Box Recap: 2004 Leaf & 2000 Pacific Crown Collection

 I'm desperately trying to get caught back up after a weekend where all my plans went out the window...  I've got a ton of TCDB trades to still show but before I do that I need to first get the last of last week's Breaker's Club boxes scanned, sorted, and stacked!  

On the bright side, I am riding pretty high right now thanks to the Reds' amazing play over the first week of the season.  After losing badly in their first game against the Cardinals, the Reds have bounced back and crushed their next five games - two wins against the aforementioned Cardinals followed by a sweep of the lowly Pirates.  It wasn't just that the Reds won though, it was how convincing most of those wins were.  And yes, Reds fans are desperate for some signs of offense.

Case in point:

2020 Reds runs scored:  238  (60 games for an average of 3.96 runs per game)

2021 Reds runs scored:  57 (6 games for an average of 9.5 runs per game)

Now, obviously the Reds can't keep averaging 9+ runs per game but most of that offense has been generated without a number of the Reds' best (supposedly) hitters:  Votto and Suarez haven't done much, Akiyama hasn't played (injured), and Winker got sick before the Cardinals series was over.  It's been a fun ride and this was the perfect week for a little happiness given all the stuff that went wrong for my family (don't worry, all seems to be getting better now).

Alright, enough of my yammering about the Reds, you are here to see cards.  Let's begin with the 2004 blaster of Leaf (Second Edition):  

The base set is certainly nice enough, though unspectacular.  I do appreciate the team logos on the front of the card - makes sorting group break cards easier if nothing else!   Also, take notice that there is a "Second Edition" logo on the front of each of the base cards - that's how you can differentiate the retail version (Second Edition) to the hobby version...except when you can't but more on that in a moment!

Moving on to the inserts, we found a pair of the Exhibits inserts which are the chase cards of the set I'd say (they are seeded 1:4 packs so each blaster should yield two):  

Interesting, neither card was serially numbered (the hobby versions are all serially numbered, the retail versions have a blue tint and are not serially numbered).

In addition to the Exhibits, we found three other inserts in our blaster:  

The Away card of Jason Giambi is actually fairly rare - seeded 1:35 packs according to baseballcardpedia.  The Sunday Dress cards are 1:20 and the MVP Winners are 1:12 packs.  With only 8 packs in the blaster, I'd say we did quite well!

We also found a single Press Proof Red parallel of Bartolo Colon.  

The Press Proof parallels are listed as "hobby only" on baseballcardpedia but that's not exactly correct.  What is true is that only hobby cards have Press Proof versions...but what is also true is that those hobby-only cards are (apparently) also seeded into retail blasters.  Notice the lack of the wording "second edition" on the Colon card, that's how you can immediately tell this isn't a retail card - except, you know, it did come from a retail blaster.

Baseball cards can be confusing, what can I say?

Finally, our blaster yielded an unexpected hit of Hee Seop Choi of the Cubs.  

That's actually a really nice looking relic from retail!  I had to do a bit more digging, but what I learned is that this relic is actually part of a 100 card relic set that was spread out across four different Leaf brands in 2004.  I won't even try to explain it further but if you are curious here's the relic set information.

And that does it for last week's Breaker's Club boxes.  Now, let's take a quick look at one of the boxes from last night's break - 2000 Pacific Crown Collection (also a retail blaster).

I'm a big fan of the 2000 Pacific Crown Collection set - the front design is super clean and understated while the backs of the cards are colorful (and feature large team logos)!  

The eight pack (plus one bonus pack) blaster gave us a small handful of inserts including a pair of Opening Day 2K cards:

Those are definitely nice looking inserts even if they didn't scan all that well.  You'll have to trust me on that (or go watch the video)!

We also pulled this Moment of Truth insert of Cal Ripken, Jr. which I particularly liked.  

The Moment of Truth cards are seeded 1:37 retail packs so that's a solid pull.

Our final insert was this super shiny Rafael Palmeiro Latinos of the Major Leagues.  

This set is seeded 2:37 packs which again means we beat the odds!

Overall, a solid blaster and a solid set...except for the fact that I didn't get a single Red out of the entire Crown Collection blaster!  Booooooo!

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't show off one of our bonus pack cards:

That's a nice Biggio rookie card - pack fresh!

That'll do it for now.  I've still got a few more boxes to show off - two more for Breaker's Club plus the two non-Breaker's Club boxes that we ripped this past Monday.  For now though, I'll give my scanner (and my fingers) a break!