Opening Day Roll Call

Last weekend I opened a box of 2018 Topps Opening Day and skipped right to a significant single. I'll show off the rest of the box in this post, and update my progress on other Opening Day sets.

This concludes my Brieday celebration. For now ;-p

Each of the 36 packs contains one insert, leaving me with 216 base cards to complete a 200 card set. Also there's a disclaimer on the front of each pack that Packs with a special insert may contain only 3-5 cards. What does Topps consider "special"? Most likely just relics, but I was slightly less certain that I'd be able to complete a set - until I saw the odds.

There were no "special" inserts in this box. Each pack yielded exactly seven cards including one insert as advertised. Here they are:

Nine (of 20) Before Opening Day inserts. Lots of stars, lots of Red Sox, and.. Mikie Mahtook.


I pulled eleven (of 25) Mascot cards. Here's the first nine (not pictured: Rays and Rangers)

How many mascots does Cincinnati have? 


I got six of the 20 cards from this insert set:

These are just called "Opening Day" on TCDB but they're numbered ODB-# on the back of the card. I'm assuming that stands for Opening Day Ballparks (or Ol' Dirty Bastard lol.)

There's that Rally Monkey again. I pulled ten of the 15 Team Traditions inserts (not pictured: Yankees Y.M.C.A.) That's 36 inserts. As advertised.


But wait! There's more!

The Dominic Smith Opening Day Stars card is insert #37. It's flimsy like a sticker but the odds on these are 1:27 so it's somehow the rarest insert I pulled. The Blue Foil parallels are my favorites by far. Mike Trout might be the best possible parallel pull other than the Ozzie Albies or Shohei Ohtani RCs. 

It was a nice surprise to have 42 non-base cards, but that meant I had to hope for near-perfect collation in order to complete the set. And that's exactly what happened!
 

I now have 43 duplicates to trade including Ichiro, Albert Pujols, and RCs of Ohtani and Alex Verdugo. Hopefully I can swap them for some Opening Day set fillers from other years. I need 63 cards from 2015 Topps Opening Day and 14 cards from 2019 Opening Day. I'm not collecting 2016 or 2017 OD. I had my fill of those designs with flagship.


Some bonus bDay content here, as I received a couple gifts from my wife's siblings. Her older brother gave me cash, while her sister('s husband) picked out a fat pack of Upper Deck hockey cards. Before I even opened it he asked me if I got anything good. 

I don't think anyone would call this a "good" pack. No inserts, no rookies, and no super stars like Crosby, MccDavid, or Ovechkin. However I did pull two Devils, one of the two Whalers cards in the set, and some great goalies including CT's Jonathan Quick. These were all new cards to my collection since I only had two series 1 singles before this pack.

D's younger brother bought me a book.

He's more of a comic book guy than I am, but I'm sure I'll enjoy this. I know my daughter will. 



I had originally planned to publish this in the morning, but the fourth-longest playoff game in NHL history postponed my post. The schedule here is packed with two more topics planned for the weekend so I decided to be like baseball and have a day-night doubleheader. This is what happens when I go away for a couple weeks, the ideas come rushing out. Thank you so much for celebrating with me and reading one or both posts!




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