Completed sets: 2014 Topps Olympics

Back on Tuesday you saw a trade post that included three cards I needed for my 2014 Topps Olympic Hopefuls and etc. set; today I'm showing off the last nine I needed, courtesy of an eBay you pick-type purchase.  It set me back $5 delivered for these nine (and one more, since the auction was for 10), and that may seem high, but I landed every last card I needed from one source, and I still think it was the best option.  So here's the nine I was missing:

Aaron was the relic from my second blaster, you might recall.  Deneen's card features the best photo of the lot.  And Hilary Knight is a total babe, hence one of the tags for this post, "Hilary Knight is a total babe."  Finally, Maia Shibutani is the sister and skating partner of fellow Wolverine Alex, meaning I now have all four Michigan alumni from the set (Meryl Davis and Charlie White were the others).

I'm happy to have knocked off the set not THAT long after the games ended, and I'm hoping a few years down the line it'll server as a reminder of how much I enjoyed this year's Winter Olympics.  As a reminder, I still have a decent number of doubles and inserts available for trade, but if nobody wants them I may just send them off to COMC to see what happens.

2014 trade package #10: JV's in play thanks to Doc Holoday

Well why not, we already had four in a row, so how about five?  Today's package comes from Red Sox fan Matt, a.k.a. DocHoloday.  Matt worked on the same 2014 Topps Olympic set as I did, and he was able to provide me with a quarter of the cards on that wantlist:

None of these ladies won a medal this time around, but Bleiler is still very well-known, and I'm happy to add the trio to my set.  Spoiler alert:  I have the rest coming via eBay soon.

So that's what kicked off this deal, but little did I know that Matt would also be throwing in some Tigers:

We start things off with 40% of this year's rotation.  I'm glad to be building a bit of a Smyly collection, so the Gold is a nice addition, and is numbered 0135/2013.  As for Anibal, you saw the Blue version yesterday, which is the same insert as the middle Smyly.  Next up is a pair of Gypsy Queen HOFers:  Hal Newhouser (which is an SP) and Ty Cobb.  Last is a trio of prospects--erstwhile Tiger Avisail Garcia, IF prospect Harold Castro, and closer hopeful Bruce Rondon.

And then there were the Verlanders, of which there weren't too many because I didn't die in a valiant attempt to scan them all.  Still, it was an above-average number of Verlanders, and I would give it an "A" on a report card that solely graded number of Verlanders in a trade package.  Here they are:

The GQ No-Hitters card appropriately celebrates his pair of no-nos while the Topps insert highlights his earlier postseason scoreless streak.  Next, the Bowman Platinum cards make a nice pair.  But the most enjoyable is the A&G Hometown Heroes card, because Verlander's birthplace, Manakin Sabot, is located in a county in Virginia called Goochland, which includes a place named Rochambeau Farm.  All of a sudden I'm hearing banjo music for some reason....

Oh yeah, there was one more Verlander in the package:

Justin Verlander 2013 Topps Manufactured Patch

Whoa, cool!  It's a manupatch reprint of JV's 2005 Topps RC.  Topps has ramped up both the reprint and manu-relic concepts the last few years, so this was a natural fusion.  It's a fun card I like because cards designed with that display window kind of thing have that little something extra going for them.  In some ways, stuff like this is even better than team logo patches--especially the ugly-ass ones that awkwardly try to shoehorn team mascots in.  This was definitely a surprise and I'm happy to add it to my JV PC.

Thanks again for the set help, Matt, and for the surprise extras as well!  I'll have you know that I have a Boston-flavored return package 99% ready (pending a COMC pickup) to send your way soon to show my thanks.  Folks, twirl your old-timey handlebar mustaches as you head on over to DocHoloday!

One more Topps Olympic blaster

After grabbing a fun blaster of 2014 Topps Olympic Team and yadda yadda yadda last weekend, I picked up one more at Meijer on Friday for my final February purchase.  I had 15% off, making the price a slightly more reasonable $18.70, and I thought it would be worth taking a stab at completing the set while also scoring more trade bait or stuff to sell.

I'll spoil the fun upfront by saying that the one I picked this time couldn't live up to last week's, though that's not a huge surprise since that one went so well for me.  I also didn't complete the set or pick up anything all that big, but I still enjoyed the break.  Here's how I did:

Inserts:

Eight more Bronze parallels.  I once again pulled that many in seven packs, so, so far so good.  Jones is probably the most well-known here and was a decent pull.

Silvers, Gold, and others.  This time I won the coin flip by pulling four Silvers instead of three.  By the way, that Deneen is a great shot from what was easily one of my favorite events this year!  My one Gold, Geopper, was the Bronze winner in the US sweep of men's slopestyle, which rocked.  The Olympic Heritage card celebrating the 2006 Turin games is my first from that set, while I pulled another "Games" card of Bronze-medalist luger Erin Hamlin.

