The Pack Gambler Retro Break: 1997-1998 Pinnacle Certified Hockey Hobby Box

Every once in a while we love busting older products. And by older we're talking over 10 years, remember those products? Odds that were crazy, no game used or rarely having autograph cards. Sometimes there is no point on buying these products but now and again we come across one of those retro boxes and decide to rip it and review it.

Well this time we have a 1997-98 Pinnacle Certified Hockey Hobby Box. We found this box at a local Walmart (believe it or not) and thought of having some fun ripping it open. The price was really expensive for something old but we took a chance on it to see what we might find.

Here is what we pulled:

Base Cards: 112 (7 doubles)
Certified Red: 4 - O'Neill, Nieuwendyk, Green, Robitaille (1:5 packs)
Pinnacle EPIX Redemption - 1 Unknown player
Pinnacle Rookie Redemption - 1 Player C (would have been Patrick Marleau)
Certified Team - 1 - Mark Messier (1:14 packs)
Mirror Red - 1 - Mike Gartner (1:99 packs)

Well this was no surprise on opening this box. Not much here in the box, we did hit the major base cards like Gretzky, Roy and Brodeur. The base card designs are really nice with the refractor look and always been attracted to them. Would have been good if we opened this box when it came out with pulling the Marleau Rookie Redemption (even though you had to pay for the shipping of $2US or $2.50 CDN). The EPIX redemption is unknown and states it would be a Random player selected by Pinnacle that you would receive. Funny enough you didn't have to pay for that redemption. The Mike Gartner Mirror Red was the best pull in the box with odds of 1:99 packs. Money wise it's worth the same as the Gretzky high book value base card nowadays but would have been a decent pull in 1997.

If your in the mood to just open a retro box for fun this was a good one to rip open. Again the price wasn't great but you would probably have better luck at a card show to pick one up cheaper. We plan on putting these and the other base cards up on COMC in the coming month to add to our port.

Product Review: 2013 Topps Opening Day Baseball Box

Today was the first day of spring, and along with it came 2013 Topps Opening Day! A great fun product to rip open and just have fun with the cards. Boxes only come in retail style with 36 packs per box and 7 cards per pack. Opening day is really geared towards the younger collector or people that just want to have some fun with opening packs of baseball cards. Each box is around the $36-39 range which is very affordable for collectors. This also provides a chance to get the first cards of your recently traded or signed players with their new teams jersey.

This years product is a 220 card strong set that also has a Blue Sparkle Parallel #'d /2013. These are found 1:5 packs. As common with all products, Opening Day also has inserted Printing Plates for each card, these are inserted 1:2628 packs. We also noticed on the wrapper odds that a Base Variation is inserted 1:617 packs. It is unknown yet what these are but we're sure by the time this review comes out they will be on eBay or other sites with info.
Every year Opening Day provides a few inserts. This years release Topps has included Ballpark Fun, PlayHard, Mascots, Superstar Celebrations and Opening Day 3D inserts. Each of the inserts are slotted at 1:5 packs so your sure to land one in almost every pack.
In the Autograph section there will be 10 player autographs to collect at 1:463 packs and also 5 Mascot Autographs which are found 1:925 packs.
Even though a younger audience based product, Opening Day has a pretty decent punch with the amount inside each box. Lets see how we did on ours:

Base Cards: 209 (1 double)
Blue Sparkle Parallels: 7 - Harper, Hunter, Iwakuma, A.Jones, Kinsler, Beltran, Kubal
Ballpark Fun: 8 - Harper, Werth, Pujols, Andrus, Jeter, Ortiz, Longoria, Cabrera
PlayHard: 7 - Pujols, Ruiz, Castro, Kinsler, Freeze, Goldschmidt, Lawrie,
Mascots: 7 - Friar, TC, Oriole, Pirate Parrot, Raymond, Braves, Orbit
Superstar Celebrations: 7 - Harper, Willingham, Verlander, Hernandez, Hart, Votto, Reddick
Opening Day 3D: 7 - Ortiz, Votto, Strasburg, Hamilton, Pujols, Posey, Jeter

So a pretty good assortment of inserts and cards in this box. The design is the same as the regular Series 1 Topps but has the Opening Day symbol on the fronts. The designs of the inserts are decent with the 3D cards being the best. They are pretty thick and you can pick out which packs have them in a box compared to the others. We ended up with a few Harper's and Pujols on inserts and base and hit the Blue Sparkle Harper which was nice. Landed a few of the top Rookies like Olt and Profar int he base, and only had 1 double the entire box. Funny enough they were back to back cards in one pack, so doesn't look like it will happen too often. 

