All-Topps Community Break Sign-Up Is Now Open!!

I’ve teased it long enough. It’s finally time.

This is going to be the biggest Break I’ve ever done and it still won’t break the bank for you. How does 11 boxes covering 10 products throughout 8 years sound? The break is going to be all Topps all the time, but not in the way you may be thinking.

In this break you won’t find any Topps flagship, no Chrome, no Bowman, and no Stadium Club. We’re going to venture into the deep, dark recesses of the less explored boxes. I did manage to sneak in a Gallery, a Finest and a Total in there, so it’s not all unfamiliar. Let’s take a look at the massive damage we’ll be doing.

All of these boxes are in hand and courtesy of our good friends and Community Break Sponsor: BASEBALL CARD EXCHANGE

THE Place to find older wax

I’m sure most of you are familiar with their store and ebay account, but if not, you have to give them a look. That banner ad isn’t lying about their inventory size. You’ll be amazed at the depth they have in stock.

So, what did I pick up from BBCE? Let’s take a look!

Die Cut madness. A bargain at 10% of the price

1996 Laser Series 1 – 24 packs/box, 4 cards/pack = 96 cards

For those that aren’t aware, this is an all-die cut product. Some of them will be very intricate and crazy looking.

Inserts:
Bright Spots – 1:20 packs
Power Cuts – 1:40 packs
Stadium Stars – 1:60 packs

Also obtained for much less than sticker price

1996 Laser Series 2 – 24 packs/box, 4 cards/pack = 96 cards

Inserts:
Bright Spots – 1:20 packs
Power Cuts – 1:40 packs
Stadium Stars – 1:60 packs

5 sets in 1 - kind of

1999 Topps Stars – 24 packs/box, 6 cards/pack = 144 cards

For those of you interested in serially numbered cards, this could be a nice box for you. I like our chances on the rookie reprint, too.

Parallels:
Base – 1:15 (#/299) – full 180 card set parallel
One star – 1:33 (#/249) – only cards 1-100
Two star – 1:82 (#/199) – only cards 1-50
Three star – 1:410 (#/82) – only cards 1-20
Four star – 1:650 (#/49) – only cards 1-10

Inserts:
Bright Futures – 1:41 (#/1,999)
Bright Futures Foil – 1:2,702 (#/30)
Galaxy – 1:41 (#/1,999)
Galaxy Foil – 1:2,702 (#/30)
Rookie Reprints – 1:65 (#/2,500) (Frank Robinson, Ernie Banks, Yogi Berra, Bob Gibson, Tom Seaver)
Rookie Reprints Autographs – 1:406 for everyone except Banks, which is 1:812

That uncut sheet mentioned on the box is expired, of course

2000 Gold Label – 24 packs/box, 5 cards/pack = 120 cards

Never tell me the odds. Actually, please do tell me the odds, because I couldn’t find them. They may be on the pack wrappers, but I’d have to open the box to find that. Obviously I can’t do that yet.

Parallels (couldn’t find any info about the odds):
Class 1 Gold Die Cut – (#/100)
Class 2 –
Class 2 Gold Die Cut – (#/100)
Class 3 –
Class 3 Gold Die Cut – (#/100)

Inserts:
Bullion – 1:53
End of the Rainbow – 1:11
Prospector’s Dream – 1:26
The Treasury – 1:21

Only 30 people in this set, but tons of variations of those players.

2000 Tek – 20 packs/box, 4 cards/pack = 80 cards

Many people hate this set. I say, why not throw it in the mix? Team and player collectors will still begrudgingly accept them. At least you have 10 other boxes of cards to take the focus away from crazy plastic parallels galore.

Parallels:
Patterns 16-20 – 1:10
Gold – odds unknown (#/10)

Inserts:
ArchiTEKs – 1:5
DramaTEK Performers – 1:10
TEKtonics – 1:30

Our first guaranteed hit

2001 Fusion – 24 packs/box, 5 cards/pack = 120 cards

This box combines the best of 5 worlds. I don’t know exactly how this will work, but it sounded interesting enough. As you can kind of see, they use the designs for Bowman’s Best, Finest, Gallery, Gold Label and Stadium Club.

As you can also see, there is an autographed card in here somewhere. There are some relic cards (feature), but can’t assume nothin’ there.

Inserts:
Autographs – 1:23
Feature – 1:51
Double Feature – couldn’t find odds

We missed the artwork auction by about 10.5 years.

