2022 Garbage Pail Kids Book Worms

 Hello. I've opened quite a few packs of this hoping to put together a set of this. 

Here is one pack of this newish set. FWIW this pack was from one of the toy aisle mega box.

These cards are pretty self-explanatory; 100 a cards, and 100 b cards with a few inserts thrown in.

 

Didn't pull any cards from the Gross Adaptations insert set, but I did pull a Booger Green parallel card.

 

 Couldn't find much better a candidate than Snot Jam ANNE.

These come one in every pack.

I also bull the b card of Green MAUREEN. That would've been a good green parallel too.

 

I've always liked the artwork on these GPK cards. Literary themes are cool.

The cool thing about GPK is that the basic logo and font hasn't changed in 40ish years.

The gross out humor also hasn't changed much either.

Levar Burton puking out a literal reading rainbow is great. 

2022 Topps Archives Signature Series: Retired Player Edition Baseball

As a Hall-of-Famer here at APTBNL (read: mild sarcasm), I pride myself in my posting of the epic, weird, stupid, gross, and exciting pack breaks.

Every year I buy a few boxes of Topps Archives Signature Series: Retired Player Edition. Each box has 1 autographed card, in a one-touch magnetic sealed case. Each card is a buyback, serial numbered and signed on-card by a retired player.

I have pulled everyone from Mike Lieberthal and Jose Rijo to Reggie Jackson and Bob Gibson through the years.

Now, I thought, I could just open one box for you. But then you would have just one card, and that would be kind of dull. There are no packs, just boxes with a single card in each.

It wouldn't really be a "pack break" if I did 3 boxes.

So I decided, for YOU, our readers, to sacrifice my hard earned money and buy a CASE of this product. (And definitely not because I have been itching to do it for years or anything)

So here's 20 cards, 20 boxes, 20 packs, of 2022 Topps Archives Signature Series: Retired Player Edition Baseball. A Case To Be Named Later.

(Yes, I scanned this myself. It wasn't easy)

So, what shall we find? 20 Steve Balbonis? A dual auto of bloodied Nolan Ryan and Robin Ventura?

Box 1:

Starting off of a Bill Mazeroski Auto, capturing his most famous moment, one of the most famous walk-off home runs in baseball... so famous, in fact, that it wasn't even called it a walk-off home run yet. This is a 2012 Topps Buyback, 24/46

Box 2:

Another Pirate! This one, the legendary leadoff catcher Jason Kendall. This is a 1998 Topps Buyback, 28/42.

Dave Magadan, perhaps a modest career as a player but had a big role in the 2007 Red Sox World Series win as a coach. This is a 1992 Topps Buyback, 02/81.

Here we have Andrew Jones, one of the great Superstation-era Braves. This is a 2005 Topps Updates Highlights Buyback, 01/34.

Next up is Steve Finley of the Arizona Diamondbacks as depicted on a 2004 Topps Cracker Jack Buyback, 21/32.

And here we have BBHOF Braves Legend Orlando Cepeda. This is on a 2016 Allen & Ginter Buyback, 09/31.

Moving the clock ahead, here is Rafael Furcal on 2010 Topps Update Buyback. 02/73.

A man who will likely enter the BBHOF as a Manager, Dusty Baker. Back in 1982 his PPE was a flapless batting helmet. Nowadays you can see him sporting a New-Era mask. This is a 1982 Topps Buyback 05/25.

Here is my first 1/1, Scott Rolen on a 2006 Allen & Ginter Buyback. Nice Card. 

Shawn Green appears on this 2007 Bowman Buyback, our 2nd 1/1 today. 

Angels HOFer Garret Anderson appears here on this 2002 Topps Gallery Buyback Auto, 10/15.

Twins Fan-Favorite Justin Morneau appears on a 2012 Allen & Ginter Buyback, 01/47.

Here we have Shannon Stewart's 1996 Topps Rookie Card Buyback, 29/99. 

Just a few more... More HOFers? Balboni? Don Mossi? Stomper? What are we gonna get?

Ah, a nice 1985 Topps Buyback featuring the legendary Tommy John, albeit in a uniform you aren't used to seeing him in. 02/53.

 

Next up is Ken Griffey (Sr.) in action, 1982 Topps Buyback. 51/99. I liked that we got a lot of 1982 Topps, given that it has been exactly 40 years since that set came out. 

One of my all-time faves, should be in Cooperstown, Luis Tiant, in a completely unusual uniform. "Pirate" is not how one typically imagines El Tiante. This is a 1982 Topps Buyback 43/99.

Whether he ends up in the Hall or not is about politics not achievements, and Gary Sheffield had a Hall of Fame career. This 2006 Topps Heritage Buyback is numbered 12/18.

And another (newer) BBHOFer, Jim Kaat, depicted here on a 1982 Topps Buyback 66/99.

I feel like I have been chasing Fergie forever with no luck. Here is his 1983 Topps Buyback 09/14. Gorgeous card.

And finally...

A 1983 Topps All-Star Set Buyback of Oriole Legend and BBHOFer Jim Palmer. 13/19.

