Mars Attacks Topps Heritage!

I will absolutely and totally admit to being a sucker for Nostalgia. In particular I absolutely adore the Mars Attacks property, originally a trading card set in 1962 illustrated primarily by Wally Wood and others. Most people only know it at a movie, but it's so much more than that. Topps tried an ill-fated comic book line in the mid-90s, Mars Attacks was one of their flagship titles. I think I MAY still have them in storage, at least I hope I do.

It's been 50 years since that original card set was released, and despite it being reprinted at least three other times, it's being done again, Heritage style, which means same printing process, same old cardboard, same old packaging with some new-age inserts and bonuses. Bonuses like sketch cards, printing plates and the requisite limited-edition parallels.

I've been collecting the set for awhile, piecing it together pack by pack at $2.09 plus tax (Target, thanks) for 6 cards has been tough, as Topps notorious penchant for cruddy distribution continues apace with it's lack of imagination when it comes to parallels.

Sell Sheets

The set breaks down like this:
55 Standard Cards - reprinting the original set.
10 "Deleted Scenes" - seeded 1 per pack
15 "New Universe" - seeded 1 per pack
5 Lenticular 3D cards (1:8)

1/1 Sketch Cards -
1:24 Hobby
1:96 Retail

Parallels:
1:3 - Puke Green
1:24 - Silver
1 per case - Gold Parallel (Hobby only)
220 total printing plates (4x each card)
550 (10 total per card) foil autograph by Len Brown

I have purchased a total of 23 individual retail packs. I know this because I have exactly 23 New Universe and 23 Deleted Scenes Cards. I have pulled 6 Green Parallels and 1 silver. I've also pulled 2 lenticular cards. AND, the grand-poo-bah, a sketch which I just pulled today. Ready? Here it is:

I DO believe that it's a Dan Brereton - which if it indeed is, would be a coup-and-a-half since he's one of my favorite comic artists. His series "Nocturnals" is monster-mayhem on a grand scale. I also adore his "Giantkiller" series from DC from a few years ago. Now I'm not 100% sure it's a Brereton, so I'm kind of posting here to see if anyone actually recognizes the signature.

As to my set collection, well the good news is I have a complete 10 card Deleted Scenes set.

That's it. For my personal set I'm missing the following:
2
12
16
19
20
23
24
25
31
33
36
44
47
51

and the New Universe: 7, 11

Lenticular 2, 3 & 4

I have the following doubles for trade:
3
5x4
6
10
11x2
13x2
14x2
17x2
21x2
22x4
28x4
29
30x2
35
38x4
42
46x2
48
49x2
50
53

Deleted Scenes:
1
2
3
4x3
5x2
7x2
8x2
9

New Universe:
2
5
9x2
10
12
13x2
14
15

I am totally willing to trade my parallels, but only for the Lenticular Cards or a Sketch if you want to part with yours.

Green (3x per 1x Lenticular) 3, 8, 15, 29, 49, 53

Silver (Straight up 1:1 for a Lenticular) 46

Trade Rules: I live in So. Cal. I'm willing to trade to Canada, but that's about it for over-seas. Sorry UK. Unless you can supply all my needs. Then we'll talk.

On commons I'll do my 2 for your 1.

We should ship at the same time.

If you're interested in trading, please send me email to wmnoe@yahoo.com.

Team Trading Update - Arrivals & Departures + Destinations Needed

Happy Thursday everyone. I hope you all had a good Veteran's Day and honored the armed forces of our country appropriately.

I received my first package of Angels cards today, and am very pleased. I'm just about ready to send off my end for pretty much everyone, however, I find that I need some addresses...so if you've claimed a team lot, please make sure I have your address so that I can get these packages ready to go.

The Following Readers Have Claimed Teams, but I don't have your address:


• Wickedortega - Marlins & two singles
  
• Jackplumstead - Red Sox
  
• Jason C. - Reds
  
• Collective Troll - Rays & Orioles
  
• Brian - Rangers
  
• Dayf - Braves
  
  

Ah, and HERE are the Topps Chrome/Heritage Chrome that I have available. I'll be listing these in two posts, first up the GOOD stuff - and yes I know they're not all that spectacular. I'm looking for 1 for 1 or better deals here; Angels only of course. You can see my favorite players on the main page, always like Vladdies, Torii's, etc. Also love Reggie Jacksons, Rod Carews and older players. American Heritage chromes/inserts (especially the space flight ones) are also high on my want list.