This was a fun break of a box and especially on the first day of spring gets you ready for baseball to start. We recommend this for any young fan or parents with children to rip the box open with them. If your a collector looking for a cheap baseball product this is it for you. Set builders will also enjoy this box as we were just short by 12 cards to complete the set. Not much more you could ask from a $38 dollar box of a sport your really love like us.

Gambler Overall Rating: 4.3 out of 5
Cost: 5/5
Parallels: 4/5
Inserts: 4/5
Design: 4.5/5
Concept: 4/5
Fun Aspect: 4.5/5

*Redemption Update for 2012 Topps Strata Football

So early January we ripped open a box of 2012 Topps Strata and we received a Redemption for a Trent Richardson Green Parallel Clear Cut Autographed card. Today's in the mail we received our redemption

Not too bad of card and well worth the redemption. Surprised it only took just over 2 months to receive and very happy that it has a two color swatch. We weren't sure if it was going to be a patch or not but very happy with this one. This is numbered 08/55 on the back and looks great in person. So far this is one of our favorite redemption's coming back from 2012. 

What to expect from Target in Canada as a sports card collector

When we first heard of Target coming to Canada we were hoping this included Sports cards. At the retail store front in Ontario we have Walmart and Toys R Us that carry recent cards. You see mainly Hockey carried with the odd Baseball and Football packs to be found. If Target was coming, hopefully they would bring up the card displays seen throughout every Target store in the US.

Today was some of the first "soft openings" within Ontario for Target stores. We weren't too sure what to expect as early reports stated they were having a bit of trouble with some of the merchandise they wanted to bring to Canada from the US. Well that didn't seem to affect our hobby! Thankfully Sports cards at retail in Canada have a new home!

It felt just like being in a US Target. The card aisle is next to the cashiers and carry's a number of products of all sports. Some old and mixed pack packages, some sealed hobby boxes, and newly released packs. It was a dream come true for us. The prices weren't  too bad either. Now the sealed hobby boxes were a little over priced but in the grand scheme of things they were not too bad. 

A couple of products caught our eye and picked them up to see what we could pull. Of course being retail we did not expect anything big to come out of the packs, but we wanted to rip open some packages that US customers have been able to obtain for years. 

So we picked up 1 Football 75 card package with 1 Bonus pack and 10 Rookies cards for $4.99, 1 Hockey 100 card package with 1 bonus pack for $4.99, 1 Baseball 100 card rack pack for $6.99 and 1 Baseball package with 4 packs and 1 Autograph for $15.99. All of these items you don't see here in Canada unless by mistake at a retailer, so we decided to rip these open and see what we can expect from them. 

First up was the Hockey package. This was a no brainer of a package to pick as it had a 1983-84 Wayne Gretzky O-Pee-Chee card on top BV of around $6.00, plus one of our favorites. As for the rest of the cards, not much to write about. A few rookies from the 90's but no other real value out of the package. So unless you see a top card showing might be wise to stay away even at the $4.99 price.

Next up was the Football 75 card package. This one also caught our eye with both Manning's on the front.The other interesting thing was the 10 rookies sticker on the front. This package did bring in some value as it contained 14 rookies in it and had some stars along with the lot. The best card in this package was a 2007 Adrian Peterson card BV of $6.00. There was also a 1984 Topps Walton Payton, a Burress rc and Jim Kelly Collectors Edge Prizm card. After all done this one was a good buy for the $4.99 price and should be looked at to pick up

Next was the 100 card rack pack of Baseball cards. The interesting one on this one was that the odds of 1 in 8 packs having a memorabilia card plus it carried 3 "vintage" cards from either the 50's, 60's or 70's. Being a sealed pack we were not expecting anything out of this one, and we were right on. A bunch of commons, a couple of doubles too, tied in with some HOFer's and our 3 Vintage cards that included 2 from 1979 and 1 from 1976. Not a good pick up and didn't get us back our $6.99.

