2019 Donruss Blaster

I've had this blaster of 2019 Donruss sitting around for a while now. I actually bought it a week or so before Opening Day but due to other things, I haven't had the chance to open it until now. 

If you remember last year, I bought three packs of Donruss from the card shop and thought they were horrible. The pictures, the design, everything except the 1984 style cards was bad. Let's see if Donruss redeemed themselves this year.

Here are the base cards. As is the case with Donruss, there are no logos or nicknames. Not that I mind that too much when photos like this do their best to hide that that. The Rhys Hoskins card is a throwback uniform variation that I noticed after sorting these to be scanned. As far as the design this year goes, I don't really mind it. It's pretty simple and doesn't try to be something it's not (and doesn't have wavy lines all over the place either like last year).

Of course, there are nickname variations. These are painless enough.

The two Reds cards I got in my box. Scooter Gennett is inching closer to coming back and re-joining the team after injuring his quad right at the end of spring camp. It makes me wonder though, who will be the odd man out in the infield since Jose Iglesias has been a heck of a fill-in with both his glove and his bat, and Derek Dietrich I think may have usurped Jose Peraza as the everyday second baseman.

Here are a few of the Rated Rookies. I think there was one of these in every pack. These were literally chosen at random. Garrett Hampson is currently hitting .194/.224/.269 with Colorado and was actually optioned back to Triple-A as I write this. Kopech was 1-1 in only four games with the White Sox and will miss the entire 2019 season due to Tommy John surgery.

I think even the most ardent Donruss/Panini hater can probably find some good in the Diamond Kings cards.

Every year since Panini brought Donruss back, they've had the back end of the base set devoted to old designs. This year it's 1985, which I sort of enjoy. As a matter of fact, my favorite Donruss designs are probably from the years 1982-1987. I wonder what they'll do when they reach 1990 as they've already used it for a base set design in 2017.

As it is with Donruss, there's a boatload of parallels and the the like. The Rizzo is numbered to 484 and the design on the Ryan O'Hearn card is called "Independence Day". The back also feels like it's a vintage stock card or something.

Purple parallels! Very cool and very shiny.

Speaking of shiny, there's a four card "bonus" pack with the blasters and inside contained these super shiny cards. I think my favorite of these is the Jose Altuve "Action All-Stars" card. One thing I didn't notice until scanning these is that the Franchise Features cards have a different player on the reverse side.

And would you look at who's on the back of the Kris Bryant, that being Reds top prospect Nick Senzel, who is doing quite well for himself both at the plate and in the field. After seeing him play, I can see why the Reds released Matt Kemp.

So that's a blaster of 2019 Donruss. It's a definite improvement from last year. I like the inserts and parallels, and especially the "Action All-Stars" set.

A Steal of a Retail Deal (Part 1)

I told myself I was going to stop buying stuff just to review on the blog. Well, that kind of went out the window with this purchase. Over the Easter weekend, Target had a whale of a deal on cards. Blaster were on sale for $16.99 each and hanger boxes were on sale for $8.49 each. Also, on the Cartwheel app there was a $10 off a $50 purchase coupon and there was a free pack coupon on each blaster of Heritage. To go along with this, my mom got me a $75 Target gift card as an Easter gift.

Naturally, I had to take advantage of this rare sale. I had come in search of some Gypsy Queen but they were well stocked with Heritage. I settled for eight packs of Gypsy Queen (four of which came out to be free thanks to the $10 off coupon and the free pack coupon on the blaster), one Heritage blaster, and two Heritage hanger boxes. Grand total for all this? About $48.

I'll focus on the Heritage cards here and share the Gypsy Queen cards in a follow-up post. I can't remember which cards came out of the blaster or the hangers so I've just sort of mixed and matched here.

First off, before I get to the cards, I wanted to take a moment and comment on the Heritage pack design itself. Since I'd yet to open any actual packs of Heritage this year, this was my first glimpse at what the pack itself looks like. I have to say, I kind of dig it.

I'm going to try and show cards of players I don't think I showed on my initial round of Heritage. I can't guarantee though there won't be repeats. 

Yay! Rookie Cup cards! It may just be me but I kind of think the Rookie Cups fit better on Heritage than on flagship.

Nice to see that the Mariners finally signed Ichiro. 

