It’s Almost Group Break Time!

It’s been a couple months since I’ve last held a group break of my own.  First, it was the wedding holding me back.  I guess that’s my first taste of the term “ball and chain,” eh?  Now, it’s more a lack of funds.  I know not everyone buys the boxes ahead of time, but I like to run my ship that way.  I don’t want to set-up a break only to find what I wanted to open sold out by the time I’m ready to purchase.

I’ll probably have to wait a couple paychecks before I can get it going again.  In the meantime, keep watching this space, because I plan on having some polls asking what people want to try next.  I’ve already had a private request for an older Topps oriented break, which I think would be promising if the right boxes can be found for the right price.  I want to eventually hit all the manufacturers in a similar manner to my Fleer break.  Hell, maybe even do Fleer again since we had such good luck.  All in due time.

Also, don’t think we haven’t forgotten about the free group break resulting from our Crowne Royale Hockey box.  We sold the triple patch for less than anticipated, but it should be enough to pick up a cheaper box of something to hold the freebie break.  That just needs Andy and I to coordinate a little bit, and our schedules haven’t matched up in quite some time.  When I’m gone, he’s free.  When I’m free, he’s gone.  Just the way of the world lately.

Even though my next group break is in its infancy, others are free flowing with theirs.  Colbey over at Carboard Collections is one such blogger.  I wasn’t able to get in on his most recent one thanks to marriage oriented events, but I did participate in another prior to that.  That was a few months ago, but I’m behind on everything (and probably will be for a while), so we’re just going to have to see them now.

As you can see, I claimed the White Sox

I don’t like the White Sox on the whole.  I like specific players from the team.  I admire certain players from the team.  I also despise some of the players from the team.  But, I collect a key player from the team.  Lucky for me, the team typically goes unclaimed in a lot of group breaks, so if the price is right and there’s enough cards I need I’ll probably go for it even though I’m only searching for Frank Thomas cards.  Colbey’s place is the Home of the Cheap Group Break for a reason.  He piles on the good stuff while keeping your wallet fat.  This time around it was 1993 Collector’s Choice and 1994 Fleer.  1994 Score was included initially, too, but ran into some problems that you’ll see later.  As a thank you, some extra Sox were included in the package like the two Embossed you see above.  I love Embossed cards.  Topps should try something like that again, don’t you think?

The rest of the above scan is filled with either White Sox staples such as Bo Jackson (also a Royals staple, I know) and Black Jack McDowell, and/or awesome pictures like Rock Raines sliding into second oh so silky smoothly.  Who says there are no cards for the ladies?

Parallel City

I could have shown other Collector’s Choice cards, but when I pretty much get the entire series 2 team set in Silver Signature form, why bother?  I feel like I ripped other participants off by landing so much fake metallic ink.  The McDowell is the one per box Gold version, too!  From basketball, I remember the pictures on the gold were foiled up too.  It’s tougher to tell the difference here.  And here are a couple more extras in the form of UD Documentary gold (one of which is a Cubs win, I might add), including inexplicable fan favorite Nick Swisher.  I don’t see what other people see in him.  Everything you see in the images above (and more) are for trade.

I wonder whose card back is also featured in this scan

Here’s a duplicate Colbey threw in as a thank you.  This is from the Score box originally slotted.  We all got our Score cards, but as you can tell they stuck together in the packs so badly that there is notable paper loss on just about every card.  He’s such a stand-up guy, that he subbed out another box. I can’t remember which of the two was the replacement.  A while back ago, I went through a lot of old 1994 Score that my brother bought and it had the same problem even after being opened.  Anyway, the lacklaster graphic in the bottom tells me that this is an Award Winner subset.  Greg Maddux won his second consecutive Cy Young Award in 1993, the first coming with the Cubs and the second with the Braves.

A rare horizontal base card of the Professor

Another double thrown in as a much appreciated bonus.  While the front revels in its simplicity, the back of card shows signs of the craziness that would become 1995 Fleer.  That’s why I’m not showing it.  I never really thought about until I worked with this scan, but we really don’t see too many horizontal cards in main set releases for G.M.  Inserts and the like, sure, but not the regular set.  I don’t think the mixed orientation was as common for sets issued while he was playing, though.  Either way, it makes for a nice image.  Rarely do you see the back of the jersey and a good portion of the face.

Another Award Winner

There ended up being 4 copies of the MVP card above in the box.  All of them, unfortunately suffered from stickingtogetheritis.  The fronts in general look solid, but the loss on the backs gets a little severe.  I don’t know why, but the fronts of these award winner cards remind me of Sports Illustrated for Kids covers.  I think it’s the font on the name.  I don’t know.  It’s not their best work.  I’ll put it that way.  By the way, Frank Thomas won the MVP award in 1993 unanimously.  Only the 8th to do so.  Only the best for my personal collections.

If you're a future Hall of Famer and you know it, clap your hands

If you give me Opening Day in a trade or other package, it will be featured prominently.  Look at how cool that blue foil is!  Even with a non-blue wearing team, it looks great.  Do I wish Opening Day was something other than a glorified reduced parallel set? Absolutely.  Do I sometimes wish the Opening Day look was the flagship design instead?  Absolutely.  Big Hurt applauds that decision, too.

Yeah, horizontal looks better

One problem with collecting FT is that a lot of his pictures are boring.  Everyone tries to capture the home run swing.  So, almost every shot is him in the follow through motion.  I guess the same could be said for pitchers, but it doesn’t bother me as much.  Maybe I just want different angles.  At least with the Maddux card, it felt different to me.  Here the Fleer design comes off as plain because the picture is.

Home Runs...for America

I could be wrong, but I don’t think Fleer was bothered with taking pictures during the actual All-Star game.  That’s a Sox player in the back (I believe Robin Ventura) and I think a couple others under his legs there.  I think this is just another picture from a normal game slapped onto an All-Star card.  Still, I almost always like Fleer’s All-Star cards and this is no exception.  Easily the hit of the break for me.  It makes me want to chant something, but I just can’t quite figure out what that should be….

Thanks again to Colbey for continuing to hold his group breaks and for the additional goodies.  Be sure to get into his newest Topps Marquee break.  I think I’m going to pass so that I can build up funds for my own break, but rest assured the guy will treat you right as evidenced above.

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