 Lastly the Baseball 4 packs with Autograph. Now this one we thought had some promise, a $14.99 price tag that included an autograph is not too bad. Of course the player will dictate this and going in unknown is always a risk.

 The packs looked decent with 4 not too bad picks from 2007 and up. And believe it or not we pulled a couple of decent cards from the packs, of course noting major but above average cards. And as for that Autographed card? Well it was a 2002 SPX Prospect card of Eric Junge. The only thing to say here is that it is an on-card auto.

So there you have it, Target is live in Canada! Bringing along Trading cards that retailers in Canada haven't seen in a very long time. This is really great news for us up here and will give us other options other than Walmart and Toys R Us for retail packs. Plus the up side is they have recently released cards to buy, and a lot of options in other categories as well. Good luck hunting out there fellow collectors in Canada, we now have a hunting ground to cover!

Product Review: 2012-13 Upper Deck Black Diamond Hockey Hobby Box

Back in December Upper Deck came out with their 2012-13 Black Diamond product. We opened a few boxes back then but never did a review. So we decided to buy another box of it at the LCS and write one now.
If you walk into any LCS or sports card show you should still see these boxes around. Remember the lockout the NHL had a while back, well this did hurt the product release at the same time. So it wasn't that the product was poor by any means, just bad timing of a scheduled release during a lockout year.

Now Black Diamond is one of those sets that adds a little chase into it, and this years edition didn't leave anything behind. The Base set is 250 in total, but all the cards after 100 are broken into different Diamond Tiers. From 101-150 are Double Diamonds found 1:4 packs, 151-200 are Triple Diamonds & Triple Diamond Rookie Gems found 1:8 packs, and 201-250 are Quad Diamonds & Quad Diamond Rookie Gems found in 1:24 packs. So if you looking to put together a complete set you have some work cutout for yourself.

Each box will is guaranteed to come with a serial numbered parallel of Ruby /100, Emerald /10 or Sapphire 1/1. With the parallels, UD has inserted more than half of those as Autographs. These have been very popular on the secondary market for the Emerald and Sapphire.
Along with the parallel you will also find 2 Dual Jersey cards per box. These range from Group A 1:874 packs to Group F 1:30. The overall odds on the Dual Jerseys are 1:12 though, just depends on which grouping your player falls under to determine the value.
Black Diamond has a fair share of inserts into this product. Lustrous Stars/Rookies/Greats, Hardware Heroes, Championship Rings and GEMography Autographs. These all come with very steep odds and pulling any of these in a box is a great find. The secondary market hasn't been too kind to some players in these listings and we think they should have some higher values than we have seen considering the lowest odds are 1:60 packs.

To top off the box, Upper Deck has added a Bonus pack to each Hobby box. This Bonus pack will contain 4 Upper Deck Ice base cards and 1 Ice Premiers Rookies. The base set is only 25 cards and the Ice Premiers have only 21. The 21 prospects are the rookies from last year and are numbered out of /999, /499 and /99. The last tier only has 3 cards which are Schwartz, Baertschi and Kreider. All three have done very well on the secondary market and will continue to stay strong with such a low print run of /99.

