2016 Gypsy Queen Box Break

We opened a box of Gypsy Queen live on YouTube a while ago and it is well past due that we recap the hits that we pulled from the box!

Two serially numbered purple minis out of 250

A red bordered mini numbered 3 out of 5! It is a shame that the corner got dinged in transit.

Hey, it is a relic from Mr. October! Man that green is bright.

A framed mini relic with a nice stitched seam down the middle for the hated Yankees!

This was a popular pull in the chat room, John was lucky enough to have the Dodgers in the break and I know that it is going to a good home!

Our first Red Sox autograph pull for Lucas! It is not Ortiz but it still made him very happy to have a Red Sox player pulled.

Want to watch the entire break? You are in luck, just watch the video below!

If you want to be added to our group break mailing list email me at mjszewczyk@Hotmail.com

2016 Topps Opening Day Box Break

My son Lucas and I finally found time to open up the box of Opening Day 2016 that I bought on Wednesday and it was a solid box, maybe a few inserts better the statistically expected.

One of our favorite insert sets every year is the SuperStar Celebrations and this year continued the streak of great photography!

We pulled two Opening Day Stars from the box including Bryant.

You cannot have Opening Day with the Mascots!

These are the opening day foil with the date of Opening Day printed above the logo. I thought that these would be numbered out of 2016 but they were not.

It is a shame that the bubble blowing inserts are one per box, I would like to grab them all!

I really like the idea of the Striking Distance inserts, they give us something to look for during the season. i may put all the cards into sheets and as they hit the milestones remove the cards so we can track it through the season.

The Alternate Reality inserts feature teams alternate uniforms but I think the photos could have been chosen better to show off the uniforms.

Everyone likes the power hitter, right? I would rather have had this insert series feature them either doing their homer trot or crossing home.

Finally we pulled one of the printing plates which are inserts 1/3,000 odd packs, a nice little treat!

Opening Day continues to be a fun break for very little money and should be a great way to get people into the hobby. If you are interested in watching the video break of this box you can watch it here:

Matthew & Lucas Card Break Update #4 – Gypsy Queen spots are live

Good Afternoon,
By now everyone show have received their cards from the previous breaks so let’s look towards the future!
UPCOMING GROUP BOX BREAKS

  

Donruss Diamond Kings (Approx March 30th) Teams are starting to go so let me know which ones you are interested in. Teams are $7 each, two or more $6 each including shipping.

  
Gypsy Queen (Release date April 6th, box break live on April 9th) A great group break which includes 2 autographs per box, two relic cards and one mini 10-card box topper. Teams are $7 each, two or more $6 each including shipping. If you want to mix and match between Diamond Kings and Gypsy Queen you can but the cards will now ship until the Gypsy Queen break.

  
Topps Museum Collection – Currently scheduled for release on April 13th. $22 for three random teams which will be drawn live on YouTube before the break! We have three spots left, RSVP your spot now, payment due April 1st. These are superhigh end cards, some of which can go for hundreds or thousands of dollars! Even a single pack will run you around $50, this is a good way to enjoy the set without breaking the bank.

Bowman Baseball – Coming at the end of April, I will announce when teams open up at the beginning of April so stay tuned.

NON-GROUP BOX BREAKS

Look for these box breaks coming soon on our channel: DC Comics Epic Battles, Doctor Who, Star Wars Galaxies Series 2, 2016 Topps Opening Day Baseball and many more! That is in addition to the usual mystery boxes, show reviews and more. 

VISIT OUR BLOG

We have a small blog running that you are welcome to check out, the address is TheHotPack.wordpress.com where we post news on our breaks, hit recaps and more.

That is it for now, thanks for reading. If you want to be removed from future mailings just let us know. If you are reading this on the blog and want to receive this newsletter in your inbox email us at mjszewczyk@hotmail.com and we will add you.

2016 Donruss Box Break Results

We are not huge fans of the base Donruss set as the photographs are bland and the card backs are so lame as to be illegal in many states. There are some gems in the set though, the 1982 flashback cards are very strong and the variants are super easy to pick out. 