This was a fun case break. What do you think?

2005 Topps Total Hobby

 

It's been about thirteen years since we saw a 2005 Topps Total pack posted here. This one is technically different in that it's a hobby pack. I picked up a few of these for a reasonable price at a card show recently. Let's see what we have here.

31 - Brandon Claussen - The first card isn't exactly a household name, but we don't exactly get to pick and choose here.

198 - Victor Santos - Topps Total got some flack back in the day for being, well, boring. They did give you full color backs complete with a few bullet points about the player in lieu of full stats.

98 - Jason Jennings - Jennings was considered one of the best pitchers in the Rockies rotation even though he carried an ERA north of 5.00 in most years.

AW27 - David Ortiz Total Award Winner - It's not always base card time with Topps Total as they occasionally throw an insert at you.

305 - Kerry Wood Silver - From a Hall of Famer to a Hall of Could've Been, this is a one-per-pack "silver" parallel.

642 - Carlos Hernandez / Brandon Duckworth - Minor leaguers and prospects were often forced to share cards like this one.

714 - Ryan Howard / Greg Golson - Ryan Howard certainly graduated quickly from prospect to league force.

340 - Victor Martinez - Martinez was always a guy you wanted to look to draft in fantasy leagues when I first started playing, as he played an offensively-starved position.

704 - Fred Lewis / Nate Schierholtz - Here's a couple of future Giants.

336 - Brady Clark - Here's the rare baseball card that features nothing but dirt.

TTC20 - Eric Chavez Team Checklist - The last card of the pack isn't included in the card count at all as Topps would have considered it a checklist. These days, even an ad inserted into a pack counts as a "card" -- just look at last year's Allen & Ginter set.

2022 Topps Now Card Of The Month - July

Greetings!

Hope everyone is doing well.  So whenever you buy something from the Topps website, you get a certain amount of points that can be applied to future purchases.  I guess they expire after a while, because as my birthday approached I got an e-mail telling me to use them or lose them.  I looked for the cheapest baseball-related thing on the site and stumbled across the Topps Now Card of the Month.  I had enough points to get July's card.  

You don't know who the card subject is until you get it...at least the player wasn't listed on the site when I chose it, and I didn't go back to Topps later to see if they revealed the player.  The print run is also limited to (I assume) the number of orders for the card.

I got the card from Topps in a padded envelope earlier in the week, and since I haven't come across a post in the blogosphere from a collector who has gotten one before, I figured I should document my addition.

The padded envelope contained the above Topps Now envelope.  The envelope was also covered in padding.

I opened up the envelope after popping some of those padding bubbles (admit it, you'd do it too).  The card came in a small snap case, and had one of those felt pieces in with the card to cushion it against the case.  Who is the subject of the July Card of the Month?

#M-July - Julio Rodriguez

Here's the back.  Sorry for all the glare from the Topps coating on the card:

My kid was pretty excited to see it since he was impressed with Julio's Home Run Derby performance:

Anyway, that's the card.  Cardboard Connection has a list of the Cards of the Month released so far as well as their print runs.  If I remember, I'll update this post with July's print run.

Have a safe Labor Day weekend, and thanks for reading!

8/31/22 Update:  A couple of hours after I published the post, I got an e-mail from Topps informing me that they have been made aware of the missing RC logo on the Julio card and will be sending a corrected version soon.  Woo, two cards for July because Hot Rookiez!

2021-22 Panini NBA Hoops Winter

With a wrapper that's virtually indistinguishable from its counterpart, the NBA Hoops Winter edition is essentially the same set as your usual Hoops, with a few design variances. I think this is only available in retail (Blaster) configuration. If you strike at the right time, you can usually find these online early in basketball card season, whenever that is.  Let's check out one of the blaster packs.

68 - Otto Porter Jr. - These look just like the regular Hoops cards, and are often mistaken as such in trades. The key differences are the "snowy" background (the top of the card must be the snow cloud (?), which adds a spooky layer to the masked coach standing in the background of this one) and the gold foil printing (instead of silver).

122 - Boban Marjanovic - You might recognize these guys from those insurance commercials. Why are there so many insurance commercials? How often in a lifetime does someone make a major insurance purchasing decision?

108 - Tyrese Haliburton - I always like photos that use this angle on basketball cards. You don't see that nearly enough on Panini's basketball products. There's so much action in the game and so little of it captured on cards.

51 - Monte Morris - If you're a collector of cards with cardboard cutouts in the background, then this is the card for you. People have all sorts of interesting collections!

163 - Caris LeVert - Here's some action! Even the bottom of the net makes an apperance.

7 - Paul George Skyview - The inserts also get the Winter treatment. It's a bit tougher to see the snow in the background of these, but the gold foil is a dead giveaway.

215 - Day'Ron Sharpe - Each blaster yielded two rookie cards, as opposed to the single rookie card in each pack from the regular Hoops product. I don't know why this is or if the rookies are actually double-printed in the Winter set, but I wasn't complaining.

235 - Franz Wagner - The snow definitely adds an additional layer of cheesiness to the already cheesy Photo Day shots on these rookie cards.