CARDBOARD REVIEW:2020 Stadium Club Chrome Baseball (A SUPER SURPRISE)

2020 Stadium Club Chrome is a new, but old product, as it was in the 90's for a very short period. It appears they are finally understanding collectors love of chromed items as they have now in 2020 put chrome on Stadium Club, Allen and Ginter (really wanted to open some of this) and even came out with a second round of Topps Chrome and called it Topps Chrome Black.

I guess if chroming things works, stick with it!

Every hobby box of 2020 Stadium Club Chrome baseball comes with 14 packs per box with 6 cards per pack. Each box also comes with one autograph and boxes currently are running $135 each.

BASE:

The base card design is the same as Stadium Club except it has a nice layer of chrome on it. Up close, these look superb when you have that photography and open non border design as well. I actually liked it more than Topps Chrome which says a lot for me who is a die-hard "chromie". It's like a groupie but for Topps Chrome.

The base set is a pretty big sized one at 400 cards, which is really large for any chrome products and includes veterans, legends like Wagner above

And Al Kaline,

Randy Johnson

And the Key rookies like Randy Arozarena.

PARALLELS:

When I saw another chrome product, I expected a year long list of parallels like all the other products. The good news is, there isn't a lot of parallels to seek out. You can find Base Refractor, X-Fractor, Wave, Gold /50, Orange /25, Red /5, and SuperFractor 1/1.

 

My base refractor pulls. The cards look great alone but with refractor power its ups the ante

Orange refractor. Took me the longest time to figure this out. The refractor part isn't what is orange, it's in the Stadium Club Chrome name that gives it away. This is /25.

And for the first time in my collecting career.....

 

Can't see it on the front that well unless your vision is awesome....

but I pulled my first EVER SUPERFRACTOR!!!!! This is only the second SuperFractor I have. You better believe I screamed like a little girl getting a pony. I do wished though it was more aimed towards my collecting but I still plan to chase the rainbow regardless. Because once you have the 1/1 nailed, it only gets easier from there I have been told.

INSERTS

Inserts have the following parallels to search for in Gold /50, Orange /25, Red /5, and SuperFractor 1/1.

Emperors Of The Zone has 25 cards in the set and has all of the top pitchers in the game.

And the always exciting and included Beam Team. These fall 1:4 packs and have 25 players to collect.

 

And finally, Power Zone. There are 25 of these to collect as well.

HITS:

 

I only know this name because of my buddy Jake but Mauricio Dubon is my autograph. Not a household name...yet.

The autographs are on-card at least and the checklist is a mix of players both top notch and not so much. There are parallels of Gold /50, Orange /25, Red /5, and SuperFractor 1/1 to find as well.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This was a solid box break. Can't guarantee that every box will be this good as I have seen some exciting breaks and some hide the box from your wife ones.

The super was really exciting but I really enjoyed this break. Stadium Club Chrome I hope continues to be a yearly release. I definitely want more!

Speaking of wanting more, there are a few cards I am specifically looking for in the product I may need help landing,

• 2020 Stadium Club Chrome Refractor Ken Griffey Jr
• 2020 Stadium Club Chrome X-Factor Ken Griffey Jr
• 2020 Stadium Club Chrome base Ken Griffey Jr
• 2020 Stadium Club Chrome Inserts Ken Griffey Jr
• 2020 Stadium Club Chrome base Derek Jeter 
• 2020 Stadium Club Chrome Refractor Derek Jeter
• 2020 Stadium Club Chrome Kyle Schwarber
• 2020 Stadium Club Chrome Refractor Kyle Schwarber
• 2020 Stadium Club Chrome X-Factor Kyle Schwarber
• 2020 Stadium Club Chrome Orange Refractor Kyle Schwarber
• 2020 Stadium Club Chrome Wave Refractor Kyle Schwarber
• 2020 Stadium Club Chrome Gold Refractor Kyle Schwarber
• 2020 Stadium Club Chrome Red Refractor Kyle Schwarber

RATINGS BASED ON THIS BOX BREAK
Design ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Inserts ⭐⭐⭐
Parallels ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Hits ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Value ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The New Mentality

*brews his cup of coffee, pours the last little bit of Peppermint Mocha creamer that's in the bottle and decides that's probably it for the Christmas season on that.*

  

The New Mentality in the hobby is spreading and spreading fast.

