Box Break Recap: 2004 Topps Pristine

I'm back with another box break recap - this one being one of the more recent Breaker's Club boxes that I've opened up.  The 2004 Topps Pristine box comes with 5 packs - and promises 5 relics, an autograph, and 5 uncirculated cards.  The box promised to be a fun rip - but the question is, did the box live up to the hype?!  Let's find out together.

We'll start with a look at some of the base cards. 

I love the simple (yet shiny) look of the base cards.  The team-specific color stripe is a simple inclusion but it adds just enough pop of color to make the base set look nice!  Personally, I was bummed that we didn't pull any Reds base cards (especially that Ken Griffey, Jr. that I wanted) but I think those in the break for whom we did pull cards will be happy!

Sticking with the base cards, we then go to the "high numbered" cards of the base set - all of which are serially numbered.  Takatsu and Callaspo are both numbered out of 999 while the other three cards are out of only 499.  I'm not much of a fan of serially numbered base cards but I'm guessing most people didn't buy Topps Pristine trying to put together the base set!

Our only true parallel of the box was this "die cut" Gold Refractor parallel of Brady Snyder of the Indians.

I'd call this a deckle-edge parallel if anyone were to ask me - but no matter what you call it it's a sharp looking parallel.  Even better, the Snyder is numbered 15/41 on the back of the card!

Finally, the only insert of the box - a black bordered mini of Nomar Garciaparra!

As you can see, we had a nice selection of base cards, serially-numbered base cards, and parallels/inserts...but all of that is basically the warm up to the true draw of boxes like this:  the hits and uncirculated cards!

Let's start with the five hits - four of which were from the Fantasy Favorites relic set:

Three of the four relics belong to the AL East!  I will say that the relics look much better in hand than they happened to scan here.  I like that the Kerry Wood card has a blue pin stripe - wish all of the relics had something similar to that (not just in this set but in all sets)!

The fifth relic was from the awesome Going, Going, Gone relic set - and it's Sammy Sosa of the Cubs.

Congrats to Mike Christianson who has the Cubs in this break - I think the Sosa relic was my favorite of the five relics out of the box.

Each pack had a single encased uncirculated card in it.  Four of ours were base refractors:

The Kevin Brown is #/49, the Brownlie is #/399, and the other two are #/999.  Pretty nice haul for the Yankees here with two of the four encased cards.

The fifth encased card was the biggest hit of the box - a Personal Endorsements Gold autograph card of Lance Berkman. 

That's the gold parallel of the regular Personal Endorsements card - and it's numbered 24/25 on the back of the card!  Congratulations to Jason Williams who nabbed the Astros in this edition of Breaker's Club!

Overall, this was a great box and a lot of fun to open (even if I, personally, got completely shut out of any Reds cards).  For large group breaks like Breaker's Club, I like to have a box or two like this - good hits and the chance for something really special but I don't want too many such boxes since it's also fairly likely that a team gets shut out completely (like my Reds).  Hopefully those of you who landed cards from the box will enjoy them - I know I enjoyed ripping the box live on video with all of you!