[flamethrower]

Duly noted!

[rjcj2017]

Yeah, it saddens me that the "exclusive trading card of MLB" treats its customers this way.

Based on its mainly horrible collation across all product lines, Topps has ALWAYS gone on the assumption that collectors will:

A) Only buy one box or blaster of any given product
B) Be thrilled with low end crap at high end prices
C) Not let anyone else know what they pulled, especially via the Internet

Anyway, I know it's horrible to admit in this forum, but baseball has always been third in my collecting habits, behind basketball (1) and football (2).

I am seriously considering sitting out the 2017 season in protest.

I am resigned to the fact that I will never pull my own Trout auto, so what does it matter?

I do like Panini's baseball stuff but might just bypass everything this season.

[corbin21]

Not sure if this will ease the pain. But I got an e-mail this weekend offering a 50% off sale of many of their blaster boxes. I picked up 5 high numbered heritage for $50.00 and postage. But there were many other boxes that I was too slow to grab and were sold out for the same price. Archives, Topps series II, Topps update, Gypsy Queen, Bowman and others. I guess the secret is if you can wait till the end of the season and pick up several blaster boxes for half the price. I will let you guys know how I did with the heritage high number blasters. I did pick up another walmart holiday box this weekend and got a Maikel Franco auto.

[DrMitchJ]

Anyway, I know it's horrible to admit in this forum, but baseball has always been third in my collecting habits, behind basketball (1) and football (2)........
I do like Panini's baseball stuff but might just bypass everything this season.

The past few days I've wasted waaaaaay too much time watching some casebreaking streaming. Now, I'm not real familiar with basketball and football players, with the exception of major stars, but the 'Hits" that were coming out of those products were insane compared to anything from baseball. I almost bought into a spot or two just for the dynamic designs, awesome auto/patches, beautiful booklets, great pictures, etc. Baseball seems stagnant and 'same ol' same ol'" Panini steps it up, and unlicensed is okay, but they need to be licensed so everyone can be competitive and step up their products across the whole baseball landscape. Topps is too complacent, IMO.
So I. Can see and understand baseball cards ranking 3rd in your hobby prefs, Randy.

[djohn]

I too fell for this product thinking that maybe the next box won't be as bad. However I learned my lesson by the 3rd box, especially after seeing that everyone else has been pulling the same crappy autographs. The sad part is that I decided to save my money and instead of buying another box, I would see how many of the same autographs I could buy. I ended up buying 10 different autographs from this product for the same $25 (including S&H), the cards I got were: Curt Simmons, Tony Fernandez, Sparky Lyle, Scott Hatteberg, Kent Tekulve, Jose Cruz, Jeff Conine, Charlie Hayes, Jose Rijo, and Fernando Tatis. So for $100 total, I have the base from 3 boxes and about half way to a complete set of autographs (of course I am missing the big names: Griffey, Trout, Tanaka, Bench, Posey, and Ripken). Not sure I will actually try to complete the set, as I know the big names will command a lot more money. However I am certain those boxes will end up on DAC or Blowout at some point and probably be around $10 on sale, and then I might take another stab at trying to land an autograph of a big name or two.

[rjcj2017]

The past few days I've wasted waaaaaay too much time watching some casebreaking streaming. Now, I'm not real familiar with basketball and football players, with the exception of major stars, but the 'Hits" that were coming out of those products were insane compared to anything from baseball. I almost bought into a spot or too just for the dynamic designs, awesome auto/patches, beautiful booklets, great pictures, etc. Baseball seems stagnant and 'same ol' same ol'" Panini steps it up, and unlicensed is okay, but they need to be licensed so everyone can be competitive and step up their products across the whole baseball landscape. Topps is too complacent, IMO.
So I. Can see and understand baseball cards ranking 3rd in your hobby prefs, Randy.

Which is funny, because I got hooked on cards by buying three packs of 1988 Topps (!) baseball at the batting cage when I was a kid. I pulled Alan Trammell (the big star of my Tigers at the time), as well as a Tim Raines that mesmerized me with the cool photo and colors.

I definitely agree on stagnation in baseball ... and it's weird, because 2015 Panini retail products (especially Elite) were loaded.

And then 2016 took a big dive. It was basically Donruss and Optic and that was it.

[DrMitchJ]

I too fell for this product thinking that maybe the next box won't be as bad. However I learned my lesson by the 3rd box, especially after seeing that everyone else has been pulling the same crappy autographs. The sad part is that I decided to save my money and instead of buying another box, I would see how many of the same autographs I could buy. I ended up buying 10 different autographs from this product for the same $25 (including S&H), the cards I got were: Curt Simmons, Tony Fernandez, Sparky Lyle, Scott Hatteberg, Kent Tekulve, Jose Cruz, Jeff Conine, Charlie Hayes, Jose Rijo, and Fernando Tatis. So for $100 total, I have the base from 3 boxes and about half way to a complete set of autographs (of course I am missing the big names: Griffey, Trout, Tanaka, Bench, Posey, and Ripken). Not sure I will actually try to complete the set, as I know the big names will command a lot more money. However I am certain those boxes will end up on DAC or Blowout at some point and probably be around $10 on sale, and then I might take another stab at trying to land an autograph of a big name or two.

I guess that from one aspect, i might buy 5 blasters ($100) and at worst, hope and pray to get anything ... even if it's a crappy auto. With 65th Archives For only $25 you're guaranteed to get a crappy auto.

Half full:half empty .... it all depends on your POV I guess.