Weekend Giveaway ($50 Visa Gift Card)

[JackLondon]

The one that stands out in my mind was opening a box of the old Topps American Pie. I had ordered it online and the tracking showed that it should arrive by a certain day. All that day I looked and it didn't show up. The regular mail came in the afternoon and it wasn't there. Finally, gave up and went in to eat dinner and watch TV. While carting a bag of trash out to the cans, I tripped over a box on the porch. It had arrived!

So, around 930 at night I was opening packs. Had gotten the requisite number of "hits" and inserts and was opening the last couple packs with little hope of anything. My wife says, "Anything good?" I answer, "It's okay. nothing great. Wish I could have gotten the Monroe card, though." (Marilyn Monroe costume card that was SUPER tough to find). Just as I am saying that and opening the last pack, I pull the EXACT card I was wishing for! Still have it today.

 

[AMAZIN HOF COLLECTOR]

Thanks for the contest!

Was just getting back into card collecting and found a local shop. They had a Reggie Jackson UD Heroes of Baseball autograph in the showcase. I immediately fell in love with the "old time" black & white design. I inquired about the card. The owner said they pulled it from a new product. I was surprised that autographs came out of a box! (This was new to me). I told them I wanted a box! Unfortunately they were sold out. A couple of days later there was a pretty big local show and I went to buy supplies (as I was just getting back in the hobby) and found a dealer with Heroes. I told them I saw an autographed Reggie Jackson card at a local card shop and I wanted to pull one. The dealer let out a little laugh and handed me the box. I went home and broke the box and pulled an autograph coa card. So I was excited I got an autograph, not really thrilled as I thought every box had one! :lol: I look at the next card and its an autographed Mickey Mantle card. Now I was excited!!! I went to the shop the next day to show them the card. The owner just shook his head and showed me what the odds of an autograph were, no less a Mantle. Thats when I learned about inserts and odds! :lol:

Here is the card, still in my collection...

 

[Mudcatsfan]

Thanks for the contest Chris.

Back in 2000, Upper deck came out with a product called Rookie Update. It combined SPX, SPAuthentic, and Pros & Prospects. The base set was absolute garbage as all the good players were already in the regular releases, but then they had 30 or so numbered rookies per update set, and this was the first year UD had USA cards in their releases. This was a big deal as Ben Sheets and Xavier Nady were big time USA heroes at the time. (Little did we know Roy Oswalt would end up even better). THe big card for me was teh SPX Autographed Barry Zito. THis was a big deal card. It was even featured on the box cover.

I wanted it so bad i could taste it. This guy had a curveball that looked to break 5 feet, and nobody would EVER figure him out. Ever.

The box breaks were amazing because the rumor was the product was under-ordered and thus were STUFFED with numbered rookies and auto rookies at a much higher rate than the box odds stated. You typically got 8 autos in 12 boxes and 4-6 numbered rookies per box. This was a bonanza back in that day.

So i find a shop in South Florida that actually has boxes for $72, (not terrible at the time). They had a stack of 12 of them, and my buddy helped me pick out what he called "the Zito box". I took his word for it and dove in. No such luck, as i pulled...........I want to say a Joe Torres auto?? I can't remember now, but it wasn't the Zito box.

I was dissappointed, but happy to pull an auto and broke down, buying one more box for a rainy day. On the drive home, i went up A1A and the beach was so beautiful i ended up stopping to just look at the ocean for a while. Of course I then noticed the silver box sitting next to me and temptation was too great.

I start thru the packs, and happily hit an Xavier Nady SP authentic (non-autoed), and a few others i liked when suddenly i see the Green Oakland athletic logo and the "Congratulations, you've just won an authentic auto......" type on the back of the card.

HOLY MOLY I HIT THE ZITO!!!!!!!!!!!! As i slowly reveal the card, its' none other than Justin Miller, non-prospect pitcher for the Oakland Athletics.

Man, what a kick to the gut.

The rest of the box went quickly, as there were no more expectations, I had beaten the odds with 2 autos in 2 boxes, even hit an Xavier Nady, the day was beautiful, and all was good.

Then,
Last pack
Another Auto
Barry Freaking Zito.

That' was a great box break.

Still have the card, will never part with it

 

[imac220]

Got 2 Packs of 2011 Topps and pulled a Brian Wilson black #/60 last night

Thanks!

 

[pudge1760]

Thanks for the Giveaway.

