Tuesday, June 23, 2009

O-Pee-Chee Box Break Part 1

Last Friday I stopped at the local WalMart to get me some of the O-Pee-Chee cards I've been seeing on the blogs. I bought 2 $20 blaster boxes. With 90 cards in the box, the price isn't too bad. The cards are printed on gray stock with no gloss. Here's what I got.First card out of the first pack is a Philly, catcher Chris Coste. The cards feature a mix of posed photos, like this one, and action shots. The cards are not a copy of some past O-Pee-Chee set which had been rumored but actually look more like 1976 Topps cards. As such, they could have just as easily called this set Upper Deck Vintage (remember them?). I don't know about others but I wouldn't be more inclined to buy these just because they are called O-Pee-Chee. I like the design and I rather like the retro cards but it seems like this year there are more retro cards than not.

There is one black-bordered parallel card in each pack. These look pretty good.
First subset card, a team checklist. These are numbered as part of the regular set and feature a shot like this of the team's stadium.
The first insert card, called "The Award Show". There are 20 cards in the set. I got two of them, one per box. I think this card is a bit busy. Jimmy really gets lost in the card design and the background.
Another subset, called Moments. This one is during the 2008 All-Star game. Zambrano blanked the AL in the 3rd and 4th inning. I'm not sure why this is called a "Moment". The game went on for 15 innings and Carlos had nothing to do with the decision.
Some of the cards are in horizontal format. I only show this one because this particular pose is my least favorite baseball card pose. I've got 4 or 5 from the set with similar poses.
Another subset called Leaders.
4 packs in and finally a player I collect (not counting the two Phillies).
The last subset. The Rookie banner is added with the horrible Rookie Card logo.
A black bordered team checklist card. I think they overuse the color purple on these cards.
Finally, 6 packs in, a star card. My only real complaint about these two boxes is the lack of star players. Chipper is the biggest star I got on a base card. No Jeter, A Rod, Howard, or Pujols.
But I did get a few Carlos Zambrano cards, including this card from the "Face of the Franchise" insert set. This is a 30-card set. One face per team, I guess. This was in pack 7 of the first box.

Stayed tuned tomorrow for the rest of the first box and the second box.

3 comments:

night owl said...

Least favorite baseball card pose? I just blogged about how wonderful it is! (What are the chances?)

I do agree about the color purple on these cards. And if I ever get to Target I'll have a chance to evaluate them myself.

Jim said...

I'm wishing I had decided to collect this set instead of the Upper Deck base set monstrosity. I'm really liking some of the Phillies cards (base and insert) to come out of this set.

Goose Joak said...

That Face of the Franchise card is just awesome. For some reason the other OPC designs don't grab me a whole lot, but I really, really like that Zambrano. Awesome card!