Not my chives, not your chives..

I bought three teams in a two-box break of 2023 Topps Archives hosted by Nachos Grande. After watching the livestream and seeing some of the autographs that were pulled I decided to pick up a few packs at my LCS. 

The shop owner said something about a 'mega pack' - which cost $2 more - and I should have asked him to explain the difference because I walked out with four identical 8-card packs. Scammer.

But... maybe not, because one of the packs yielded an on-card auto. Was it the "mega pack"? Possibly.

Anywho, I can't show you that because it's going out in one of my Chris Kringle gift packs. But I was very happy to pull an auto and now I want to buy a box (::checks Cyber Monday deals:: finds nothing::)

The 1956 Topps design is featured on cards #1-100. They're packed out sequentially so each of the packs I opened and watched on Nachos Grande's stream led with this portion, followed by the 1965 block:

I got the fewest amount of these cards - which is fine with me since '65 is my least favorite design of the three. At least I pulled a Corbin Carroll RC.

Last but not least we have the 2003 section. The blue borders are a nice contrast.

Two Braves named Murphy in the same section. Arozarena actually came from the Nachos Grande break. This is the second (or third?) time I bought the Rays slot at a rock-bottom price. I keep thinking they're a good value because they're the best of the overlooked/under collected teams, and because I've got a theory that a lot of the 'mojo' hits in box breaks are of teams that either don't get claimed or are claimed last.


My theory was correct -- but one of the five autos Chris pulled was on the other Florida fish team :/

As for that break, I did get a complete team set of every one of the three slots I bought, including all seven Rays base cards. No inserts or parallels though. (next time, I'm picking the Pirates.)

The 'mystery' team - which I won't reveal here - yielded an insert to go with the base set. And of course I picked the Red Sox for myself. 16 cards in the base set, $16 for the slot.

Plus a couple of Hit Stars inserts and a Babe Ruth rainbow #d/199. But that's not all!

The first box Chris opened yielded the promised two autographs -- plus a bonus third autograph (actually the second box had three autos also - across two cards.)

Another Hit Star of a Hall of Famer! For a while it looked like I'd pulled the cream of the crop. Someone ended up with an ever better card, but I'm still very satisfied. Hopefully the person who gets my 'mystery team' cards will be, too.


Have you bought any 2023 Topps Archives yet? Any great pulls to report? Are you disappointed by the card backs, especially with the 1956 singles?

 

 Thanks for reading!



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