Topps Unique Box Bust!

One of my favorite things to look for on blogs is box reviews. They are invaluable in helping me decide how to blow my life's savings. I have always been a little envious of those who purchase a box, sit down, and tear like the wind and bust the whole box in one sitting. I have always wanted to do that, and thanks to the snail-mail of Joe's Topps 2010, I have two boxes of Albert staring me in the face and nothing I can do about it 'til Tuesday. So I decided to grab Jacoby and head down to my new lucky card shop to see what jumped out at me.

The truth was...not much. Besides the Topps 2010, there has not been a ton released lately. I did have the option of purchasing that soon to be confiscated Upper Deck "2009" release with illegal logos...but decided to steer clear of that. Topps unique jumped out at me. Three hits per box, one auto. The store owner showed me some base and also a Gordan Beckham auto that was beautiful...so I figured "what the hell, let's take home this box and bust the whole thing"!

What a great product! I'll go ahead and break it down for you first.


Product: 24 packs, 7 cards a pack

Base Cards: 118 (zero duplicates)

Red Parallel (numbered to 1199) Rowand, Teixeira,Michael Saunders RC, Corey Hart, Masterson, Tejada, Shields, Gordon, Anthony Swarzak RC, Vernon Wells, Guillen, Huff, McClouth, Cliff Lee, Cueto, Hamels, Rick Porcello RC, Dan Uggla, Kershaw, Matt LaPorta RC, Neftali Feliz RC (See below).

Regular Rookie (numerered to 2699) Trevor Cahill, Bud Norris, Colby Rasmus, David Price, Nolan Reimold, Rick Porcello, Kenshin Kawakami, Mat Gamel, Matt LaPorta

Bronze Parallel (#/99) Josh Johnson

Gold Parallel (#/25) AJ Burnett (dinged right top corner, a bit put out by that, but it is only a Yankee after all)

Topps Unique Unis: Granderson, Fielder, Braun, Wright (see below)

Topps Unparalled Performances: Kinsler, Cueto, Johnson, Hudson (see below)

Topps Alone At the Top: Ryan Howard, Tim Lincecum (see below)

Topps Solo Shot Game Used Bat Relic: Vlad Guerrero #/275 (see Below)

Topps Prime Time Patches: Pedro Martinez #/99 (see below)

Topps Solo Shot Relic/Auto: Evan Longoria bat auto! #/25! (see below)

Product breakdown: This break was a lot of fun. I admit to a bit of buyers remorse initially after drop a close to a Benjamin for this box. I figured there was no way that I would get the value that I was hoping for. I had seen some of the base cards in the shop and was less than impressed. They looked like a similar dark bordered Bowman card that I did not really care for. But upon opening the first pack I realized that there were many depths to the card depending on how it shined in lighting. It is actually a really nice design.

Also nice were the parallels. No, the numbering is nothing to write home about for the red parallels and the rookie serial numbered cards, but the one bronze and gold were a nice surprise, even if one of them is dinged a tad.

The insert sets are interesting enough, although very similar to one-another and have a bit of a Ticket To Stardom feel to them. I think I like the alternate uni's subset the best of them all.

Obviously I cannot complain a bit about the hits. What was impressive is the variety of hits in the box. I pulled the Pedro patch first. It is about 1/4 inch thick with a nice Mets swatch. you can't tell from the image, but the blue patch also contains an orange-lettering border section to the patch as well. I don't like relics, but patches are sweet.

Vlad consistently finds a way into my house. I pull Vlad stuff left and right. This bat relic is well designed and is serial-numbered to only 275.

And of course, the best for last...and it just happened to be in the last pack of the box...my very first relic/auto, and it's of Evan Longoria to boot...and its numbered to only 25, which is even better! I knew the auto was coming last and slid the card away very slowly, revealing Mr Longoria's autograph. The piece of bat was just a nice bonus! I am thrilled to put this away in the treasure chest.

Impressions: Wow, that was fun! This product far exceeded my expectations. I expected a couple standard relics (see Sweet Spot 2009) and a sub-par auto, and instead got a nice little variety of hits, and a great many rookie cards to put away in the prospecting box. The base are really nice with clear photographs and thick card stock, and the parallels are nice as well. The inserts are a bit shaky, but still nice quality as well.

Plus, 24 packs at 7 cards a pack, with none of those dummy cardboards, 20th anniversary retrospectives, or any other advertising cards, this is a nice, clean product. Tons of fun and I would definitely be tempted to grab another, though I would probably just let myself down after this box.

MOST of these cards are available for trade, especially the base. So please let me know if you are interested!