When I got my father back into the hobby three years ago, he was all about adding cards to his collection and opening packs for the thrill of the chase. 

Then 2020 hit and he caught The New Mentality.

He started to see how others were making big time money off from retail flips and decided to dip his feet in. That's the starting point of The New Mentality. First it was a fat pack. Then a blaster. Then a blaster and a hanger. And then he started to do the thing I hate most, clearing off most of the shelves of products and even attempting to flip the unflippable products like Score. It had gotten so bad where he wouldn't even tell me what products were on the shelves when I texted for him to pick me up something. He preferred to flip it for more than have me be able to open some. 

That was a painful realization.

The New Mentality is an ugly disease in the hobby. It's when greed and money means more than card collecting. It's all about the money and not about the fun. I believe the only cure for people who have caught The New Mentality is to show them how to have fun collecting again.

I am currently working on that with my father. It's a slow, slow cure especially if someone has had that mentality for awhile.

*takes a sip of coffee while game planning the next part of my cure*

Before The New Mentality fully hit him, I was able to land myself one more blaster box from him in trade. It wasn't the hottest product on the shelf but it was better than nothing at the time.

*takes a sip, begins to rip*

In every blaster box of 2020 Panini Optic baseball, there are 27 cards. There are 6 packs of 4 cards of Optic then an extra 3 card pack of Pink parallels. Each blaster is $20 unless you are buying from a flipper.

There wasn't much in terms of names of note for base, so I will skip to the rookies which I was impressed with. There was almost two in every pack which seems odd to me. Feels like the last time I ripped Optic on here there was maybe a couple total. 

Even found a Gavin Lux Rated Rookie. He's no Luis Robert in terms of value, but maybe down the road he will be.

*takes a sip happy at what I have seen already*

 

Now onto the shiny stuff and inserts

Nelson Cruz Silver

Inserts of Illusions with Trevor Story, The Rookies AJ Puk and Stained Glass with Ketel Marte

This Lindor was my favorite designed insert of the group, Mythical.

*takes another sip before another rip*

Now onto the bonus Pink Pack Parallels.

Each of these have three cards. Could be insert parallels, subsets or base. It's all a surprise.

Andres Munoz. Not sure who this is.

Acuna! 

Hiura

Not too bad at all!

*finishes up cup of coffee with the remaining Peppermint Mocha creamer, now back to Hazelnut for the next cup and to finish up this post*

Remember above where I mentioned the spread of The New Mentality is fast, since my father started doing that, others around the area caught it. They have the disease much more than my father does as they follow the vendor store to store to store taking all they can and leaving the scraps. Scraps are known as Hockey cards. This has helped me out some in trying to fix my father's catch of The New Mentality. He isn't getting the opportunities as much to flip anymore and I have been trying to take advantage of that and remind him how great the hobby is just collecting again.

And believe me, collecting is great. So isn't coffee.

Before I close, I wanted to give you some insight on what to look for when you or someone else you know has caught The New Mentality.

Here are the signs to look for to know if you or someone you know has caught it, it's as simple as one, two, three.

1. Buys a pack, blaster, hanger or mega box of a popular product when its able to be found
2. Looks up value online to see what it goes for.
3. Flips it.

It will be pretty obvious when you have or someone you knows does.

How do you know if you are cured or don't have it? Well, that's as simple as one, two, three as well.

1. Buy a pack, blaster, hanger or mega box of a popular product when its able to be found.
2. Barely make it to the car before ripping it. It's okay to rip it just outside the Walmart or Target door. We all have been there.
3. Enjoys the cards that were opened.

I hope this helps. If you or someone you know has caught The New Mentality, remember to remind them why they got into collecting in the first place. It may or may not work but it's worth a try.