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Group Break: Time for the Stadium Club Box! (Mini Box #2)

Yesterday, I showed off the first (of three) mini boxes from the 2014 Topps Stadium Club group break.  In that box, we scored a number of great base cards plus the usual inserts and an autograph.  How will box #2 compare?

Hint:  It's better!

Let's jump right in...but first, let me remind you that I do have all three mini boxes on video as I opened them.  I will post the videos after I post all three posts with the pretty pictures!

Alright, now we can take a look at mini box #2.

Our rookie selection wasn't as good as mini box #1 (this time around we had Travis d'Arnaud (Mets), Jon Singleton (Giants), and Wilmer Flores (Mets)).  Actually, Keith would probably disagree with me and say this box was much better in terms of rookie card output thanks to his Mets having two rookies!

What I can say was good (once again) was the base cards.

As with my last post, let's go through the selected base cards one at a time.

The first card that caught my eye was the Todd Helton "send off" card.  I know a bunch of people like cards like this (including me) - and this is definitely one of the better ones.  I love the view of the fans as part of the shot (and the "Helton Rocks" sign).

The Salvador Perez card is simply a great dugout shot.  I wouldn't want a full set of images like this but having a few scattered about is perfect!

The Freddie Freeman is a great looking celebratory shot (even if the star of the show seems to be Kelly Johnson).  I am curious who the short dude is on the left side of the card who looks like he just dropped a deuce in his underwear.

The fourth base card of note is the oft-talked about David Ortiz "selfie" with Barack Obama.  Sure, the selfie may have been a staged stunt set-up by Samsung, but still, it's an awesome card with a unique image!  I can't think of any selfie image on a baseball card before this one...and certainly not one with the President of the United States.

The next two images that caught my eye were similar - but I couldn't choose which I liked more so I scanned them both.  Each is a pitcher for the Red Sox...each is sitting down...and each seems to exude the player's personality.  For Pedro Martinez, it's a fun loving image full of laughs and most definitely not serious.  For Roger Clemens, it's a serious shot where the focus of the shot (the baseball with 20Ks scrawled on it) is all about himself.  Clemens may be self-centered but at least this is a neat card!

The final base card of note was the Dominic Brown being interviewed card.  We actually pulled this card in the other group break I did involving Stadium Club but I still like the card so I'm showing it again!

Now that the base cards are out of the way (though to me they are the star of the show), let's look at the inserts & parallels.

I'll show them in order of my personal preference beginning with this rainbow parallel of Max Scherzer of the Detroit Tigers.

I'm simply not a fan of the rainbow parallels - they are too difficult to discern from the regular base cards.  I think the rainbow foil should have been used on all the base cards...or dropped entirely.  It's a lame parallel.  That said, hopefully Chris G. is happy since it is a nice Tigers card!

It's definitely not the best Tigers card from the mini box but more on that in a moment.

For now, let's take a look at an insert for the Rays.

This is one of the die-cut Future Stars cards.  I'm simply not much of a fan but the ice blue look does look good with the Ray's uniform.  This is one of the nicer Future Stars cards that I've seen.

In my estimation, the next insert of note is actually the hit from the box.

That's a Jake Marisnick on card autograph for the Miami Marlins.  This is the fourth Marlins autograph I've pulled from 2014 Stadium Club...and I've only opened 2 2/3 hobby boxes to date.  That's got to be some sort of record (and not a good one).  That said, Caitlin scores the autograph since she claimed the Marlins in a savvy move (she must have realized my knack for pulling fish autographs)!

That leaves us with three cards that I happen to like better than our autograph.  Who or what are they?

First up, this Luminous insert of Adam Jones of the Baltimore Orioles.

The Luminous die-cuts are the most common form of Triumvirate die-cuts but I happen to like them just the same.  In fact, if this set featured any Reds at all I'd probably try to track down the entire thing.  Unfortunately for me, no Reds are present.  Still, a big congrats to Brent who has the Orioles.

Next up, a gorgeous Ken Griffey Jr. Field Access card.

Junior Junkie claimed the Mariners with (I'm assuming) the hope that I'd pull a card like this for him.  He's just lucky that Topps didn't find a sweet unused image of Griffey Jr. in a Reds uniform!

Finally, we get to what I consider the star of the mini box - and maybe the entire box.

That's a Ty Cobb foilboard (?) parallel seeded 1:11 mini boxes!  Even better, on the back the card is numbered 03/25!

A huge congrats to Chris G. for that one.  Trust me, it looks much nicer in person than it does in the scan!

That's it for mini box #2.  We still have one more mini box to go which I can assure holds our rarest autograph of the box.  Will there be anything else of note in that box?  You'll have to wait and see.  Once I get that box scanned and posted, I'll post the videos for all three mini box breaks as well - hopefully the sheer brilliance of some of the shiny cards will show through better on the video than they do in the scans.

Stay tuned for more!

Comments

  1. Anonymous8:19 PM

    I actually really like the Marlins. I hope there's a Stanton coming.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That Cobb is SWEET! Let's hope my luck holds in the High Tek boxes..

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jazzed for that Helton base card!

    ReplyDelete

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