Group Case Breaks Guest Review
A growing new trend in Sports card collecting is the Team Case Break. A few months ago, people started buying cases of products like 2007 Bowman Draft, and selling off all of the cards from each team, with price depending on the content of each team’s checklist. They have been very successful apart from one very messy situation, but not every product is made for great breaks for many teams.
As 2008 came to a close, three major prospect-driven products released within weeks of each other, and the case breaks started to be offered. Andrew aka All In Cards was responsible for the majority of them. Running a case break seems like it would be the best of both world – you get the thrill of ripping all of the packs, with none of the financial worries about “What if I don’t get my money back?”. You already have the whole thing paid for in advance.
I had a case of Bowman Draft coming in, thanks to the live.com discount, but had no plans for busting Donruss Elite or Razor Signature Series. I decided to take part in case breaks of all three products to compare the random nature of the products and the case breaks.
For all three of the breaks, Andrew changed the format a little bit from earlier attempts; he charged a flat fee, and then randomly assigned the teams. Donruss Elite was the first product up – $35 was the buy-in. I was chosen to receive the San Francisco Giants. I was thrilled with this selection.
November 26, Thanksgiving eve was the Elite night. After not being able to get the break live on a video conference, he went to the backup plan of breaking each box and scanning the hits. Box two gave me a Gold Roger Kieschnick die-cut /25 (non-auto). Not too bad, but I didn’t want the Giants for Kieschnick. Box five and six each have a Porcello in them, so that’s looking nice for whoever got the Tigers. Earlier in the day, I had opened three boxes of Bowman Draft that were shorted autographs. I’d hit nothing besides the Gold parallel yet in this case, I was in need of sleep, and had an early day to start the holiday. I wussed out and went to bed.
I wake up, and while my wife is in the shower, I just check to see how bad the last 4 boxes were for me. Things improved greatly. Box eight gave me a Waldis Joaquin auto, a Roger Kieschnick auto patch, and a Buster Posey/Tony Thomas dual auto /20. Box nine gave me another Kieschnick auto patch, and a Buster Posey die-cut /150. The final box, Box ten gives me a Posey auto patch. Needless to say, I felt much better, and that my $35 was well spent.
Next up was the Bowman Draft case. $30 was the cost for this one. I actually didn’t get in until the third case, because the first two were so popular. This time, the drawing gives me Cleveland. That gives me Chisenhall on the auto checklist, LaPorta on the prospect checklist, and I don’t even know what else. This wasn’t the best team to hit, but I just went with it.
This one was able to be broadcast live on Ustream on Monday, December eighth. I had a road game with my basketball team, and after having to wait for all of the parents to pick up their kids, I didn’t get home until after 2 boxes had been opened. Box three gave me a Chisenhall base auto. The next 9 boxes were nothing for me, but if you had the Marlins, you were sitting pretty. The Mets, Brewers and Rays also had solid hauls.
Razor was right on the heels of Draft. Tuesday night was the team draw, even though Andrew was the only one that got to see it, while the rest of us on Ustream saw a blank grey screen. But when the teams were revealed, I had the Pittsburgh Pirates – complete with #2 pick Pedro Alvarez. Back to being stoked!
Wednesday night was the rip. Ten boxes, ten autos per box, so there were ample opportunities for everyone to come out with something. Myself, I had five guys on the checklist. Box one gave me Robbie Grossman. Box four gave me an unnumbered Pedro Alvarez. And that was it. It’s hard to say who the real winners were, as Razor neglected to print on the card which team drafted the player, and I haven’t taken the time to research them all. But the case had some great hits on the /199 cards, but there were zero of the /25 or /5 autos. The real winner of the night was Andrew and his sweet shirt. The only real negative on the night were the trolls on the chat board.
Also, as of my writing, I have received the contents of the Elite break. I’m pretty sure people don’t mail out fine china with this much care and protection. Everything Andrew has done is first-class. There are a lot of positives about these breaks if you have even the slightest gambler in you, then you should get in on one of these.
Editors notes:
I just wanted to throw something in to suggest people get in on Andrew’s breaks if they have a chance. We also would like to begin doing some breaks of this nature here on The Card Podcast. We can’t rely on companies sending free product to us to review, so feel this would be a great way to get a comprehensive review of the products at little cost to our site.