A few things to report

This is a long post so please bear with me.

I have a couple things to report on today. Yesterday (Friday) was a great day for me with a big haul of cards! First of all I received a package from Ryan for a trade we recently negotiated. This was our first trade and hopefully not our last. In exchange for some Orioles cards he was looking for and a 2013 Gypsy Queen Cal Ripken Jr. Framed white parallel, Ryan sent me the following:

2013 Bowman- 53 Jesus Montero Silver Ice Parallel

2013 Topps Gypsy Queen- GS-BH Bryce Harper Glove Stories
2012 Topps Chrome- 183 Tyler Pastornicky RC Refractor

2011 Topps- DD-HF Jason Heyward/Freddie Freeman Diamond Duos

Thanks for the trade Ryan!

Now for the second part. Topps Series 2 streeted on Wednesday. On Thursday I went to the closer of my two local Wal-Mart stores hoping to pick up some packs to rip. I arrived at around 4PM on the day AFTER the series was supposed to debut...well, did debut. Unfortunately this Wal-Mart store has one of the worst, most unkempt card aisles I've ever seen. Loose packs everywhere and in the wrong boxes, price tags in the wrong place or even missing, not to mention the fact that the selection is rather poor. I have yet to see Topps Archives show up in this store and they don't carry ANY Panini baseball products. Not even Triple Play. Well much to my chagrin I found that they had not yet stocked Series 2. Thankfully I was in town already for other errands so I didn't waste my time and gas driving there. 

Fast forward to Friday. I had a meeting to attend that was not all that far to the other Wal-Mart in my area so I made a little side trip on the way home to see if they had any S2. Thankfully they did!! I'm not over in the area of this store very often so it had been a long time since I bought any cards there but now I know where I'm gonna go when I'm feeling the cardboard itch. The difference between store #2 and store #1 was night and day! Store 2 had a clean, well kept card aisle with a great selection. All of the current lower end Topps products were in stock, including Series 2, as well as Panini products including Prizm which frankly surprised me. I know Target stores normally carry those kinds of products but I wasn't expecting it from my local podunk Wally World. Wish I had a Target nearby...

But now to the cards!

I decided to limit myself to $20 for this trip and elected to go with a hanger box, rack pack and two loose packs as opposed to a blaster box. I'll take the value of more cards and better odds over getting a manu-patch. I've already hand collated the cards so I will list them in numerical order and show a few of the highlights. 

Base Set

339 Nick Swisher

346 Aaron Hicks RC

350 Albert Pujols

352 Tommy Hanson

357 Juan Francisco

368 Chris Young

369 Bryce Harper NL ROY

372 Jeff Locke

376 Juan Pierre Checklist

377 J.D. Martinez

381 Wily Peralta

383 Matt Harrison

384 Jake McGee
385 Brandon Belt

388 Justin Turner

393 Andres Torres

395 Alexei Ramirez

397 Mike Aviles

398 Mike Fiers

401 Ryan Dempster

404 Ryan Madson

406 Brandon McCarthy
407 Juan Pierre
408 Coco Crisp
412 Everth Cabrera
418 Evan Gattis RC 

Very happy I pulled this one!

420 Rick Porcello

421 Jordy Mercer RC

424 Steven Lerud RC

426 Vinnie Pestano

432 Jose Iglesias

443 Lou Marson

454 Paul Goldschmidt

459 Jesus Montero

460 Ryan Doumit

461 Drew Pomeranz

462 Eduardo Nunez

463 Jason Hammel

470 Jeff Francoeur

473 Josh Johnson

476 John Buck

478 Gavin Floyd

488 Ryan Wheeler RC

492 Jose Molina

497 Brett Myers

503 Clay Buchholz

509 Brennan Boesch

511 Rob Brantly RC
518 Nolan Reimold

520 Peter Bourjos

521 Evan Scribner RC
523 Wandy Rodriguez

525 J.P. Arencibia

526 Tyler Flowers

530 Wade Miley Rookie Cup
531 Craig Gentry
532 Todd Helton
540 Michael Bourn NL Defensive POY
547 Glen Perkins
548 John Lackey
549 Huston Street
559 Travis Snider
566 C.J. Wilson
567 Alfonso Soriano Checklist

568 Steve Lombardozzi Rookie Cup

I love this photo

570 Devin Mesoraco

Odd issue with this card. The foil lettering for Mesoraco's name is only the outlines of the letters rather than solid. This card came out of the hanger box and there was one other card in the box with this same issue. I didn't see any like this in Series 1. Side note: Gotta love the look on Mesoraco's face here.

574 Corey Hart

580 Jordan Danks

588 Jordan Zimmermann

593 James Loney

595 David Ortiz

598 Fernando Martinez

599 Carlos Carrasco

602 Anibal Sanchez

607 Chris Carter

613 Jhoulys Chacin

614 B.J. Upton

615 Mark Ellis

618 Koji Uehara

623 Alexi Ogando

630 Andy Dirks

632 R.A. Dickey NL Cy Young

633 Victor Martinez

636 Cole de Vries RC

638 Andrew Cashner

639 Josh Hamilton
640 Jason Castro

641 Bruce Chen

642 Austin Jackson

643 Matt Garza

644 Ryan Lavarnway

651 Gregor Blanco

657 Jorge De La Rosa

658 David Freese

660 Miguel Cabrera

Inserts

 Wal-mart Blue Parallel

337 Chris Iannetta

354 Casey Janssen

366 Ervin Santana

458 Jake Peavy

507 Lance Lynn

538 Brett Wallace

565 Torii Hunter

612 Robinson Cano

Emerald Sparkle Parallel

375 Wilin Rosario Rookie Cup

401 Ryan Dempster

Gold Parallel

636 Cole de Vries RC 0279/2013

Chase It Down

CD-10 Jon Jay

World Baseball Classic Stars

WBC-3 Joey Votto

WBC-11 Pablo Sandoval

Making Their Mark

MM-9 Tyler Skaggs 1st Win

MM-12 Zack Cozart 1st Home Run

1972 Minis

TM-85 Matt Williams

TM-91 Stephen Strasburg

Chasing History

CH-55 Ken Griffey Jr. Gold Holofoil

CH-57 Cal Ripken Jr. Silver Foil

CH-57 Cal Ripken Jr. Gold Holofoil

CH-65 Gary Carter Gold Holofoil

CH-69 Sandy Koufax Gold Holofoil

CH-75 Dustin Pedroia Silver Holofoil

CH-86 Roy Halladay Silver Foil
CH-97 Troy Tulowitzki Silver Holofoil

So overall it was a fun pack ripping experience. Nothing spectacular pulled but I like the inserts in this year's Topps flagship set. I particularly like the "Making Their Mark" insert that is new to Series 2. Hopefully soon I will be able to pick up a few more packs or a hanger box.

Most of the cards listed above are available for trade, though a few have already been promised. Just ask!! I like Braves and inserts in return!

Also, I got two Million Dollar Chase code cards as well and I have no use for these. So if anyone is participating in this promotion and would like the codes, just ask and I would be happy to send them to you.

Happy collecting!