Nachos Grande Breaker's Club #1 - The Highlights from Boxes 1 and 2

 On Tuesday of this week, I held the first (of six) video box break sessions.  The Breaker's Club will feature a total of 12 boxes which divides nicely into two boxes per night.  

If you'd like to see the break in its entirety, here it is.  Otherwise, read on for some of the highlights.

The first night of the Breaker's Club featured two boxes from around the turn of the century - a box of 2001 Topps Gold Label and a box of 1998 Pacific Online. 

We'll start with the highlights (and one lowlight) from the 2001 Gold Label box.  Let's begin with the bad news - the bad news is that some of the pack wrappers actually stuck to the cards leaving behind a thin film of plastic on the cards.  

I don't know how easy the plastic will be to remove but I'll send out the cards "as is" and let each of you figure out the best way to clean up the cards to your liking.  It wasn't every pack that stuck but there were certainly more sticky cards than I would have liked to have seen.  

Despite that issue (which is a risk for any older baseball card product, I'm afraid), the actual contents of the box were excellent!  We ended up with a nice stack of base cards (Class 1) plus six Class 2 cards.  I wasn't carefully checking the backs of the cards during our live break so here are the six Class 2 cards:

• Todd Helton (Rockies)
• Tom Glavine (Braves)
• Terence Long (Athletics)
• Manny Ramirez (Red Sox)
• Johnny Damon (Athletics)
• Scott Rolen (Phillies)

The Class 2 cards are supposed to fall 1:4 packs so we hit the nail right on the head here.  

The Class 3 parallels are a tougher pull (1:12) but we did get our expected two:

• Jeff Kent (Giants)
• Adrian Beltre (Dodgers) 
  
  
  

The Class 3 cards really, really pop in person!  

Along with those, there are a bunch of serially numbered parallels possible.  Sequentially numbered Class 1 cards are 1:8 packs and we ended up with are requisite three including the gorgeous Derek Jeter.  All of these cards are numbered out of 999.

• Derek Jeter (Yankees #143/999)
• Steve Finley (Diamondbacks, #885/999)
• Brad Fullmer (Blue Jays, #019/999)  
  
  
  

In addition, we found a Class 1 sequentially numbered rookie which are a much harder pull - 1:52 packs!  The Orioles were the big winner here with this Brian Roberts numbered 320/999.  

The only other numbered cards from this box were a pair of Class 2 parallels (seeded 1:11 packs).  I can't complain about the names we pulled!

• Alex Rodriguez (Rangers, #614/699)
• Edgar Martinez (Mariners, #659/999)  
  
  
  

As the group break host, it was nice to see the six different serially numbered cards all end up in different team stacks!

And last, but certainly not least, our 1:24 MLB Award Ceremony Relic of Todd Helton.  

The bat Award Ceremony relics are actually the rarer of the two versions (seeded 1:54 packs as opposed to the jersey relics which come 1:43).  I absolutely love the design of the relic card - easily my favorite card out of this box (especially since no Barry Larkin cards showed up).

Our second box of the evening was the box of 1998 Pacific Online.  This particular set is all about the base cards (the checklist is 750 cards deep!) and it features many players that wouldn't otherwise have had a baseball card...perhaps ever!

The set itself is almost completely "no frills" as the only thing you might get besides base cards is the one-per-pack gold "winner" parallel or an alternate image for a player.  In our box, we pulled three different Mike Piazza cards, for example:  

When we were opening the packs, I missed one gold parallel right off the bat - Rickey Henderson - so I figured I'd show that one here.

Gotta love the excitement Pacific had over the concept of the internet.

Overall, this was a fun pair of boxes to rip - even if I was personally shut out on Barry Larkin cards (which was a bummer since I needed Larkin cards from both of these sets).  Next week, we'll rip another two boxes though which two I'll rip into next are still a mystery (both to me and all of you)!

Oh yeah, if anyone wants in the group break yet - this is your last chance to grab one of the few remaining teams (all remaining teams have been marked down to only $50 - remember the break itself spans 12 boxes):

• Diamondbacks
• Royals
• Brewers
• Twins
• Rays
• Blue Jays

I'll include any cards pulled from the first two boxes in those team stacks, but after next Tuesday I won't take any more sign-ups.