The hit (just one this time!):

After the auto/three-color relic combo I pulled last time, this was a bit of a letdown for me, but still not terrible since it's not a plain white swatch.  Aaron is apparently quite accomplished in the sport, though hasn't participated in the Olympics.

The base:

Finally, I ended up with 27 new base cards I needed (out of 61, so not bad), putting me just 12 cards short of the set:  1 7 11 17 24 33 47 51 62 74 75 85.

I also now have these doubles to trade (as well as everything else I've pulled):  3 4 8 9 10 15 18 21 26 29 30 39 42 48 49 53 57 58 59 61 65 67 68 69 76 80 82 84 87 90 94 97 100.

If any of you would like to do any trading, please let me know!

Blaster break: 2014 Topps US Olympic & Paralympic Team and Hopefuls

Since I had some "free" Meijer money to play with (rewards programs are great!), I made an increasingly rare decision to pick up a retail blaster, but only a very specific one:

I'd seen some fun breaks of this year's Olympics set, the hits look fun, plus there's a nice Michigan connection thanks to the presence of five Wolverine figure skaters in Sochi.  For a typical blaster price of about $22, you get seven packs of 10 cards and a guaranteed hit, which can be an autograph, relic, one of two types of manupatch, or a pin.  My goal was to pick up some of skater Meryl Davis' stuff since it's so expensive after she won the pairs gold with partner Charlie White, but I'd be getting into the Olympics enough this year to be excited about some of the other athletes too.

First up, here's highlights from the base cards:

Bronze medalists

Silver medalists

 Gold medalists (except for Shibutani, who I included with fellow Wolverine skaters Davis and White)

And while I'm at it, here's a back for completeness:

I ended up with 61/100 of the base set with ZERO doubles.  Wait a minute, this is a fun, interesting set with excellent collation?  Hmmm....

I landed a total of 15 inserts in my seven packs, which was pretty cool, even if I tend to favor base set completion first.  Here they are:

First up are the Bronze parallels, which feature a Bronze logo stamp on the bottom-right corner.  These are apparently at least one-per-pack since the odds don't list them.  I pulled eight from seven packs, so you do the math.  As you can imagine, I was happy to pull the Meryl Davis.

Here we have the rest of the inserts.  The top three are Silver parallels, which are 1:2 pulls, so I "lost" the coin flip for the fourth, which is no big deal.  Side note:  "Sled Hockey" sounds like an amazing Paralympic sport!  Wagner, meanwhile, is a 1:8 Gold parallel, while Daly is the Gold Rainbow version, which comes in at 1:24, which is a tad tougher than one per three blasters, so I really lucked out!  The Brown curling card is from an insert called "Games of the XXII Olympiad" and falls 1:8, and the insert showing off the Iceberg Skating Palace is from "Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games Venues," and was a bit tougher at 1:12.  Overall I did very well in beating the odds, and I'm very happy with this haul.

Ok, onto my promised blaster hit:

Actually, it wasn't this autograph of figure skater Evan Lysacek, which was certainly an exciting pull.  At least, I consider it a bonus hit because as usual I sorted through the packs until I found the "thick"one so I could open it last.  This card showed up in the penultimate pack, much to my surprise!  He wasn't part of the 2014 team but did win gold in Vancouver four years ago, so this looks like an especially nice pull, and a tricky one at 1:38 packs.

Well this certainly explains why that last pack was so thick!  It really was a fantastic pull, not just because it's a tri-color relic (and a 1:22 pull), better looking than most I've seen around the internets.  It's also nice that Mancuso is a pretty well known skier, and I was happy to see her win a bronze in her sport this year, even though she surely considers her lone medal a letdown.

To sum up, the set looks nice and is well-done, the collation is flawless, I beat the odds with the inserts, and got twice the number of expected hits, both of which look great.  Ok, all the evidence is in, and this is clearly NOT a Topps product, as it literally meets the opposite of each requirement.  In all seriousness, congrats to the company for making a worthwhile product, and I can only hope they apply what they did with this set to the rest of what they make!

I haven't decided if I want to pick up another blaster yet, but I will be working on the remaining 39 base cards one way or another.  Everything else except for the Bronze Davis is available for trade, and my main interests here are picking up the remaining inserts and hits of Meryl Davis--so if you ask me what I'm looking for in return for the autograph or relic, there's your answer!  I may eventually try to sell those, but as usual, my preference is to trade.

It's always worth waiting until sale prices on these, but if you're at the store eyeing blasters and see these available, they carry the TMV seal of approval!

USA!  USA!  USA!