Cardboard Review:2021 Stadium Club Baseball Hobby Box

When it comes to the hobby, I can't list many products that get me excited enough to countdown to, but there are some.

One of those products, I know I am not alone on.

That product, Stadium Club.

It's the one product that you whisper it's name and it gives you goosebumps and makes your hair stand up on your arm.

Why do collectors seek this product out so much? Is it the hits? Is it the checklist? No, no, and the next question was a no before I even asked it. Let's see why collectors dig this product so much.

Every hobby box of 2021 Stadium Club baseball comes with 16 packs per box with 8 cards per pack. Each box has 2 autographs, a box topper and is around $120 per.

After opening up the box, your box topper is just there.

Certain players also offer up autograph versions of this card that are all numbered to 10.

BASE

Well, it didn't take me too long to get right to the answer of the burning question above on why collectors flock to Stadium Club. Believe it or not, it's the base cards.

NO OTHER, I mean no other product offers the kind of photography Stadium Club does and has for many years.

Here are a few of my favorites from this box break,

The base set overall has 300 cards and is built up of veterans, legends and rookies.

Parallels
Stadium Club offers the following parallels,

Red Foil, Black Foil, Sepia, Black & White, Blue Foil /50, 30 Years (30 copies), Rainbow Foilboard \/25, First Day Issue (10 copies), Members Only (1 per case), Photographer’s Proof , and Gold Rainbow Foil 1/1.

Red Foils fall 1:3 packs

Black Foil falls 1:8 packs

30 Years, which I missed in the break the first time, fall 1:199 packs.

And with most products, there are Sp's and Variations. These are tough pulls falling at 1:179 and I found this design variation of Ichiro in this break.

INSERTS

 

Stadium Club Chromes fall One-Per-Box and I found myself a nice one in Tatis. I know you guys don't want to hear this, but I sure hope Topps brings this back as a full time set again. Taking everything Stadium Club has to offer and chroming it looks amazing.

These also come with parallels,

Refractor, Orange /99, Pearl White /30, Gold Minted and SuperFractor 1/1.

Stadium Club Greats revisit old Stadium Club designs. These fall 1:8 packs and have 25 cards to collect in the set.

Super Star Duos falls 1:16 packs and has a player on the front and back. This one features Paul Goldschmidt on the back. This one features 15 cards in the set.

Virtual Reality falls 1:8 packs and have 25 cards in the set to collect.

HITS

There are on card autograph offerings in Stadium Club with a mix of Veterans, Legends and lots of rookies.

I pulled two rookie autographs in mine,

Not terrible, not great but at least no pitcher autos!

HITS
Stadium Club isn't about the hits, it's about the photography and the nostalgia as well. This years version is loaded with it especially with the throwback designs.

There are a ton of great photos as well that I didn't even post because it would have taken up the entire post to do so.

In comments, let me know your thoughts on Stadium Club whether it be past or present.

The Diamond King Delivers

One of my newer favorite blogs I discovered is The Diamond King who I guess has been around longer than myself. But, to me, it's a newly discovered blog thanks to a list of blogs from Night Owl not long ago.

It's been a fun read and he also ran an amazing promotion recently. The basic idea of the promo, offering each contestant who earned a spot 100 DK Dollars to bid on lots of cards he posts up. You have a certain amount of time to bid on those lots, just like on eBay, and hope you can bid enough and not get sniped. Like I did.

I think I was the only contestant to bid all of their money and win four lots. Three of the four lots I came home with while one I "bought" for two other collectors. I did score the two cards from that one I wanted the most though.

It was a fun game of not trying to spend all of your money thinking something could be coming up to fit your PC better while you are also not trying to lose out on stuff you may be able to use as well. I feel I did well in balancing out my money and landed some pretty cool stuff.

No these aren't real. These are reprints, but still shiny.

Da Man! First time in a long time I have added multiple Griffeys to that PC.

Misc

A Mets Schedule

Some numbered stuff

Stickers including a Jeter

Jeter reprints

And being the nice guy The Diamond King is, I was "sniped" on a basketball lot that had a Harden and Dirk rookie I really wanted. I try to collect a rookie of every player and those are two I was lacking. He knew how bad I wanted the lot so he sent these two along for me.

Upper Deck James Harden

Flair Dirk Nowitzki

That was everything for my $100 Dk.

Now comes a few claims I made for the Diamond 9 which is a freebie pick and grab promo he runs as well,

I claimed these three to send off to a buddy of mine who does so much for others in the hobby. Least I could do is pass them along. He is a big Strawberry and Doc collector.

 

And this McGwire I claimed for myself. A 90's insert for my PC I have never seen before. Wonder if Griffey is on one of these.

And that does it for his mail day. Great stuff I think. Thanks again to The Diamond King. If you haven't checked out his blog yet please do so and add him to your blogroll if you are a blogger.

