A 10-Case Player Break: A Review

When Yonder Alonso was traded to the Mariners, further extending Dan Vogelbach's stay in AAA, I was pretty bummed. I decided to treat myself to a Topps Chrome 10-case break of The Vogelmonster.

In total, the break would consist of 8 hobby cases and 2 jumbo cases. I did a little math, because that's what I do, and found that there would be 11,712 cards in the break overall. Take away inserts, parallels, and autos and I concluded the break should yield me in the neighborhood of 44 base rookie cards of my favorite current baseball player and probably 2 or 3 base autos.

Base rookies and autos are nice, but I was hoping for some refractors, parallels and maybe, just maybe, a low numbered autographed parallel. After all, I've gone all super collector and what not... I need to complete the rainbow somehow!

I opened my wallet and waited. The break was scheduled to be done over the course of two days and in all it wound up being over 10 hours of box breaking entertainment. I only watched about a half hour of the break, because I wanted to see what the product was like and because the host was ripping packs pretty quickly, which kept my interest. When I logged off there were about three dozen others watching the break, which made feel like I could trust this particular Ebay seller. He'd have many angry customers, who watched he break firsthand, knocking on his door otherwise.

Everyone knows baseball cards are akin to lottery tickets, which is something Kin mentioned at  A Pack to Be Named Later earlier today. You may be looking for that base common to finish your set or maybe you're chasing an Aaron Judge rookie, but once you open the pack it's either in there or it's not. Very hit or miss, and like the lottery, it's often miss. An added bonus to baseball cards is there is some sort of trade or resale value to the cards you don't want. You don't get that with lottery!

In my situation though, signing up for a single player in a large break, it's going to be all hit or miss. I was full of anticipation as I waited for my package. I suppose I could have went back and watched 10+ hours of break video, but that did not sound appealing whatsoever. About five days after the break concluded the cards arrived. Now that I think about it though, considering the seller opened and had to sort nearly 12,000 cards, this was a pretty quick shipment!

I was a little surprised my Vogelmonster cards arrived in a white soft padded bubble mailer. I was hoping all my cards had arrived safely.  Guess what was used as additional padding around the stacks of cards? Card supplies!

 This was a surprise indeed! A day before the break started the seller sent out a mass e-mail and announced that all rookie cards would be placed into a penny sleeve and all parallels, inserts and autos would go into a top loader because he knew many of the cards would be sent out for grading.  So, I was expecting some supplies, but the unopened packs of supplies were quite over the top!

 Allen and Ginter?  What in the world? The seller included a free pack of A&G in the middle of two large team bags of Vogelmonster cards. I'm not an A&G fan, so this will go into my pile of packs reserved for Pack Wars.

Here's a picture of the aforementioned team bags of cards.

 I opened the one on the left first and found 36 base rookies. Hmph. Not quite what I was expecting.

 I opened the one on the right, and 7 more were found. I guess they couldn't fit in the other team bag!

The math said, with perfect collation, that I would receive 44.16 base rookies. 43 is pretty darn close!  So far, so good!

Refractors!

 I only need one for my Vogelmonster player collection, but I won't complain about having a couple of extras.

Parallels!

 The blue wave is numbered out of 75 and the purple refractor is out of 299.  Nice!

Bring on the autos!  I was hoping for two or three base autos, but I came away with FIVE!

I hate to admit it, but I think the Vogelbach autos are "filler autos."  You know, there's a higher number of them than the hot rookie of the day everyone is chasing. Price and Demand... blah blah blah. Whatever.  Send me all your Vogelmonster autos!

Unfortunately, I didn't luck into any autographed parallels. It is what it is: a lottery ticket.

So, I didn't recoup in cardboard value what I sunk into the auction initially. Looking at the larger picture, I did have fun watching the half-hour of video and it was fun anticipating what would be in the package before it arrived. Also, opening the package was similar to finding that certain present under the Christmas tree. Overall, I think I got my money's worth.  Plus, I've been watching auctions and slowly picking up the cards I need when the price is right, which is something I really enjoy doing.

I'm happy with my purchase, and some of that happiness is due in part to the seller. Really good customer service seems to be a lost art these days and this seller came through big time. I appreciated the e-mail about the care he was going to take with the rookie cards, I was pleasantly surprised by the unopened card supplies, and floored he would throw in a free pack of cards. Plus, he shipped out very quickly. Honestly, it doesn't get much better than that! Give hobby_legends a look on Ebay if you're interested in participating in a player break. I don't think you'll be disappointed.   I just checked, and he's doing another five cases of Topps Chrome... auctions end in about two hours!

As always, thanks for stopping by!