2009 Topps Heritage Chrome Parallels

C29 Rick Ankiel Refractor #197/560
C55 Russell Martin #1792/1960
C25 Scott Kazmir #1530/1960
C64 Yadier Molina #1570/1960

2008 Topps Heritage Chrome Parallels

C169 Adam Jones Refractor #063/559
C167 Brett Myers #0722/1959
C287 Greg Dobbs #203/1959

2009 Topps Chrome

78 Joe Crede refractor

2008 Topps Chrome

Copper Refractor
186 Paul Maholm #108/550

Blue Refractors
24 Ivan Rodriguez
92 Adam Dunn
132 Chipper Jones

X-Fractors
35 Mike Cameron
116 Josh Hamilton
154 Brian Bannister


Refractors
75 CC Sabathia
79 Paul Konerko
119 Cameron Maybin
145 Francisco Liriano
163 Greg Maddux
181 Matt Kemp
218 Burke Badenhop

50th Anniversary Rookies
ARC2 Ivan Rodriguez
ARC13 Matt Holiday
ARC19 Nick Markakis - Blue Refractor #191/200

Retro Inserts
TCCP16 Jacoby Ellsbury
TCCP 7 Chin-Lung Hu

Trading Card History Chromes
TCHC27 Manny Ramirez
TCHC29 Ivan Rodriguez
TCHC42 Jake Peavy
TCHC44 Matt Holiday
TCHC46 Troy Tulowitzki

Mantle Series
MMSC49

2007 Bowman Chrome

154 Chris Young Refractor

2009 Topps Heritage Retail (Target) Box Break

8 cards per pack/24 Packs per box (Packs with relics have only 7 cards)
MSRP: $2.99 per pack/
Total Cards: 191

Base Cards 166 / 425
Short Prints (1:3) 8 / 75 (Dye, Creede, Victorino, Reds Coaches, Yankees Coaches, Kearns, Jones AS, Fukudome AS)
Mayo Target Exclusive (1:4) 5 / 10 (Jones, Pedroia, Ramirez, Santana, Braun)
Chrome Parallel (1:10 #ed to 1960) 3 (Kazmir, Martin, Y. Molina)
Chrome Refractor (1: 31#ed to 560) 1 (Rick Ankiel)
New Age Performers (1:15) 2 (Tim Lincecum, Cole Hamels)
Then & Now (1:15) 2 (Friend/Halladay, Podres/Lincecum)
Baseball Flashback (1:12) 2 (Marichal, F. Robinson)
News Flashback (1:12) 1 (JFK)
Flashback Stadium Relic (1:390) 1 (Brooks Robinson)




I so rarely have the opportunity to actually purchase a blaster box of cards these days, let alone a full box, thus I don’t really post these very often. But this morning the stars, the moon and the sun all aligned properly and I managed to snag a box of Heritage for a very, very, very reasonable price. So reasonable I cannot divulge it, suffice to say, it was cheap.



Typically bloggers complain about Topps collation issues, especially in their Non-Sports sets. I have to say, I have NEVER had a box have perfect collation before today. There were NO DOUBLES in this box. None whatsoever, and with the exception of the “News Flashback” and the Mayo insert sets, I got more than my share of the standard inserts. In fact, I did a little bit better than average I think. The SPs fell perfectly every third pack. I should have gotten one more Mayo since they were supposed to fall once per four packs, but I’m not going to complain. I also should have gotten one more News Flashback given they fall two to a box. I did pull a refractor which I wasn’t guaranteed and one extra each of the New Age Performers and the Then & Now sets.





I really like the Baseball Flashbacks, so I’m glad that my relic was from that set, and it’s a pretty nice relic too. Any time your relic is a HOFer you should be pretty happy. Sure, it’s a piece of a seat from Memorial Stadium, but honestly it looks like it’s two different cuts. There’s no legalese on the card either, which is different. Looking at eBay I see that there are more than a few of them available right now, starting at less than a buck. The nice thing, however, is that there have been 10 completed single-item auctions in the last 90 days, the highest selling for $40 and the lowest selling for $11.99 with an average of about $18.50.





One last thing about the inserts is that there were 25 total inserts or SPs, which to me is great, since it averages out to at least one per pack. Problem is that they didn’t actually fall one in each pack, in two of the three packs that contained the Chrome parallels also contained a Mayo card, and at least three packs had no inserts at all.



