How many more blue wave refractors do I need to finish my set?

After this beauty has been added I'm down to 199 more. It's difficult for me to have the patience to slowly grind away at this set but it's definitely fun. I got this one for the lowest price yet, .76 cents including shipping! Usually these are averaging a couple of dollars a piece.

To combat my boredom I've decided to work on three sets simultaneously. The other two were sets I started in 2012 and lost my way on them. The first one is the 2012 Spx football set. I'm a little under halfway done on this. The monster of the set seems to be the Andrew Luck /99 (and autographed) which is fetching anywhere from 300 to 600 dollars on Ebay. I can't even imagine what a card shop, especially in Indianapolis would want for it. This is a good development because if I went through the trouble of finishing a 2012 set I would want both the Robert Griffin and the Luck, not just Griffin. The Andrew Luck appears to just be coming back from the mystery redemption cards that were popping up in these packs when they first came out. Everyone speculated what these would be and it appears we now have the answer.

The other set I'm working on is also from 2012. Panini Black was another product that I really liked the looks of. The 35 card set is pretty much what we all like out of a product. Autographs, jersey pieces and a stunning design. These mostly black cards were signed with a gold pen and look pretty damn awesome. I've got 6 of the 35 so far including the Nick Foles and the Ryan Tannehill which are both picking up steam. I'll try to get one of the cheaper ones for this run. The Russell Wilson out of this set looks really awesome but it may be a while before I can get my hands on that one. I'll probably be getting something like an Isaiah Pead, Michael Egnew or a David Wilson, all of which are dirt cheap these days.

Today's card is the first one I've added from 2013 Limited Football but a great one to add!

This exact photo was pulled from Ebay but you get the idea. My copy is numbered 21/25 and is the gold spotlight version. We did a case break a few months ago over at Mike's Stadium Sports Cards and this was one of the first cards pulled. I was pretty excited because this card alone made the 30 dollar price of admission well worth the break. I was lucky enough to get the 49ers which is a GREAT team for breaking any year because of Montana, Rice and the other possible HOF players. 2013 was a big year for 49ers rookies too as Lattimore, Quinton Patton and Vance McDonald were all rookies in this product. (Spoiler alert, I pulled all three of these RC autos). In box breaks for 2013 you want to get the Jets (Geno Smith), the Broncos (Montee Ball, Peyton Manning) and the 49ers are not bad either. Weak teams this year would be the Ravens (one or two low level draft picks, not many autos at all), the Raiders and the Lions. Browns would be pretty terrible for 2013 product but we know all case breakers will be wanting the Browns in 2014. The Broncos on the other hand will be a pretty weak team to have as they went WR CB for many of the top picks this year. The Raiders will be pretty strong as well with Kahlil Mack and Derek Carr should have plenty of collectors too. 

Down to 200 Blue Wave refractors needed

Here is card number 80 that I've gathered since I started up this crazy quest. I need 200 more for the two sets since the autographed rookies are technically another set altogether from the base blue wave refractors. This is card #113.

So far my quest to find the cheapest cards possible first has been successful. I'm not finding a ton of competition on these cards and right now they're pretty plentiful. I may have a bit of a harder time landing some of the stars like Tom Brady and Adrian Peterson since those guys have tons and tons of collectors. I was looking through my collection on Tom Brady for instance and saw that the insert I added today of Brady, his Silver Portraits card (which is die cut and looks pretty cool) is only my 8th card of him in my whole collection. Many people collect only his cards exclusively. I probably have even less of Peyton Manning. Unfortunately my collection is mainly focused on high end sets where the main draw has been rookies. The best card I have of Brady is his 2000 Spx (which is the best card in my collection right now) but I didn't do a high end set in 1998 so no cool Mannings. I've had autographs of both players but flipped them for who knows what, probably a rookie no-name that was needed for one of my sets. I know better than that now and if I happen to land an autograph of either one you can be assured I won't let them go again.

3 More Blue Wave Refractors for my 2013 Football set!

Couldn't be any happier with a mail day than this. I got two Broncos cards, one of the best defenseman in the league, the other of a rookie QB. You never know with quarterbacks, one day your scrub can be worth tons, just depends on where they go and how their career pans out. With the Dysert card there really are no collector expectations at the moment so his cards can be gotten for next to nothing. All it even takes is one good preseason game and speculation goes through the roof.

