Return of the Grande Box: The Good Stuff

 As good as some of the stuff I'd already showcased in these Nachos Grande group break posts were, the best stuff was yet to come. The hits had their own section of the box, and that included inserts and odd stuff, like this 2003 Bazooka card of Bazooka Joe as a Yankee. There's one of these for all 30 teams.

First of all, since there were lots of modern Topps boxes in these breaks, there was a glut of modern Topps inserts. These three came from 2021 Archives, and they're all welcome here, even if Aaron Judge looks like he's staring down the Yankees people for not paying him enough.

More basic inserts. I love that Beam Team design for Bohm, and I do like how inspired it is that there's a shoe-related insert set in Topps now.

Heritage inserts. Again, I don't know what the deal is with Garcia, but Aaron Hicks sure is heating up.

This weird little thing was a GQ Gems insert from 2022 GQ, and it's a very cool and shiny insert, even if it's cut differently than a lot of other cards I'm used to.

DK inserts from this year. Man these look cool. That Judge Aficionado one is awesome.

This Jeter comic also came out of the 2003 Bazooka box. Very charming, even if I'm not quite sure what to do with it.

Shiny, refractory stuff from recent products. All unnumbered. That Cole GQ one looks cool.

More refractory stuff. The shine aids the Winfield card. That Jeter is a 91 recreation insert. 

90s/00s inserts. Top 2 came from 2005 Playoff Prestige. Bottom one is a silver parallel, though unnumbered, from 1998 Invincible. 

Now onto the mojo. Jeter's is a variation from 2022 GQ. Nola's is a color variation #'d to 2022 from Donruss. Matsui's is a Prestigious Pros from 2005 Playoff Prestige, that's numbered to 900. All cool stuff.

The guaranteed manu-relic from Chris's box of Topps Series 1 was a Judge. Cool. These are kind of meaningless, but at least it's a Judge. 

The two autos I received were both Phillies. One is a Nick Mason from 2021 Stadium Club chrome. Maton's still in the Phillies' system but is currently injured. I'm still thinking he's useful for us. The other one was a sticker auto from 2022 Donruss of Luke Williams, who is no longer on the team. 

Like last time, I wound up with a Jason Giambi relic. I don't collect Giambi as much as I used to, but I do think it's cool to find relics of him, considering how much I enjoyed him as a kid. This is also a really fun relic design from 2003 Bazooka.

So...

I've joked about this with Chris, but he has a penchant for pulling me Nick Johnson stuff. I don't really collect Nick Johnson, I don't think he was that great in New York, and while I'm glad he became a better power hitter and 1B/DH in Montreal and Washington, I still think the fixation on him in 2003 products was misguided. Like last time, Chris pulled a Nick Johnson relic. But not only did he pull one Nick Johnson relic from his box of 2003 Playoff Update...HE PULLED TWO DIFFERENT ONES. The one on top is numbered to 500, the one on the bottom is numbered to 100. I now have three Nick Johnson relics, and three Johnson cards numbered to 100. I...guess this is become a niche. 

The good news is that this break also helped some collecting niches that I am 100% okay with:

Folks...Chris pulled an Andrew McCutchen Phillies relic out of a box of 2021 Panini Chronicles. Any Nick Johnson tomfoolery wasn't so bad when that happened. Cutch is one of my favorite players, I'll take any Cutch cards I can find, and now I can say I have a Cutch relic from his time on the Phils. This is also a pretty cool design, too. 

And we'll end on the strangest bit of business from this break:

So...Chris got a box of 2001 Donruss for these breaks, which is already intriguing. That's a weird-ass set, people have called it one of the worst card sets of its era, it's got subsets and crazy numbering and wild logic. But the box toppers are all graded cards from Donruss's 20 year history. Graded rookie cards.

And in Chris's box, there was a graded 1990 Donruss rookie of Bernie Williams. 

I find it very funny that not only was Donruss just giving away graded rookie cards in 2001, but they weren't even gem mint 10 graded cards. This is a 7.5. Not terrible, but...you'd think if they were grading the card for you, it'd be a little nicer.

NOT THAT I'M COMPLAINING. This is still a graded rookie card of a Yankee legend I enjoy collecting, and I will keep this in a safe place of my collection, because why even try to sell it. It's just...odd. Great, and welcome, but...odd. 

At the end of the day, though, this was a really solid group break spread with some excellent stuff for my collection, and I'm thankful to Chris for doing these so consistently. I don't know when the next one will be, or if I'll be a part of it [I'm starting a new job, so maybe I will be at this rate], but these have all been very exciting, unpredictable ways of getting new, awesome cards.