The only real issue I had with the box is that there were a whopping THREE Angels cards. Out of 191 I got 3 Angels. That’s not nearly good enough for me. With 30 teams in MLB, one should expect at least 5 or 6 cards of any given team, but not in this box. I also didn’t pull ANY of the Super-Seven Variations, but that’s not surprising. I don’t have much luck pulling those, with the exception of the Fukudome Japanese card from last year’s UD.
I’m not planning on set building this one, though I think I’ll keep the Mayo inserts and try to build that set since it’s only 10 cards. If you’d like any of the base (besides the Angels) or any of the inserts, I’d be happy to trade for Angels, UCLA Bruins Basketball Alumni, Topps American Heritage, Indiana Jones Masterpieces or Barack Obama cards.

2 More Father's Day Packs

I was gifted with two more packs for Father's Day. OK I lie, I had to buy them for myself, but my wife let me, so it's kind of a gift. Unfortunately all I could find that I was interested in were two packs of last year's Heritage. Fortunately, they didn't suck that badly.

2007 Topps Heritage Hobby

Pack One

• 152 Jason Schmidt P Dodgers
  
• 394 Jeremy Sowers P Indians
  
• 341 Pirates Team
  
• 97 Jeff Supan P Brewers
  
• THC 74 Garret Anderson OF ANGELS! CHROME! #1314/1958
  
• 272 Moises Alou OF Mets
  
• 47 Delmon Young OF Rays RC
  
• 326 Brett Myers P Phillies
  

Well for me, this is a four star pack, but only because the 1:11 insert I pulled was one of my all-time favorite players, the seemingly immortal GA. Behind Vladdy GA is my favorite current Angel, and if I had to choose a top-10 All-Time favorite Angels, he'd be up there, probably in the top 5 (hmm...there's an idea for a later post).

Here's the bad part though, how the heck can Topps slap one of those nifty "Rookie Card" Logos on the Delmon Young card, when this isn't even his first Topps Heritage card? I thought that in order to use that logo the card had to be a true rookie card, and this one really isn't, since Young had cards dating back as far as 2003!

Pack Two

• 143 Josh Johnson P Marlins
  
• 442 Nook Logan OF Nationals
  
• 81 Stephen Drew SS D'Backs
  
• 460 Jaret Wright P Orioles
  
• 294 Miguel Batista P Mariners SP
  
• 444 Joe Mauer C Twins
  
• 327 Cubs Team
  
• 165 Garret Anderson OF ANGELS!
  

A solid three-star pack because it contains a decent insert (the Batista SP might actually sell for a couple bucks), a card that I can PROBABLY trade for a Vladdy, AND the non-chrome version of that GA Insert I pulled last pack. Plus, Nook Logan is one of the coolest baseball names I've seen in a long time. Of course, now I understand that "Nook" is a nickname for Exavier. Honestly, I'd go by either name, that's just cool.

Final Notes: Normally if I pulled two of the same player in consecutive packs I'd be pissed, but since they weren't the same card, AND since they were one of my faves, I'll be happy this time instead of sad.

Father's Day Pack - '08 Topps Heritage

My wife and I went shopping today at the Costco in Los Feliz, which is conveniently located next door to the nicest TRU that I've been to in a long time. They had a fairly well stocked card section, though no single packs of Upper Deck Baseball Series 2 or Topps Series 2. They did have blasters of the UD though, I was going to purchase one at $21.99 (remember there's a guaranteed relic), but I demurred because I found the single Indiana Jones Deluxe figure that I wanted most (Indy and his horse from Raiders. Instead I bought a single pack of '08 Topps Heritage.

2008 Topps Heritage Retail

• 169 J.J. Hardy SS Brewers
  
• 253 Justin Ruggiano OF Rays RC
  
• 166 "Destruction Crew" Indians Hitters
  
• 216 Francisco Cordero P Reds
  
• 394 Ryan Spilorghs OF Rockies
  
• 353 Jeremy Hermida OF Marlins
  
• 436 Ryan Freel OF Reds SP
  
• 23 Robinson Cano 2b Yankees
  

Well, that was a lackluster pack. The RC is worth maybe a buck, as is the SP, but I feel especially ripped off since I didn't get a black-back card, and I thought they were a one per pack insert.

I now have a whopping 94 cards towards the full 500 card set of '08 Heritage. Somehow I just don't think I'm going to make it. Ah well.