Hope everyone has a great day!

BY THE WAY...NEW POST OVER AT CARDS OVER COFFEE!! Please check it out and add it to your blogroll people!

NEW POST HERE↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓

Not Vintage

Opening Up The Next One

Time to reveal what was in the next cube in that huge box of goodness the great Wes passed onto me. Every cube brought a new surprise and every surprise was a nice surprise.

Like a Bo Jackson rookie and a Sammy Sosa Leaf rookie I didn't have.

A twosome of Joey Votto rookie cards

Buster the man Posey Topps rookie

I really enjoyed finding these oddball minor league cards of stars. Jose Canseco was just one of many I found. You will see the others as this series goes on.

Always nice to add some vintage pieces to my collection since I don't have much in that area.

90's insert love! A Silver Press Proof from Donruss. They don't make em like this anymore!

I always respected Ichiro no matter what uniform he wore. I feel awful he had to spend some time with the Marlins though. That's not an easy place to play if you want to win.

Matt Stairs super cool looking parallel /150. This is one of the coolest cards I have seen in person. This is also one of the few Matt Stairs that I found in these cubes. Come to find out he was on Wes' list to super collect at one point.

Bat relic of Rusty Staub.

Only name I know from this first group is Danny Graves but I will say that all four of these guys have solid signatures.

Just like David Cone. My first autograph of this guy. Of course I don't remember him as a Royal, he will always be a Yankee to me.

And another that will always be a Yankee to me is Paul O'Neill. I always felt he was underappreciated in the league.

That does it for cube two. There were many surprises within and this one provided plenty of PC additions and lots of other fun stuff.

I wonder what Cube 3 will provide for us on here...maybe next week will let us know.

REVIEW:2018 Topps Fire Baseball

Topps Fire returns yet again as a Target exclusive. Another one of those products I don't expect to see locally since Target's don't exist here. Well, the first one in the state is being built as I type this, but it will be over two hours away so I don't expect to go very often or at all.

Also like last year, there are multiple levels of Fire to burn your money on A Collector box, today's review, Value Box Blasters and Fat Packs. Each level has their own exclusive content. So there is much to chase for team or player collectors.

So let's check out what a Collectors Box has inside...

 

In every box of 2018 Topps Fire Collectors Box has 20 packs of 6 cards each. Boxes now come with one autograph (I think last year had 2) and one relic. Boxes run $70-$75 each.

The Topps Fire base card design sticks to the artistic touch of Tyson Beck who this year has players jumping out of the smoldering flames. It's very eye appealing, but still doesn't beat my favorite design from 2014 football. That was as cool as it comes.

The base card set is 200 cards with veterans, legends and rookies included.

 

Once again we find ourselves with parallels and they once again look amazing because of the design. These are Flame parallels that fall 1:4 packs.

 Here is a closer look at those. Bam! I wished this was the base card design!

Orange parallel. You can see that with the background color. These are numbered to 299 and fall 1:13 packs.

 Green Parallel. These fall 1:19 packs and are numbered to 199.

 

Other parallels to find are,

• Blue Chip (Fat Pack only)
• Gold Minted (Blaster only)
• Purple /99 
• Magenta /25
• Onyx SSP
• Inferno 1/1 

Inserts in Topps Fire look great. I like the inserts more than anything else in the product. Check out these Fired Up inserts. There are 15 cards in this set that falls 1:14 packs. I got me some Trout!

Flamethrowers also have 15 cards in the set and falls 1:14 packs as well.

Power Producers is pure gold. Well, not really but looks beautiful. These fall 1:14 packs and are a 15 card set.

Speed Demons also falls 1:14 packs, looks cool and is a 15 card set.

Cannons falls 1:14 packs and is a 15 card set.

And finally, Hot Starts that falls 1:14 packs.

 Now onto the hits. Sneak Peek, I did poorly.

First this Nicky Delmonico relic. Looks awesome, just not a top notch player.

And an autograph of Anthony Banda. Sigh. I think this Fire design is the one design that sticker autographs bothers me on. They just stick out on here.

Other hits I didn't find in my box include,

• Dual Autograph
• Triple Autograph
• Fire Autograph Patch

OVERALL: I like the designs, especially the inserts, but the price point vs what I pulled was painful to see. Once again, I will say this over and over again, every product is a risk and you know going into buying anything that you are taking a risk. It just depends on what level of risk you are willing to take. Luckily with Topps Fire, there are three levels of products to buy.

I do strongly suggest trying some out. I have seen nice hits out of retail as well as hobby. And don't base it upon my poor box showing, just base it upon whether you like the product or not.

Please make sure to take a minute out to thank Topps for providing this box for me to review and to be able to add cards to the Fantasy Baseball Promo.  Follow Topps on all social media sites and visit their SITE, as well.