4 Box Break Results of 2014 Topps Chrome

Alex of Chavez Ravining held a four box break of 2014 Topps Chrome a little while ago and I had two entries in the mix. Since Alex was hosting/breaking the boxes he obviously had first dibs on what team he wanted which of course were the Dodgers. I still wanted in on the action so I strategically picked the White Sox and the Yankees. With each paid entry you also received a second team so I had a total of four teams when I was randomly given the Twins and the Braves. A week prior to the break I swapped out from the Yankees to the Tigers as my plan to land two hot rookies had to be adjusted. Since I didn't have the Dodgers I wanted to acquire autograph rookie cards of White Sox star Jose Abreu and Yankees star Masahiro Tanaka. Well the checklist came out and Tanaka was no where to be seen so I didn't want the Yanks anymore and switched over to the Tigers as they had some decent autographs to go after. The big fish for me still was probable rookie of the year Jose Abreu. Crossing my fingers for that autograph. Here is what I came away with :

First off are the "lowly" Twins and not much of them were in the four boxes as I ended up with 5 base cards and a refractor of Joe Mauer.

Next up would be the Braves but Alex and I did a trade after the break so I don't know what and who were in it other than there were no autographs. Again, I only had one horse in this race and didn't worry about anything else per se. More on that trade later.

Base Tigers . . .

. . . and some more base Tigers

Die cut refractor of Kinsler

2 Refractors and a X-Frator

The Tigers yielded the most cards out of the break for me but of course that is to be expected as they had a lot of players on the checklist. Obviously as a non Tiger fan any and all of these are available for trade and if not I will pay if forward and contest them out.

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... but the Tigers didn't leave me empty handed. I did score this nice blue refractor of Nick Castellanos. Hobby wise he has dropped quite a bit from last year when he was a hot rookie that was chased after. He has no place in my collection so again if anyone is interested in a trade feel free to contact me. 

Now for the trade with Alex. Again I had no use for the Braves so taking them off my hand was a plus but getting wanted cards was even better. He offered me a couple cards that I couldn't say no to.

Another Onelki autograph for the collection

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I have so many Onelki autographs but with no use for Brave cards why not take another autograph of a Dodger? At worst it can be trade bait down the road. The card I really wanted though was the blue Puig as I am still collecting all blue and black parallels of Dodgers in all chrome products. Why pay $10ish for the card on the bay when I can just swap out unwanted cards with a fellow blogger that doesn't need/want the Puig? Easy trade and I happily took the Puig of Alex's hands.

Onto the White Sox and my dreams with an Abreu autograph still dancing in my head.

Unlike the Tigers I did not end up with a lot of White Sox. I did get a base Jose Abreu card which books for $10 but it is not centered. Never entertained the idea of grading it but I would like all my cards centered but lets be real that is not realistic. As with the Tiger cards, all except the Abreu card is available for trade. 

Well all the cards have been accounted for with one last one which I believe was in box 2 ...

OOOHHH.....YYYEEEAAAHHH !!!

The card/autograph that I wanted and desired and basically the only reason I joined the break and I was lucky enough to score it. Not only is it an autograph of Abreu but it is the numbered ( #/499 ) and limited refractor parallel. The card currently books for $200 but can be had for a lot cheaper on eBay but I didn't pay anywhere near that in this break. My plan worked to perfection and I couldn't be happier.

Thank you again to Alex for hosting the box break and hopefully next year I can pull the same magic once again.