Our LCS only had 1 box left that was sitting there for a bit and this is how we did on it:

Base Cards: 101 (3 doubles)
Base Double Diamond: 6 - Henrique, Stastny, Zetterberg, Robitaille, Gaborik, Marleau
Base Triple Diamond: 3 - Tavares, Shanahan, Park
Base Triple Diamond Rookies: 3 - Camper, MacDermid, Messier
Base Quad Diamond: 1 - Brett Hull
Base Quad Diamond Rookies: 1 - Jordan Nolan
Base Ruby Parallel: 2 - Single Diamond Semyon Varlamov /100,  Double Diamond Patrice Bergeron /100
Dual Jersey: 1 - Sidney Crosby (1:30)
Lustrous Stars: 1 - Steven Stamkos (1:864)
Dual Jersey Autograph: 1 - Tyson Barrie Team Canada #'d 1/5
Ice Base cards: 4 - Giroux, Phaneuf, Weber, Callahan
Ice Premier: 1 - Jakob Silfverberg /499

Could it have been any better than this? A box sitting on a shelve for a while pulls in this type of assortment! We love hearing about these stories but have never been involved in one. Now we can say we have.
Overall we really like the Black Diamond design of the cards. Always been a fan of it and this year is no different. Chasing down the Diamond tiers was fun and also made you double look through your cards carefully in case you missed one or two of them. In the pack assortment they are always found before the filler card in the middle of the pack so pay attention. We were able to pull 6 Doubles, 6 Triples and 2 Quads of decent players. We hit an extra bonus of pulling 2 of the Ruby Parallel's instead of the typical 1 per box. The Parallels are a very nice color on this design, we're sure the Emerald and Sapphire would look just as nice. We also like they are numbered on the back of the card instead of the front with this design as it would have been harder to see the numbering if done the other way.

The Lustrous Star Stamkos was a shocker to find. We've never seen one up close and now having one in hand they are very nicely designed and show off a great insert design that includes the see-through players head to both sides of the card. The only thing about these is they are not serial numbered, for being a 1:864 pack card we would have thought they would have been. Either way a very nice card to have, and if you have a chance to purchase one on the market do so and you won't be disappointed.

After pulling the Stamkos we thought the box was going to provide lower end Dual Jersey cards, but we were wrong. This was only the beginning. Sid the kid was three packs away and even though a basic design for a jersey card, you can never never complain about pulling a stellar player. With 2 packs left we weren't sure who the next dual jersey card would be and had a few guesses on who we thought it could be. Nobody had the Tyson Barrie Team Canada and nobody had an Autographed Dual Jersey, let alone numbered out of /5! Wow! What a great pull from this product. Again a basic clean design for a jersey card but an autographed dual numbered out of /5 goes without words.

We felt kinda silly holding on to the Bonus Pack till the end after pulling the Barrie but we still managed to do very well in the Premier category. Jakob Silfverberg numbered out of /499 is in the second tier of Rookies in the Ice and is another good if not great pull from this product.

Some might say we hit a very lucky box and we would agree with you. We haven't seen of too many like this being opened. Usually you'll hit one of those hard to pull hits or maybe a couple in the mid-range but we did over our expectations on this box. Being partial to the fact of hitting a great box we still find that 2012-13 Black Diamond is a very solid product. We really like the design of the base set and the guaranteed Dual Jerseys, 1 Parallel and the Bonus Ice Pack make it a worthy buy. these came out around $99.00 or so back in December and you might be able to find them for a little cheaper since they have been out for a while. if you do, we suggest picking one up and trying your luck and hope you do as well as we did.   

Gambler Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Cost: 5/5
Autograph/Memorabilia: 4/5
Parallels/Inserts: 4.5/5
Design: 5/5
Concept: 4/5
Fun Aspect: 4.5/5

Product Review: 2012 Tristar SignaCuts Baseball

Being a fan of Cut Autographs can be very addicting, and if your a fan of them like we are then you definitely will like the chance with 2012 TriStar SignaCuts Baseball Edition. We're a little late to game on these ones as this product was released  back in August of last year. We had an opportunity to pick up a couple from a case and decided to crack them open and provide this review.

TriStar has been well known for these products in the past and have done a good job on providing some really nice hits coming out of their products. They have many editions come out each year with different themes to attract every collector out there. This specific edition is strictly Baseball, and not only Baseball but players and people within Baseball that have a place in the history of the game.

Now of course this could mean anyone somewhat related to baseball and since we don't have any checklist available we aren't really sure who is in the product. However looking at the sell sheet it does provide some promise within each case of 24 boxes/packs.

