Day 1 Cardfest Breaks!

Yep after weeks of anticipation, it's FINALLY time to kick off CARDFEST! I'll be trying to open as much as I can each day and providing a recap at the end of the day. So let's get started!

1998 Topps Gallery Baseball

 

This is how we will kick off cardfest, with a little bit of an old school break. This was a $15 box, and this is purely a break for nostalgic purposes. Not expecting much value wise, but just opening a late 90's baseball product is fun enough for me! Here's what I got!

Gallery Of Heroes Box Topper
Nomar Garciaparra

Player's Private Issue (1:17)
Ryan Klesko (#111/250)
Dante Bichette (#109/250)

Awards Gallery (1:24)
Scott Rolen


Photo Gallery (1:24)
Derek Jeter

Gallery Of Heroes (1:24)
Mark McGwire

Overall Thoughts: Fun start to Cardfest! Gallery of Heroes has ALWAYS been a favorite insert of mine so it was cool pulling an oversized box topper along with the one per box insert. If this was 1998, that Mark McGwire would've been a GREAT HIT and along with a 1 per box insert Derek Jeter (nice chromium finish) would've made this box a huge success! The base set is really slick looking too. I absolutely love it. I wish the Player's Private Issue parallels were of better players but it's cool pulling serial numbered cards from a time when something being numbered to #250 was actually considered rare! My only nitpick would be that it's a pretty dry break. It wouldn't have hurt to have a couple easier to find inserts in the 1:8 or 1:12 range, because 19 of the 24 packs of the box were nothing but base cards. That's a minor nitpick though and overall I had a blast with this product! Here's pics of the better cards

 

 

 

 

2017 Topps Chrome Update Mega Boxes

 

From 1998 all the way to today. I bought these two Mega Boxes online at Target while they were having their 20% sale. These were super popular breaks this past month, and while there are a lot of dud breaks out there, for the price, it's definitely worth a shot!

Box 1
Cody Bellinger RC
Cody Bellinger All Star Game

Rookie Cup (1:2)
Mike Trout
Cal Ripken
Carlton Fisk

Refractor (1:22)
Jean Segura


Box 2
Cody Bellinger RC

Rookie Cup (1:2)
Mike Trout
Cal Ripken
Carlton Fisk
Chipper Jones

Overall Thoughts: Well..collation was TERRIBLE. I basically had two of the exact same boxes with the same cards. The cards are cool, I love Chrome, but MAN nothing irks more than terrible collation. The Rookie Cup inserts are nice, wish I would've pulled different players. That was pretty much a dud break to be honest, and my expectations were low to begin with. Here are pics of the cards

2017 Topps Archives Signature Series Postseason Edition

 

Next on the list will be this. It's one card and the odds are it's going to be a lower level vet auto. Only bought this as a cheap rip to get free shipping. So let's see what I got!

Juan Gonzalez 2001 Topps Gold Label (#2/10)

Overall Thoughts: I've seen the checklist and hey, this isn't too bad considering! It's my first Juan Gone Auto and it's low numbered to only 10 copies! I'll definitely take it! Here's the  card

2013 Leaf Rookies And Stars Football

 

And Now it's time for our first football product to break! Not expecting much here as this was a $20 box, but hey 4 hits, maybe one of em will be decent! Let's find out!

Touchdown Club Arian Foster
Frank Gore

Game Plan
Aaron Rodgers
Larry Fitzgerald

Statistcal Standouts
Luke Kuechly
Alfred Morris

NFL Nation
Trent Richardson
Santonio Holmes


Crusades
Markus Wheaton
Christine Michael

Longevity
Antonio Brown
A.J. Green
Datone Jones RC
Marquess Wilson RC

Longevity Gold
Ben Roethlisberger (#25/49)

Longevity Team Logo
E.J. Manuel (#32/32)

Rookie Premiere Materials
Geno Smith

Rookie Premiere Materials Patch
Robert Woods (#5/10)

Rookie Premiere Signatures
Dion Jordan (#245/299)

Longevity Rookie Signatures
Ryan Swope

Overall Thoughts: Well I'd back in 2013 this would've been a pretty solid back. A low numbered Rookie Card parallel of E.J. Manuel, a Jersey card of Geno Smith and even an Auto/Jersey of the 3rd pick of that year's draft Dion Jordan would've been pretty nice back then. In 2017? Not so much, lol, but this was to be expected. The Robert Woods of all cards is probably the best card as he was actually having a pretty good season with the Rams this year before he got hurt. Collation was pretty back as I got a ton of repeats for only opening one box. This was pretty much what I expected with this break. Here's pics of the cards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

2017 Playoff Football Retail Premium Box

 

And last for tonight's breaks will be the box of 2017 Playoff Retail. 2 hits per box and the first 2017 Football product I'm opening. Here's what I got!

Notable RC's Mitchell Trubisky

Thunder & Lightning
Jameis Winston/Mike Evans
Amari Cooper/Marshawn Lynch

Boss Hoggs
LeSean McCoy
Jordan Howard
Ezekiel Elliott

Star Gazing
Julio Jones
LeSean McCoy
Matt Ryan
A.J. Green

Flea Flicker
Doug Martin/Jameis Winston/Mike Evans
Alshon Jeffrey/Carson Wentz/Darren Sproles
Antonio Brown/Ben Roethlisberger/Le'Veon Bell


Gridiron Force
Deion Sanders
Luke Kuechly
Ndamukong Suh

Playoff Momentum
Rob Gronkowski

Playoff Momentum Kickoff Parallel
Tyreek Hill (#140/199)

Kickoff Parallel
NaVorro Bowman (#58/299)
C.J. Beathard RC (#223/299)

1st Down Parallel
Cameron Sutton RC (#24/99)


Rookie Stallions Hail Mary Memorabilia
Jamaal Williams


Hail Mary Rookie Autographs
Dawuane Smoot

Overall Thoughts: Well..that was a disappointing end to a pretty much uneventful Day 1. I like the cards and insert, just wish I got a couple better base rookies and the hits well, not exactly the greatest but those are the breaks when it comes to retail. I saw the Jaguars colors on the auto and got myself a little excited thinking it was  Fournette..hell I would've been happy with Dede Westbrook, but alas, it's some guy I've never heard of. Here's pics of the cards.

 

 

 

Overall Day 1 Thoughts: Well I only got through 5 products today, but honestly as bland as the start was I kind of expected it. I had no expectations for anything relatively big from the Topps Gallery box, it was a cheap nostalgic break. Topps Chrome Mega Update is a low level cheap product that has more misses than hits, I was actually pleasantly surprised with the Topps Archives Postseason Box with the Juan Gone Auto numbered to 10 (which is today's best hit by far), the $20 Leaf Rookies and Stars produced what I thought it was and if anything the most disappointing was indeed the Playoff Box, but honestly today was a lower level ripping kind of day. The most I spent on a box out of this group was $40. I still had fun and look forward to Day #2. Surprisingly, I opened 0 basketball today, but that will for certain change tomorrow! Day #1 of Cardfest is officially in the books!