!
DeleteAnd, yes, I hope that mysterious Padres fan in Texas likes that sticker...
I am disappointed in Archives for two reasons. First is the commonly talked about abundance of reused photos in the set. Secondly, and worse in my book, is the overuse of the 1972 design in 2013 and the choices of the other three designs in general. The 72s shouldn't have been both the minis in flagship and in this set. The 82, 85, and 90 are not exactly designs that I love, but even if you like them they are too close together in time. They should have used 1 set from the 50s, skipped the 60s since Heritage is in that decade, 1 from the 70s, 1 from the 80s, and 1 from the 90s. I would have chosen 1959, 1978, 1985, and 1991 for the designs, but that's just me.
ReplyDelete