So the skinny on this product is the following: 125 cases made with 24 Boxes/Packs per case, with each box/pack containing 1 Autographed SignaCut. So with 3000 SignaCuts out there you have a decent shot at hitting someone pretty good, yet again without a checklist to go by you are taking a shot in the dark.
Now again these SignaCuts are from Baseball's Past and Present and have had some significance within the game. Now whether you think being part of a All-Star team, World Series Champion, or being named Rookie of the Year is significant or not is up to the person willing or not willing to pick up this product.

So speaking of Players included, each case will have 2 Hall of Famers, 3 Dual-Sided Hall of Famers, 12 Place in History players, and 7 Dual-Sided Place in History players. The Place in History players are the group that people will be cautious about since they could be anyone that has accomplished something in Baseball. 

The cool thing about TriStar is that everything is numbered. Each Box/Pack is numbered to 3000, each SignaCut is numbered from 1/1 to the highest /25. The product scarcity is really good for the secondary market if you have the right player/person but also provides personal value to the collector knowing they have 1 of only 25 or 10 of these cards. Each case will provide 2 1/1, 8 numbered to 5, 7 numbered to 10, and 10 Dual-Sided. Now the Dual sided they don't mention the serial numbers of so you can assume they would be anywhere from 1/1 to /25.

Now enough of the product specs and down to business. We decided to rip open two boxes and here are the results:

Box #1. Hunter Pence Blue Border #'d 7/10. The Cut is from a 2004 Just Minors Autograph card. Looks like the card was cut to fit the spot within the TriStar card within the encasement.

Box #2: Tony Perez Purple Border #'d 1/1. This is a 1986 Donruss or Leaf Diamond King hand signed by Tony Perez in a Blue Sharpie. Also the card was card to fit into the Tristar card within the encasement.

So a few things to note about this product. The first being that when we opened both boxes/packs we found that the Tristar authenticated sticker on the right side was not fully wrapped around the cases and we had to secure them back over the magnets. Not sure if all were like this but something to watch for when opening the box/pack. Not too big a deal but possibly could create issues as time goes on and the stickers loose more of the tack on them. Luckily ours have stayed on since we opened the boxes.
Not too happy with the magnet holders for these as they are not very secure and if dropped could see them fly open with your card on the ground. Would have been much better to have them fully encased.
The second thing to note is that it would seem that Tristar has bought these cards and cut them to fit into their designs which is fine with us but not every collector will be thrilled with this format. We're sure the other cuts are the same and also include those ones in the sell sheet..
Lastly there is no mention of the autographs being authenticated by anyone or any company. Of course the Pence is authenticated with it being a sticker autograph from Just Minors, but the Tony Perez and others won't have this second security. So the open question is How do we know these were authenticated and by whom? On the back of each card it is stated that "You have received a TriStar SignaCut Featuring an Authentic Hand-Signed Autograph." So we guess in a way they are stating it's authenticated but could have been a little more clear and could have advised us of who authenticated the autographs.

In closing, to get one of the two Hall of Fame players in a case was pretty nice to hit, and to top that a 1/1 was even better. We like that the autograph is not a sticker autograph and the placement of it on the cut card looks great. Now compare that to the Hunter Pence. The Pence was a nice pull and to be numbered low is great, but he was in this product as a Place in History player noted for being a 2x All-Star. Again you have to expect this from this type of product so we weren't that upset with pulling him out. Plus now he's a World Series Champion so we can add that to the card making it even better.

Gambler Overall Rating: 3.9 out of 5
Cost: 5/5
Autographs: 4/5
Players/Checklist: 3.5/5
Design: 3.5/5
Concept: 3.5/5
Fun Aspect: 4/5

Product Review: 2013 Topps Heritage Hobby Box

1964 is the year for 2013 Topps Heritage. Bringing along with it the historic and classic Topps look when it first debuted. The White border on this design really stands out and provides a very solid salute to the 1964 set. Heritage is one of those sets that you can go either way on it, a lot of this depends on the design but some more love the old feeling of the cards bringing them back to the older days. Either way this year is sure to bring some excitement into the famous brand.