When Strasburg was a rookie, I had club seat tickets for a Reds game to see him against Johnny Cueto. That was quite the game.

Between the hangers and the blaster, I got four short prints (including two Lonnie Chisenhall cards). I'd forgotten completely about Brandon Phillips' stint with the Angels last year. 

The lone Reds card I got that wasn't already a duplicate and it's one of the baseball flashbacks insert. 

And here are the Target exclusive inserts. I think that Rhys Hoskins might be a duplicate but I'll have to go through my Phillies cards to make sure.

While these weren't the best boxes and I didn't get any variations, it was still a fun rip. I think I'm good on Heritage now probably until High Numbers comes out this fall. If I want any more singles or inserts, I'll probably dig for them at card shows or the like.

2018 Topps: The "Wave" of the Future

I'll admit it, I may have gone a bit overboard on 2018 Topps.

However, in order to stretch the cash my wife fronted me as a Valentine's Day present, I had to make the most of it so I got as much as I could so I could get a nice sampling. I bought five loose packs, the last two fat packs on the rack, and a blaster box. I'll break down the highlights the same way. First the loose packs, 

Here's my first card of the year, Tyler Flowers of the Braves. As far as the design goes, I think I like it more in person than I did from the scans and pictures of it I saw on other blogs. It's a nice full-bleed photo and the graphics at the bottom are clean and simple and the team logo looks as if it's either surfing a wave or going down a water slide. I definitely dig it and if Topps can keep the design for the base set clean like this every year, all will be good.

Here's a few former Reds who are Reds no longer, of these Todd Frazier has changed teams, going from the Yankees to the Mets and re-uniting with former Reds teammate Jay Bruce.

Speaking of Reds, here's a few current ones. I pulled three of the Billy Hamilton cards so the dupes will be going in the trade box.

The horizontal cards are really neat and work a lot better than they did the previous two years. I picked these because they had the best photography and I love the way the A's green and gold just pops on these cards.

A few more base cards, again picked mainly for photography than anything else. I dig the throwback Giants uniform on Christian Arroyo though.

There were also inserts, lots of inserts. I can't say I'm exactly thrilled with the insert sets this year although the 1983 style cards are pretty neat. It looks like buybacks and the first pitch inserts have sadly been dropped.

Moving on now to the fat packs (or jumbo packs, whatever you prefer to call them), here's a few guys  who are now on new teams, Cutch with the Giants and Cozy with the Angels.

A few more cards with nice photos.

More nice horizontal cards. I was pretty hyped to pull an Ian Happ card considering he's a University of Cincinnati product. 

More current Reds. Tyler Mahle was a nice late season call-up for the Reds last year and did so well that he's a candidate for a rotation spot this year in spring training. He was one of the few bright spots of the Reds pitching staff last year.

The first foil parallel of the break and it's Dellin Betances of the Yankees.

Two of the hottest young stars in the game currently, Rhys Hoskins and Dansby Swanson. I would've been happy just getting these out of the fat pack but then came this ...

The much heralded card #1 of the set, Aaron Judge. I'd say just based on those last three cards alone, the fat packs were more than worth it.

Finally, the blaster. I've shown a lot of base cards so far but here are a few of my favorites of the 10-pack blaster. 

Two foil parallels and a gold parallel were found as well. I really like the way the gold cards stand out this year.

More inserts. I'm not really sure what the point is of the Opening Day cards, maybe they should've just been left for the Opening Day product itself.

I'm not down on these Jeter inserts as much as most people are it seems. Sure, Jeter isn't exactly someone I actively collect but still, these are nice cards in person. However, I know a few Yankee collectors that might appreciate these more.

More of the 1983 style cards. I can't really get enough of these.

And here's the guaranteed commemorative patch card. Manu-relics for me are pretty cool and I've got a few in my collection. For blasters and retail, I think they're fine but they shouldn't be included in hobby boxes and count as a "hit". Anyway, I won't really complain about in being an Evan Longoria card either as he's one of the better players from the list.

So that's my first experience with 2018 Topps. It was fun to break into these but after a while, the buzz wore off. I'll probably buy a few packs here and there at the card shop if there's nothing interesting and I feel the need to buy something to rip. As I mentioned, I'm not exactly thrilled with the insert sets except the 1983 cards but overall the base card design is really nice, the photography is good and everything feels fresh and new.