Back in 2006 I went to my local LCS and decided to bust a box of 2006 Leaf Rookies and Stars Football. I was through 3/4 of the box and I told the shop owner how bad the box was going and said "The only thing that will save this box is a Reggie Bush Auto." Then in the next to last pack I hit it. Reggie Bush GU Auto RC. I was jumping up and down so excited. I then asked him if he thought I should get it graded and he said it looked Gem to him. Here were the results of that grade:

I then sold it for $660 on Ebay.

 

[Y4NK335]

Thanks for the contest.

I hardly open products, let alone football, and a few years back I opened some 2006 Playoff Prestige football (retail) while at Target and pulled a Reggie Bush Xtra Points parallel from the first pack. At the time of Bush's craze, I was able to move this card with a pretty significant trade value, but this break was so memorable because it was my first time opening football in over 7 years and in the very first pack I had a fantastic hit out of retail.

 

[mchenrycards]

I am going to avoid typeing a long "penthouse" type story here so here are the facts:

I used to promote card shows and one of the guys who bought a table was short on the table fee so he gave me a box of 1994 Upper Deck baseball as partial payment. This was back in 1994 and everyone was looking for the regional inserts and being in the Midwest we all wanted to Jordan inserts. I took the box, went back to my table and started cracking. About half way into the box I pulled this card that had an oblong hologram. I flipped it over and realized I had pulled the Griffey/Mantle dual autograph. I was so shocked I asked my co-promoter if what I was seeing was what I was seeing. He stared at it for awhile and all he said was "damn, thats a nice card".

I sold this this card four years after pulling it and to this day it is the only card I ever regret selling! The guy I sold it to still has it and he reminds me every now and then!

 

[MojoDan]

1993 Collectors Edge Football. Got a John Elway autograph

In Baseball it would probably be 1987 Donruss and getting McGwire and Maddux in the final two packs of the box.

 

[jdbrak]

Back when basketball was more fun to open, I remember I was in a shop and pulled a Michael Jordan Gold Refractor from 97-8 Finest. It was a great thrill at the time and i sold it on a newsgroup for $500.

 

[rymflaherty]

Hope this is applicable -
as it really was not a "box break", but more a pack break. It was actually my first online order, as I ordered a bunch of packs from various 06 football products from D&A's.

Like most people I collected cards as a kid, really up until my teenage years.....but also like many people, around that time the hobby store in my town closed, which basically stopped my collecting.
Every now and then I'd see something in retail and pick it up......but at best I was a "casual" collector.

In 06 I found myself drawn again to cards with the hype of the rookies in football. I found myself buying more blasters - and then realizing I was probably wasting money. Even though I was far from an "expert" at the time, I still knew retail odds were far worse than hobby. Anyways that basically started a chain reaction.
It led me to find the Beckett forums. I began to read posts there and loved seeing the box breaks. I then found online sites to purchase hobby packs of cards. At the time I was also coming off ACL surgery and was bed-ridden for a couple weeks and picked up my first Beckett in years. I was thrilled to see all the innovations, cool cards, new products......one of the coolest I thought was the letterpatch auto's.

As I mentioned to start - this all led me to place an order for around $75 in packs from D&A's.....as I wanted to try a few packs of al the newest products. I did very well - hitting a Stovall rc auto #'d 25 in Classics. A couple Gu'd cards - including a triple (which I thought was awesome) and the best hit......I pulled a letterpatch auto rc of Vince Young out of threads.

As you could imagine that made me ecstatic.....and as you also could imagine, after that I was hooked.
That order got me back into collecting in a big way.

 

[AKA Coastal]

This thread rocks..i love reminiscing. I've been digging through some old boxes today pulling out old inserts and checking them on Ebay with the 90's insert craze in full effect.

 

[Therion]

This thread rocks..i love reminiscing. I've been digging through some old boxes today pulling out old inserts and checking them on Ebay with the 90's insert craze in full effect.

If you stumble across any Darryl Kile inserts you know who to hit up

 

[aminors]

On my most recent birthday (December), I waltzed into our kitchen (before eating the traditional ice cream cake) to find my parents standing around and a green bag on the counter. It was a gift bag, and inside was my birthday present.

I opened the bag, took out the tissue paper, and inside was a box of 2010 Bowman Chrome baseball. A lot of times, we aren't fortunate enough to be buying things like that for birthdays (especially considering my recent leg surgeries), so it was a really cool surprise. I opened the box, and all of the packs were bowed backwards! I said "Wow, these cards must have gone into the pack backwards!" That being said, I opened the top pack off of the bottom right stack and inside was a gold refractor. I had never pulled anything better than an xfractor auto (Randal Grichuk) before, so I was just PRAYING that in this overproduced product, one box...or one pack, per se...would yield a gold auto. I did a slow-reveal, pulling the card up out of the small stack, and I saw a familiar picture. A kid in a Yankees helmet, pulled down too low over his eyes. I'll let the scan do the talking.

