The Optics Of Group Breaks

I’ve inadvertently started a tour of various modes of cardboard acquisition this week.  I started with some Twitter purchases (just claimed another card tonight – somebody stop me!), then I went with the tried and true trading, and now we’ll jump on over to the not for everyone Group Break.

I’ve joined a few more since starting the champ collections, but with trades and free agency, it’s already tougher to justify buying into the Cubs.  Fewer guys are with the team, and I don’t care about newer guys like Happ who are inundating the checklists.  Makes it tough to buy in, but I still manage.

We’ll look at a few hauls today.  First up is a 2016 Optic break from Colbey/Flywheels from Cardboard Collections.  He bought a couple of retail boxes that have special purple prizm cards in there, and I wanted in on that action.

I’d rather have a healthy Soler over Happ, but I’m sure I’m in the minority

It didn’t hurt that I still needed a few of the base cards, too.  I have a few of these parallels, including a red Heyward DK #/99 that I got in one of my personal boxes.

Evidently not for trade in the Winter Meetings

There are also several insert sets in the product, and I lucked into a couple of them.  Seems like forever ago that Kyle was a rookie.

Hopefully his MVP season wasn’t an illusion

These Illusion cards are nice, but they look better with the prizm parallels.  This is like a Lite Bright without any color pegs.

That’s a dark purple

My only purple parallel in the batch was a Soler, which I needed. I got two of them, though. The boxes were full of purple doubles, so if you need one I can spare one.

Not a bad start, and I actually ended up getting this whole group break haul in a trade for a Game Boy game.  I sent Colbey a duplicate original Game Boy game (I’m going for the full set of those – almost half way there) and he waved my purchase price.  Pretty cool!

I will gladly trade cards for Game Boy games if anyone wants to help that quest. I have a lot of the common ones, though, but feel free to reach out if you want.

Not a rookie anymore

Next up is another Optic break. This time from Crackin’ Wax.  It was a buy one, get two random teams break.  I think it was a half-case, but I’m not sure anymore. I picked the Cubs, of course, and walked away with only three I needed, but two of them were the holo prizms.

That’s a nice surprise

My random teams were the Royals and the Orioles.  I got more than this, but these are the highlights.  The Orioles were very kind to me with the Hays blue and of course the Brooks Robinson blue Auto, which happens to be #’d to 20.  I’m open to trading or selling it, if anyone’s interested.

I kind of want us to trade Happ. I think he’s going to regress more.

Jumping back over to Flywheels for break #3.  This was a charity break, and I knew going in that I didn’t need much of anything from it, but I wanted to help the cause.  So, really, only that Lester Prizm was new for me, but it was a fun mix of stuff.

Saves me from buying packs

I have more, but for today, the last break is going to be another Crackin’ Wax special.  A couple boxes of Fire where I got the D-Backs as my random team.  Once again, the random team got the special stuff. I got a possible full team set of Cubs, and got a couple neat inserts and parallels from Arizona (all for trade, of course).

The product has to be right for me to join a group break and I think I’ve done a good job at picking my spots.  They don’t always hit big, but they support people I like and respect and it’s always a blast to see what everyone takes home.  Don’t expect these to be my last group breaks, even if the goods from the Cubs get thinned out.

Thanks a lot, guys for running these breaks so well!

3 comments to The Optics Of Group Breaks

  • sanjosefuji

    Not the biggest fan of Panini baseball products… but that Optics Schwarber is sweet! Great action shot!

  • I’m with you about the product has to be right for me to join a group break. Crackin’ Wax is my go-to group breaker. I’ve done Topps flagship breaks for the past few years with them (Chris and LQ) and even joined a Topps Heritage break with them earlier this year. I really like that some of the $ goes to charity.

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