2001 Gallery – PUJOLS RC possible – 24 packs/box, 6 cards/pack = 144 cards

ICHIRO RC IS AN EXPIRED REDEMPTION CARD
Each Hit category has potential expired redemption

Inserts:
Autographs – 1:232 (Ankiel expired redemption, Bonds, Burrell, Adrian Gonzalez, A-Rod, Ivan Rodriguez)
Baseball Bucks – 1:102 (Johnny Bench only)
Heritage – 1:12 (McCovey, Griffey, Cepeda, Pedro)
Heritage Relic – 1:133 (Cepeda, Pedro, McCovey)
Heritage Auto Relic – (#/25) (Cepeda expired redemption, McCovey)
Star Gallery – 1:8
Originals Relics – 1:133
Press Plates – 1:1,200
Team Topps Legends Autographs – 1:286 (Gil McDougald, Andy Pafko, Frank Robinson, Herb Score, Luis Tiant)

as

2002 Archives Reserves – 10 packs/box, 4 cards/pack = 40 cards + 1 AUTOGRAPHED BALL

I’m excited about this box, even though I’ll be keeping absolutely none of it. We are guaranteed 1 Auto’d ball, 1 Autographed card and 2 Relic cards, all of legends. Gotta love that.

Autographed Ball: Guaranteed (Aparicio, Banks, Berra, Brock, Bunning, G. Carter, Gossage, Jenkins, Kaline, Killebrew, Joe Morgan, Nettles, Palmer, Perry, Brooks Robinson, Schmidt, Snider, Winfield, Yount)
Best Years Autographs – 1:15 (Aparicio, Banks, Berra, Brock, Carter, Jenkins, Kaline, Killebrew, WILLIE MAYS, Joe Morgan, Nettles, Perry, Brooks Robinson, Schmidt, Lee Smith, Snider, Yount)
Best Years Game-Used Bat – 1:22 (Aaron, Brett, Cepeda, Fisk, Maris, Mathews, Mattingly, Munson, Yaz)
Best Years Game-Worn Uni – 1:7 (Banks, Bench, Boggs, Carter, Will Clark, Nellie Fox, Gwynn, Marichal, Mays, Puckett, B. Robinson, Nolan Ryan, Schoendienst, Stargell, Yount)
Team Topps Legends Autographs – (Gossage, Nettles, Palmer, Perry)

In case you weren't sick of Finest yet

2003 Finest -6 packs/mini box, 3 mini boxes/master box, 5 cards/pack = 90 cards +10th Anniversary Uncirculated Parallel Card

Guaranteed to have 3 relics and 2 autographs from what I read online. The box only guarantees 3 either/or. We’ll see I guess. There are some retired player autos in here as well, which is cool. I didn’t even know about the uncirculated pack in there. Some of those are autographed as well. I’m even more excited to rip this now.

Refractors – 1:6
X-Fractors – odds unknown #/99
X-Fractors Gold – 1 per master box, uncirculated/slabbed (#/199)

Bat Relics – 1:6
Moments Autographs – unknown odds
Team Topps Legends Autograph -unknown odds
Uniform Relics – unknown odds

Back by Popular Demand?

2004 Total – 36 packs/box, 10 cards/pack = 360 cards

I don’t know if this needs more explaining. Felix Hernandez, Y Molina, D Navarro, Ervin Santana are the key RCs, in case you were wondering.

Silver Parallel – 1:1
Press Plates – odds unknown
Autographs – 1:414 (no recognizable names except Cole Hamel which may not exist)
Total Award Winners – 1:12
Total Production – 1:18
Total Topps – 1:7

Bonds in the darkness

2005 Turkey Red – 24 packs/box, 8 cards/pack = 192 cards

People love Turkey Red, so I’m giving the people what they love. I don’t know if we’re to be expecting a hit here, once again I couldn’t find any odds. There will be several parallels, though. Verlander, Butler, Kinsler, Melky are the key RCs

Short Prints – 1:4

Parallels:
Red – odds unknown but should be more common than white. maybe 1:2?
White – 1:4
Black – 1:20
Gold – #/50
Suede – 1/1

Autographs – odds unknown (Crawford, Ortiz, Pedroia, Mariano, Sheffield, Soriano and a bunch of scrubs)
B-18 Boxloaders – (Clemens, Bonds, Jeter, Helton, A-Rod, Schilling, Soriano, Ichiro)
Cabinet Boxloaders – 1:box (Bonds, GW Bush, Randy J., Piazza, Pujols, Ramirez, A-Rod, Rolen, Santana, Sosa, Taft, Tejada, Thome, George Washington)
Cabinet Auto Relics – same checklist #/5 to #/450
Relics – odds unknown (similar player checklist, also with a bunch of scrubs)

And there you have it. A ton of good stuff encompassing all kinds of Topps craziness. We’re guaranteed at least 7 hits, but it could be a couple more than that. Hopefully my luck from the Fleer break carries over to this one.
RULES OF THE BREAK

Sign-ups
Now that you know what’s all included,here’s how it’ll all work. I’m going to keep sign-up open until October 21st for people to join and buy up a team. After that,I’ll just keep whatever teams are left and hopefully trade them off for more quality stuff.

