Friday, October 8, 2010

2010 Topps Chrome: Blaster vs. Rack Packs

A few days ago, I showed some cards from the 2010 Topps Chrome rack pack I picked up at the big W. I picked up a total of 4 rack packs and one blaster with the intention of sending one rack pack to the October Contest winner, posting one rack pack right away and doing a comparison with the others.

Here is the highly anticipated comparison. What do you mean you weren't highly anticipating this comparison? I'm shocked! And appalled!!

First up is the blaster. It contains 7 packs plus an unbelievable, incredible, stupendous, exc....never mind. It has 8 packs, each with 4 cards. That's a whopping total of 32 cards for $20 plus tax.

Pack 1:

Ian Desmond

Mike McCoy Refractor
J.A. Happ
Erick Aybar

Pack 2:

Allen Craig


Cesar Valdez X-Fractor
Pablo Sandoval
Lyle Overbay

Pack 3:

Josh Donaldson


Jayson Werth Purple Refractor #91/599 Purple Ref Blaster Odds 1:12
Matt Latos
Yadier Molina

Pack 4:

Brennan Boesch


B.J. Upton X-Fractor
Mike Napoli
Carlos Lee

Pack 5:

Mike Leake


Vernon Wells Refractor--That's the second Blue Jays refractor in this blaster
Evan Longoria
Ubaldo Jimenez

Pack 6:

Geovany Soto


Tim Hudson X-Fractor
Michael Bourn
Torii Hunter

Pack 7:

Drew Stubbs


Kendry Morales Refractor
Francisco Liriano
Bobby Abreu

Pack 8:

Sergio Santo


National Chicle Chrome Chase Utley #286/999--These fall 1:81 packs.
Shane Victorino
Manny Ramirez

The refractors and x-fractors both have insertion rates of 1:3 so you should get 2-3 of each per blaster. I got 3 of each, plus the purple refractor (1:12) and the National Chicle Chrome (1:81) so it wasn't too bad. No Ranger refractors or parallels, but that's ok. I got 24 of the 220 base cards with no dupes.
Now on to the rack packs. For comparison sake, I have two of the "value" rack packs. For a total of $18 plus tax, I have 6 packs of 4 cards plus two 3 card packs of the special orange refractors. Two of these don't quite equal a blaster in cost or packs, but the orange refractors are supposed to make up for it. We'll see.

Rack Pack 1:

Orange Refractor Pack


B.J. Upton

Edwin Jackson


Tim Hudson

Pack 1:

Alex Rios
Yunel Escobar X-Fractor
Bryan Anderson
Hideki Matsui

Pack 2:

David Wright


Kanekoa Texeira Refractor
Lance Zawadzki
Andrew Cashner

Pack 3: No scans here...

Joe Mauer
Mickey Mantle
Denard Span
Jake Arrieta

Rack Pack 2:

Orange Refractor Pack

Zack Greinke


Adam Wainwright


Koji Uehara

Pack 1:

Wandy Rodriguez


Russell Martin X-Fractor
Jason Bay
Matt Kemp


Pack 2:

Josh Hamilton
Ichiro
Javier Vasquez
Luke Hochevar

Pack 3:

Tim Lincecum


Derek Jeter X-Fractor
Scott Sizemore
Brian Matusz


The odds on these packs are the same as the packs from the blaster. I got three x-fractors and only one regular refractor.

As for the comparison, it really comes down to whether you want the orange refractors or not. If so, you definitely want to pick up the rack packs. The next time I was at the store they were all gone.

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