With these three blue waves added today my "needs" count has dropped to 201. 79 in the bag and 201 more to go. I'll be on the lookout for my next card (or cards) tonight.

Box of cards broken from several months ago, this one was disappointing!

This is the result of a 2013 Touchdown Super Box break that I did at the beginning of 2014. The results were actually pretty bad. I think anyone would have been happy with the Cadillac Williams back in 2007, especially because this is a Gold version autograph numbered to 25. The Jimmy Clausen was also a highly touted draft pick back in 2010 but with the drafting of Cam newton collectors realized that his cards would likely never be worth anything. The only piece in here that I'm somewhat happy with is the AJ Green RC refractor  that is a PSA 10. While I may have only recouped about half of the box cost with this break I think the AJ Green will probably be worth quite a pretty penny in 10-15 years. You could look at this one like an investment card, the fact that it's a PSA 10 of a pretty big star (and it's a rarer refractor version, not just the base RC) made this card really the one to keep. Of course I'll keep them all but the Green will be a nice card down the road as long as Green keeps up his insane numbers, even for a few more years.

My main complaint here is that the cards were not chosen in 2007 or 2010. The Williams and the Clausen have to be viewed as nearly worthless except to set collectors or player collectors (if they have any). Certainly these cards should not have been considered worthy of putting in a high end gambler's type of box. I would have much rather gotten some vintage cards that maybe were not worth as much but had more historical meaning. A Marcus Allen RC? Sure! A Howie Long Topps 1984 RC? These would have made much more sense. I don't expect very many boxes to make money but with this product one should expect at the very least a 65-70 % return on investment instead of what I estimate to be about a 40% return. This SuperBox (and many breaks I've viewed) was essentially a dud. I would not recommend this product to anyone. Most repackaged products are pretty bad although the idea is pretty exciting. The "Heroes of Sport" that is an interesting mix of cards and game used memorabilia seems to be better although with the money you spend even that's an insane gamble that I'm surprised collectors take.  

Been a little bit but another Blue Wave refractor comes home!

Staying true to my promise, I'm not going to bore you with all the base 2013 Topps Chrome cards I've added to my collection in the past week. Today this cool card came in the mail and I'm off to find the next one to add to this set collection that I think will take a very long time. Luckily there are not all the variations as one finds in the regular set. These are noted by A or B at the end of the card number. The only way of telling the short prints (and there are short prints of many of the big stars as well as the big name rookies like Geno Smith and Marcus Lattimore) is to search on Ebay at this point. The only thing that differs is the photo used and the rarity of the card. The "B" cards I believe fall at one per case so they are very tough to find. They've been doing this in baseball products very successfully over the years. This is an interesting wrinkle that I have not seen in a football set yet. People love rare cards and having a SP makes for an interesting collector's item, especially down the road as this set gains some age. I really like the other subsets like the 1986 and 1969 rookie designs as well. This appeals to long time collectors like myself that have an appreciation of history when it comes to the football cards of the past. Although I'm a set collector that enjoys opening new boxes I enjoy nods to the past such as these very much. Last year's 1984 rookie subset was very cool since 1984 was such an iconic football set. The diecuts numbered to 50 were even sweeter.

Today's "Hit" addition, a 2013 SP Authentic Basketball Ryan Kelly Auto

Today's addition is a beautiful SP Authentic autograph of Ryan Kelly, a RC for the LA Lakers. This card is significant because it's my first non-football autograph I've added to my collection in a long time. Despite the fact that UD does not have any NBA licensing this card looks really striking. It could be the way the blue and the gold offset each other. It could also be that gold used to be the color normally reserved for cards of a lower print run and so it just has that "special" look to it even though it's just the base autograph. I mentioned before that I got a 2 for one special on this card so I figure I'll try to flip the other one and maybe get a free card out of the deal. If not, I'm not too worried about it because it's a cool card! I've always been partial to the Lakers ever since the late 1990's when I was chasing Kobe Bryant cards like mad. I wished that I had kept on that route because Kobe is one of the premier players that has ever played the game. He's one of those rare players that actually lived up to the draft hype.

Got another blue wave refractor from 2013 Topps Chrome Football coming in so I'll post that when I get it in the mail!