 

Here is a good example of the type of variants Donruss features this year. The card on the left is the standard Kris Bryant one, the card on the right replaces the position and city text with ROY, shirt for Rookie of the Year. Easy enough!

  
This was a Cubs heavy box for sure and the sticker autograph belonged to Jorge Soler and was numbered to 99.

  

 Why not make it another Cubs player, this time it isa duel patch relic card. Not the greatest but it beats a plain white patch any day!

 
Oh, here is that plain white patch card we had hoped to avoid. It’s a shame that a Blue Jays relic features an all white patch, some blue would have made for a very sharp card indeed.

  
If you love numbered foil base cards, this is the set for you! Each one of these is numbered and is from a different insert set. Donruss does love their foil! A nice touch is that the numbering of the statistics card relates to the number stat. For example in the photo above, Kevin Kieraier sports a .432 career slugging percentage and his foil is numbered 416/432. Nice.

  
I liked these elite series prism inserts, each numbered to 999. Hey, less than a thousand are floating around out there!

Upcoming Non-Sports Box Breaks

You may know Lucas and me for doing sports card breaks but we also publish videos with mystery boxes, sporting events and non-sports cards too!

  
We just got these in yesterday: 2015 Historic Autographs Civil War, DC Epic Battles and the new Doctor Who! Watch for those in the coming weeks.

2016 Topps Heritage Box Break Videos

Last night we broke a hobby box of this years Heritage and had some solid results. Check out the videos at the links below:

Full box break video
Shorter recap video
Our YouTube channel

2016 Topps Heritage Box Break Results

Last night we broke a hobby box of Heritage and had some some hits. It was a “hot box” with one purple refractor per pack including twenty high number short prints! 

 
Not only did that include a SP purple refractor Mike Trout but we also pulled a short print action variant Trout!

  

There are also reverse color variants like the Yu Darvish below, side by side with a standard Ranger card.

  
Then there was the chrome of Josh Hamilton #169/999 these are one per hobby box.

  
Brandon Crawford fans got a treat with a SP purple refractor as well as a black border refractor #15/67. These are inserted one per 359 packs! 

  
Our box topper was a standard three card panel, nothing to get excited about.

  
The hit for the box was an non-numbered Chris Sale relic and it was given away at the end of the live broadcast to a lucky viewer.

  
Visit our YouTube Channel for two videos of this break. We uploaded the HD version of the live broadcast which ran 40 minutes as well as a review video where we show off all the hits, subsets, variants and examples of base cards and runs a trim 10 minutes. 

Thanks for reading and we will be live with Donruss Baseball hobby box tonight at 7pm EST.

2016 Donruss Baseball Group Break Tonight

 Just a reminder that we will be doing a live group break of Donruss 2016 Baseball on YouTube tonight. 

Teams are $7 each including shipping, two or more teams is $6 each including shipping.

Email me at mjszewczyk@hotmail.com for the list of teams available. Watch live at 7pm EST on YouTube or the HD archive tomorrow morning.

Topps 2016 Baseball Hobby Box Break #1

Baseball season is officially here with Spring Training beginning and the release of Topps Baseball series one! This year we did things a little differently, we did a group break of the box and we broke it live on YouTube! Let me tell you, being live is a whole different thing, with comments coming in with viewers, unexpected technical difficulties and more it was crazy and fun!

Is this thing on? (tap, tap) Hello?

I will admit that I forgot I ever created this blog until I tried to leave a comment on baseball book blog post and was prompted to sign into my account. Looking back at my posts I have to admit that my son and I have come a long was as collectors since those posts. That box break we recorded a video of? We now have a YouTube channel full of videos including box breaks, sports card show recaps, our trips to baseball parks, and much more. It is humbling now to think back about that first video and hoping that maybe one-hundred people would see it so Lucas would not be disappointed.

Now our channel is approaching one-million viewers, has thousands of subscribers and we even are doing live group box breaks! I am not tooting our horn here, I am just humbled and amazed by the response that the video below has generated and how far we have come. I will try to post more here including videos, recaps of our breaks and such.

It has been a fun ride so far and we are just getting started!