Lets get to some basics first, on the hobby boxes your looking at the typical 24 packs with 9 cards per pack. Each Hobby box comes with a Box Topper that could be a Three card advertising panel, Oversize Box loader, Oversize Box loader Relic or Autograph, Buyback Originals, or Beatles Buybacks.
Short prints run wild in this years product at a ratio of 1:3 packs and provide us with 75 within the 500 card complete set. In addition to the 75 SP's we also will be hunting down 25 Action Image variations, 25 Color variations, 6 Error Print variations and 4 Super Short Prints of Washington Senators variations (which includes Bryce Harper). Heritage has been known for the short prints but this years list takes the cake in terms of long lasting value (at least so far).

This years Chrome version numbered out of 999 looks great with the White really coming out in the cards. Only 100 from the 500 set in the Chrome parallel version, each with purple, refractor, black and gold. These are always sot after cards in the secondary market and should continue in 2013.

New this year to Heritage is a 100 card Mini Parallel set. These Mini cards complement 100 cards from the 500 base/sp set and are each hand numbered to only 100! Along the inserts line are 1964 Mint Set (with coins embedded into the cards), 1964 Bazooka inserts, 1964 Coin Relics, 1964 US Postage Stamp relics, Baseball Flashbacks, Memorable Moments, New Age Performers, News Flashbacks, and Now and Then inserts.

The most famous items within Heritage are the Real One Autographs. Of course they are in this product and are as follows; Real One Autographs Blue Ink, Red Ink /64 along with Dual /25 or less and Triple Autographs /5, not to mention you can also find 1964 Cut Signatures /1. And rounding out the inserts/hits are the relics. You will find an assortment of the Clubhouse Collection Relics, including Dual Relics and Autographed versions, Esteemed Heritage Book cards, and Flashback Autograph Relics.

With so much packed into this product, your bound to find some good hits and maybe a surprise or two with your box. Here is how we did on ours:

Base Cards: 194 (no doubles)
Base SP: 7 - Posey, Pujols, Chen, Stanton, Diamond, J. Reyes, Buchholz
SP Photo Variations: 2 - Pujols & Dickey
Chrome Parallel: HC95 Mike Olt and Jurickson Profar /999
News/Baseball Flashbacks: 4 - Beatles, 1964 World's Fair, F.Robinson, Al Kaline
New Age Performers: 3 - Castro, Miley, Mauer
Memorable Moments: 2 - Fielder & Beltran
Then and Now: 2 - Robinson/Cabrera & Clemente/Posey
Autograph: Tom Brown (Blue Ink)

Looking back through the cards we couldn't have asked for a better box. This was packed with some of the top SP's, inserts and a Blue Ink Autograph. A couple things standout to us, the first being this was loaded with rookies. We had 12 Rookie cards pulled not including the Chrome Olt/Profar parallel. Great assortment for this product to have this many included. The SP's were easy to find in this box as the Pujols and Dickey Photo Variations were int he middle of the packs flipped over. Not sure if this in every box for the photo variations, but it makes it much better than going through each card twice to check. We didn't hit any of the harder SP's but we were pleased with landed some of the top player SP's that will be great on the secondary market.

Our Real One Autograph was of Tom Brown. You haven't heard of him? Well neither did we until we looked him up. The cool thing about Heritage Real One autographs is just this, you can pull one out of your box of an unknown and look him up to find out more info on the player. Due to the fact some of these players aren't well-known makes it interesting. Take our Tom Brown, turns out he only played 1 season with the Senators before being optioned. The interesting part is he played for the Green Bay Packers during 64-68 and played in the first two Super Bowls! Pretty cool to be optioned by a MLB team only to move into the NFL and win a couple of Super Bowls.

So overall we are pleased with this product. The design, the assortment of SP's to be found, the Relics, the inserts and the Real One Autographs all make this another great Heritage product.

