Bucket or Chuck-It: 2013 Topps Opening Day 1/2 Price!

Target stores in the area are offering packs at 1/2 Price through August 3rd I think. I had decided to bypass Opening Day this year, but at .49/pack it was worth a look.  Here are some highlights from 3 packs

Picked up on Phillies card in the 3 packs, but it was a good one - Cole Hamels.  His OD card is shown here with his base card. The Opening Day card actually came out first since the Base card was part of Series 2.

 Insets Bucket or Chuck-It?

 Mascots - A staple of OD. The Blue Jay on a blue background makes for a lame photo - Chuck-It.

Blue Parallels - A bit of chrominess, darker colors - looks good on Braves card. As I have noted before the added color on 2013 Topps really helps the design. Also like that they didn't totally blue-out the background beyond the player -  Bucket!

Opening Day Stars - some sort of 3D front honoring a couple of stars. They look decent.  but it's a Met - Chuck-It.

Opening Day Play Hard -  decent shot, bursting through the card, great name/theme. I will give this one a Bucket!

Moving Rookie Cup - once again the Rookie Cup on Topps Opening Day is hovering in a different spot then on base.  At least it has returned to it's gold/yellow state.  This is a Chuck-It.  Too many icons on one card. 

Overall - Bucket, I picked up 3 packs, for me they yeilded $1.50 of entertainment. 

2013 Topps All-Stars Home Run Derby Cards

On Sunday Team Phungo was fortunate enough to make it to Citi Field to see the All-Star Futures Game. One of the nice things about the Futures Game is that you get to see a lot of the background of what goes into putting together game without having to shell out ASG money.

One of the items the Mets have is the Topps Lineup cards similar to the Phillies.  For Monday Night the cards are specail ASG cards of the Home Run Derby participants.  

New York Mets Citi Field 2013 Topps ASG Line Up Cards (click to enlarge) 

2013 Topps ASG Cards HR Derby Participants NL
Pedro Alvarez
Michael Cuddyer
Bryce Harper
David Wright

2013 Topps ASG Cards HR Derby Participants AL
Robinson Cano
Yoenis Cespedes
Chris Davis
Prince Fielder

2013 Phungo Cards Steven Lerud and David Wright

This card is a Black Framed Insert (BFI) from the 2013 Phungo Set.

2013 BFI Steven Lerud and David Wright

It is definitely blurry but I love this shot. Getting a photo with the ball in motion isn't easy.  You have to have the right timing, lighting and vantage point. As a fan the closest I can get to the field at this angle is beyond the center field fence - thus the fuzziness.  One advantage of making baseball cards is there small size - it covers up a lot of out o focus issues. Really the only way to tell this is David Wright is his stance and his number on the front of the uniform.

I also like that this is a game that Steve Lerud is catching.  A couple of roster issues, injuries, and the Phils dismal 2012 season gave him a major league opportunity - The Photo on this card is from Lerud's major league debut. Lerud is still in the Phillies systems with their AAA affiliate in Lehigh Valley.

New York Mets

David Wright and the New York Mets are in town this week. Concensus seems to be that the Mets are in for a long season, but they are 4-2 while the Phillies are off to a rough 2-4 start. The Mets come into Philadelphia for 9 or 10 games every season, but somehow Mr Wright had avoided my lens. I plan on getting down for one of the games this week, if there are any Mets you would like to see on a Phungo card let me know.

Phunny Photos: David Wright having a catch with....The Phanatic???

Phrenemies? The Phillie Phanatic and David Wright 2012 08 30

2010 Topps Series 2 - Wawa v Target

okay so I am way behind - everybody else is oohing and ahhing over A&G and I am still working with Series 2. thats ok. I was never good at being the NKotB - I stopped in at BC Collectibles and I just couldn't $6+tax for a pack of Ginter. So here is my experiment with 2010 topps 2.

Quick experiment in 2010 Topps Series 2 packs. Our local convenience store is carrying some baseball cards, and they were the first place this years S2 packs. I also picked up a pack during a recent trip to target. Here is what we found

Both packs are 12 cards and went for $1.99. Wawa must of messed up their pricing and didn't charge tax on their packs. whoohoo Team Phungo saves 12 cents.

The Challenger - Wawa

2010 Topps 2020 #T16 David Wright 2010 Topps #462 Alcides Escobar 2010 Topps Gold #480 Red Sox Team (#153/2010)


For the record the first card in the pack was of Manny Parra. Just doing best in pack and inserts here. Escobar was the best in the pack both in star quality and as far as the photo. The Yankees Team card was in this pack - with the Sox - go figure. Kung Fu panda was the Topps Attax card. The Pack yielded no Phillies.

Overall a pretty lackluster pack.

The Veteran - Target
2010 Topps #516 Marlon Byrd
2010 Topps #490 Michael Bourn
2010 Topps 2020 #T2 Gordon Beckham
2010 Topps Gold #426 Mark Reynolds (#1046/2010)
2010 Topps Gold #464 Francisco Liriano (#311/2010)

Johan Santana and Matt Cain were both in this pack, but a Met ain't making the cut in this post. Cain got bumped by the former Phils. I wish somebody had not pointed out that the photography looks a little off on the portrait style cards in this set. Still I like the Bourn card. It's a nice touch when a leadoff speedster is featured on a card bunting. The Topps Attax card was of Alexi Ramrez.

As you can see there were two gold cards in this pack. Which was a unintended bonus, as the pack contained 13 card rather than the advertised 12. While there were no Phils in the Target pack, it is the clear winner. The bonus gold card helps - and the star quality of the pack was MUCH better.

The quality of the Target cards was also better. The foil stamping on the cards from Wawa was all over the place. some above some below some weak.


2020 Topps

Everyone is gaga over the 2020 cards, Frankly I don't get it. The card covering tiles out the faces of the players. The T16 card above could be David Wright or it could be Ty Wiggington. And what is with the red and blue dots all over these cards. Check out any white part of the uniform, nothing but red and blue dots.

Phungo 5 Pack - Topps 2009 Heritage Hi Numbers....

In lieu of getting a blaster I picked up 5 packs of the 09 Topps Heritage High Numbers at the Philly Card Show. If you want to read a specific pack break on the first pack check here for my post over at A Pack to be Named Later.

The five packs were as expected 30 heritage cards and 10 U&H cards. Every back broke down as 3 Heritage followed by 2 U&H then the insert and the final 2 heritage cards.

I got two Phils, The J A Happ card below and a John Mayberry card which is featured in the APtbNL post. Former Phil Jim Thome was also present.

This action shot of Thome may be picture 4 in the link.

The Inserts

Rookie Performers Tommy Hanson, Chrome Trevor Hoffman, and Then and Now featuring a player from my favorite AL team and my least favorite NL team. Hopefully Wright doesn't play long enough to be paired with Mike Schmidt in a future Heritage T&N. The other 2 inserts I picked up were short prints of Andrew McCutchen and Penn Alum Mark DeRosa.

Rookies

Picked up both versions of the Gerardo Parra card - he was the top of the rookies in the 5 packs other than McCutchen.

Etc
Photoshop anyone?? or did the Giants send Garko to spring training after picking him up on July 27th.