As if that wasn't enough, my parents informed me that this box was part of a two-for-100 Chrome sale at my LCS..they had purchased the deal, which included a bx of 2010 Topps Chrome baseball as well. I was obviously expecting blah stuff, because my luck had seemingly been all used up by the Sanchez. For good measure, though, I said "Alright, out of this box, I want to pull something Mike Stanton, although Jason Heyward would be great too."

Surely enough, I pulled a Lance Zawadski Chrome auto.


Then I pulled a Heyward blue refractor auto.


Both of the big hits from that day have been sold, some of the money going to different things to do with my recently purchased car. Needless to say, that was the greatest card-ripping day of my life.

Thanks for the contest.

 

[MarlinsManiac20]

Probably 08 piece of history when I pulled a hanley ramirez auto jersey. Only my favorite because im a marlins fan.I never break wax really.

 

[orion9578]

My most memorable box break wasn't even really a box break. I went to the LCS to see what he had in. He had just got a case of 07 legendary cuts. I knew what was in it but didn't want to spend a bunch of money and get a junk cut. So, instead of opening a ton I decided to try a few packs and perhaps get lucky. Well, I did get lucky and got an exquisite redemption out of about 5 packs. Not a bad pull since they were 1 per case. This was at the start of the promotion and you saw what your card was when you redeemed the card. I came home, thought about selling it for a little while(a VERY little while, haha) but figured I only had like 25 bucks or so into it. Redeemed it and immediately ran a few laps around the house. Luckily I was home alone or whoever was here probably would have thought I went nuts. I came back and looked at the page again, to make sure it was indeed what I saw the first time. Yup, it was. Honus Wagner and Roberto Clemente dual cut auto! Man was I pumped. In a close second Andrew pulled me a Michael Jordan BGS 9.5 RC out of razor rc retro . I did get very excited about that too but something about opening(redeeming it in this case) yourself is just a little more exciting. Thanks for the contest!

 

[biggosh95]

My most memorabpe break happened last christmas eve. I was opening a box of 2008 tristar and pulled a purple domonic brown and a justin masterson plate. I couldnt believe my first two 1/1's came from the same pack!!

 

[Jmilly]

Not great but when i first got into the hobby, I was amazed at getting an autograph of a superstar. For my first box break I got a box of 2008 Moments and Milestones. I loved the fact that every card was numbered. I ripped into the box and slowly opened the packs. In one pack i pulled an auto of Hanley Ramirez(only a $10 card) and i was stoked it made my day! But in the last pack i was able to pull a 1/1 Gary Sheffield red parallel. I was in complete shock for the rest of the week( i know i was crazy). needless to say it got me into the hobby and i will always remember that break.

 

[rimcdonald]

Mine would be 2009 Upper Deck Sweet Spot baseball. I went in to the LCS to buy 4 tins and in the 1st one pulled this:

I was very happy since it was my first Griffey sig ever and I had always wanted to pick one up. Then in the last tin I pulled this:

I bout crapped my pants. 2 in one day with 1 being the 1/1!

 

[chompsmcgee]

I was working at a card shop when I was in high school in 98-99. I remember wanting a box of 1999 Ovation baseball so my boss sold me one near cost. I opened it on the drive home and pulled a Piece of History 500 HR Club Mickey Mantle Bat Card!

(not my scan)

I drove all the way back to the shop to show the owner and get a nice case for it. I could see the envy in his eyes haha!

The card's BV at the time was $1,500 and I sold it on eBay shortly after for about $780. Still love that card, would want to get my hands on one eventually.

Thanks for the contest!

 

[tehchamp]

Trying to remember the exact year, I think it was 2002, I bought a box of 2001 Upper Deck baseball and opened it up at the LCS. Well, this was during a trade night and the LCS owner asked me to go pick up a pizza for it and he'd hold my box. So I drive out get the pizza and come back. Then I start ripping, and the first pack yielded a Sammy Sosa auto jersey #'d to 75 I think it was. I say out loud "Holy Cow wow!" Well, the next pack I pick up and open, in it was a Cal Ripken Jr. auto jersey. I started shaking then and the owner was like "Holy crap, okay let me try a pack." And he opened a pack and nothing. So next pack I open, boom, Juan Gonzalez GU card. Next pack? Boom, Ichiro GU card. Was pretty exciting, the rest of the box had nothing though.

Ended up selling the Sosa to someone at the LCS a few days later for $175, kept the Ripken for PC and the other two were sold as well. Best break ever and I was ecstatic.