Gambler Overall Rating: 4.2 out of 5
Cost: 5/5
Autograph: 4/5
Parallels/Inserts: 4/5
Design: 4/5
Concept: 4/5
Fun Aspect: 4/5

What are in those Walmart Value packs?

Have you ever asked yourself this question? I know I have time and again, wondering what are in those value packs being sold at Walmart. Here in Canada we don't have the variety of value packs or retail blasters across all the sports. Most stores cater to Hockey products, so when ever I see a Baseball Value pack or Blaster I'm very curious.

So today we decided to pick up the most recent Value pack found in Walmart stores. It is labeled as "Best of 2012" "11 Factory Sealed Packs Over a $30 value". On front of the package window are three packs, Heritage, Gypsy Queen and Bowman. The same goes for the other side of the box packaging. The Price of these Value Boxes is $24.99, so I'm not sure how they came up with the "Over $30 value" when you can pick up most of these packs for $2-4 each in a hobby shop. Knowing going in this might end up being a bust, we figured we could have some fun at the same time opening some packs.

So here is the assortment of packs we received. 4 Bowman, 2 Archives, 3 Gypsy Queen, 2 Heritage and bonus Cello packs of Bowman Purple and Gypsy Queen Gold. Right off the bat seeing the bonus Cello packs was a nice touch, doesn't hurt that Ruth is the front card either on the pack. 

We opened the Archives first and not much really int he packs other than a Nolan Ryan base, Maris Sticker and Freese Decal. The rest of the base didn't have anyone over a base value card.

Heritage and Bowman were next. These provides some decent prospects in the Bowman but nothing over a $2.50 tag. Posey was found in Heritage but again not much else in the packs worth more than base value.

Gypsy Queen was next in the packs to be opened. These packs provided some decent hits, with 3 minis all over base value including a Variation Smoltz and a Black Young. A Clemente Hallmark Heroes was found as well as a Cargo Variation SP. These were the best of the 11 packs opened in the box.

As for the Bonus Cello packs, well this was where the value kicked in a bit. The Purple Bowman Prospects were all 3 decent names including Claudio Custodio for the Yankees. Values could rise on these or fall depending on how well they do in the coming years. 

The Gypsy Queen Cello was a great three combo of Teixeira, Brock and of course the Ruth. Really happy with these and was not expected in the value box. 

So overall adding up only the cards pulled with listed BV above common we hit $38.00. So the investment of $24.99 with tax ($28.24 total) we gained just under $10 on the listed cards. Of course with the other base commons you could raise that up, but we wanted to base the value of the box on the above common cards in the box to the value price.
Was it worth the money? Not really, but for fun to rip open packs it was decent. I think the Cello packs really boosted up this value box. If they were not included this would have been a complete dud, the Ruth books at $10 alone so even if you did take a chance on one of these you would hope to pull a $10 at least to hit the BV we did on this one.

Official Announcement: www.packgambler.com We've done it!

Just about a year ago we started out with an idea of sharing reviews within the collecting community. These consisted of our reviews of products and topics within the industry. This idea grew a little each month until we decided on expanding The Pack Gambler.

Well after months of planning, months of designing and more planning on top of that we are proud to announce we will have our own website! www.packgambler.com 

This will be your main source to The Pack Gambler for Reviews, News, Gambler Giveaways and also a Store Front!

All those cards you have seen us pull through our Reviews will be available to buy through our store, but that's not all. We will also have Sealed Hobby Boxes, Packs and will introduce Pack Gambler Box Breaks! Yes we are going to run Box Breaks from The Pack Gambler!

We are very excited to get our site up and running very soon. This is going to be another big year in the world of sports cards and we are delighted that we can bring our idea to the hobby community at the same time.

This all could not have been done without the Gambler Followers on Twitter and Facebook. We thank each and everyone of you on helping us reach this point and look forward to great things to come!

Please watch our Twitter and Facebook feeds for our Official Grand Opening Week. We will have Gambler Giveaways, Specials and Contests. These will happen all Grand Opening week long. www.packgambler.com

Thank you again Gambler Followers! Watch for our Grand Opening coming very soon!