Cost of the Break
The cost for each team will vary this time for a couple reasons. 1) I want to make it a little more fair to the people buying the normally unfilled teams. 2) We have a lot of classic players in a couple of these boxes including an autograph, plus there’s the possibility for a Pujols rookie, and those situations should be reflected in the pricing. The pricing is now in four Levels (which will also pay for the shipping).

Level 1 is accounting for Pujols possibility and Yankee dominance in Topps products. The rest of the levels are based on when the team originally formed (taken and slightly modified from I Am Joe Collector’s system). There are four teams that don’t fit into their natural levels because I’ll be keeping some of the cards for my personal collections.

Braves: (I’ll be keeping the Greg Maddux cards –back to the Cubs in 2003)
Cubs: (I’ll be keeping any Maddux, Ryan Dempster and Kerry Wood cards)
Padres: (I’ll be keeping the Tony Gwynn cards –retired after 2001)
White Sox: (I’ll be keeping the Frank Thomas cards –with the White Sox the entire run of these boxes)

Since we’re opening 11 boxes total, even at the highest level it works out to approximately $3 shipped per box opened. Not too shabby, right? But you can earn yourselves a discount! I would love to fill this one up, so if you promote this on your blog, you get $2 off! Just leave a comment with the link (after you claim is perfectly fine).

**BONUS OFFER**
If we do fill up each and every slot, I’ll throw in a box of 1999 Topps Tek to make it an even dozen boxes at no additional charge!

I’m also going to institute a two team maximum for now, but the second team you claim is $3 less. If it’s still out of your price range, perhaps I’ll accept cards as additional payment to make up the difference. All I’m saying is go ahead and claim now and payment is secondary until we get closer to the deadline.

Fine Print
I reserve the right to reduce the price for unclaimed teams as the deadline approaches, or allow people to claim more than 2 teams at that time.
Any cards featuring multiple teams will be given to the team without a hit, or randomed off between those teams if neither/both have a hit. Any cards featuring no team will be randomed amongst all teams without a hit.
If it’s between me and someone else,the someone else gets it (the only exception is if it’s one of my player collection guys, which I will take and compensate you for in other ways).
If some other unforeseen circumstance arises,we’ll take a community vote as to how it should be handled.

Video
The box breaks will be done on video where you can see the cards and not my ugly mug. I doubt I’ll be able to swing a UStream, but you never know. I’ll be during the day on a weekday, so most people wouldn’t be able to watch anyway. I’ll keep you posted.

Payment Due Date
******Payment is due on the closing date of October 23rd. Paypal is cracking down on “gift” payments, so feel free to send it as “goods” to avoid the hassle. This is coming from my own pocket (not the business, so please send it to:djibuti80 at yahoo dot com (or email me through our communitygum at gmail address to arrange something else). I will be breaking these on video on October 26 during the day and uploading the results and scans hopefully shortly after that, so payment must be in before that for sure.*******

Enough yammering, claim your teams!

Special Circumstances are Level 1 — $34.00

New York Yankees – Baseball Card Hall of Fame (PAID)
St. Louis Cardinals – Cards on Cards (PAID)

Any other teams older than 1961 are Level 2 — $28.00

Baltimore Orioles – Hobb’s Knights (PAID)
Boston Red Sox – Summa Cum Lousy (PAID)
Cincinnati Reds – Jason C (PAID)
Cleveland Indians – Baseball Dad (PAID)
Detroit Tigers – Grand Cards (PAID)
Los Angeles Dodgers – Stealing Home (PAID)
Minnesota Twins –
Oakland Athletics –
Philadelphia Phillies – Daddyoho (PAID)
Pittsburgh Pirates –
San Francisco Giants – Cheap Card Collecting (PAID)

Any team started between 1961 to 1976 are Level 2 — $25.00

Anaheim Angels –
*Atlanta Braves – Colbey (flywheels) (PAID)
Houston Astros –
Kansas City Royals –
Milwaukee Brewers –
Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals –
New York Mets – (…Joe) (PAID)
Texas Rangers – Play At the Plate (PAID)

Any team newer than 1976 are Level 3 — $22.00

Arizona Diamondbacks – Alec (PAID)
*Chicago Cubs –
*Chicago White Sox –
Colorado Rockies – Cards From the Quarry (PAID)
Florida Marlins –
*San Diego Padres –
Seattle Mariners – Baseball Card Hall of Fame (TRADED/PAID)
Tampa Bay Devil Rays –
Toronto Blue Jays – Dave (PAID)

*Teams with asterisk, please see above for details on which cards I’m keeping for myself

The All-Topps Community Break is open! Tell your friends and leave a comment if you’re in and for what team. Also feel free to call dibs on teams for trading if no one picks it up.

Ready????? BREAK!!!