Yesterday was strikeout on the vintage front, aside from the mislabeled Philadelphia Athletics picture you see below from the antique store. I did find a vendor selling $2 autograph and relic cards. I gravitated toward the hockey cards and found about 1,000 hockey cards for sale. The vast majority of the cards were autographed cards. Autographs on their own are not my first choice and I flipped through these cards half-heartedly. Eventually, I found a small section of relic cards.
Amongst the relics, I found the above cards which I purchased, which you probably already knew given the fresh scans. The Ozolinsh was a no-brainer for me, given that almost all of my favorite players are offensive-minded defensemen. Ozolinsh was an especially offensive-minded defenseman and one of the better players in the EA NHL games in the 1990s. Add in the two colors and that was $2 well spent. I also picked up the Forsberg, since I hate buying cards alone and saw this was one was limited to 250 cards and the patch wasn't white. Also, the only other card in the stack which was of interest was a Curtis Joseph card, and to be honest, I wasn't 100% sure which team he was playing for in the card. (Given further research, it was the Phoenix Coyotes.)
As for the hobby box, I talked myself into a hobby box of 2012 Topps WWE, given my success at the card store and my inability to complete the base set. Since returning to collecting cards, this would be the second recent hobby box I've purchased (the other box was an ITG Decades 80s box I bought last month at a show).
In terms of enjoyment, I was glad I purchased the box. I managed to finish one base set and really enjoyed opening that many packs. The collation on the box itself was good, but overall on the product seems to be problematic. The cards come out in a fairly standard pattern. Not Upper Deck in the early 1990s consistent, but I opened one pack, found 5 base cards I hadn't previously obtained and this happened two other times, which finished the set for me. Interestingly, I also pulled the same two blue border cards I found in my blaster, which leads me to believe the collation is very mechanical across all sets, base and insert. Actually, within the entire box was a complete set, which is good collation, but I would prefer the chance to get some cards I need in each pack with a more random sort of the cards available.
As for the inserts, I didn't light it up, but had no expectation of doing so. The Miz relic is fairly good, as it has two colors and some texture. The Wrestlemania mat relic is a great idea in theory, but makes no sense as to why you just placed wrestlers from the card on the card as well. Does a picture of Cody Rhodes or John Cena change the nature of the card? Not really, though it does marginally change the sale price.
Given that it was probably a slightly below to below average box to the product, I enjoyed the break. I clearly wouldn't make my money back if I tried to sell everything, but I did get cards I actually wanted to keep. The base design is sharp and enjoyable and most of the insert sets are interesting or compelling. Even the collation on the box was good. I suspect opening a whole box will slake my thrist for shiny wrappers for quite some time and leaves me with the dilemma of what to do about 2012 Topps WWE Heritage. Actually, I will probably buy the set and the one, must-own insert, because I think it will cost me the same as an entire box. Nonetheless, I secretly suspect there is more box busting in the future.
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