I bought baseball cards at Target. Not a real common occurrence, but I am usually at least willing to walk past the card aisle and see what is there. I think about it for a few minutes.
There is the "Remember you pulled an Al Kaline autograph out of a $20 box here once"
There is also the "Isn't this the store where some jerk slit the top of a pack of cards we bought?"
If I do decided to buy cards, I now make sure the packs are sealed, or the box is not wrapped in Glad Food Wrap or something.
On with the story.
Now, if you have never heard of a hot box, they are sort of a mythological creature in the world of baseball cards. I liken the hot box to things like....
The chupacabra.
The Loch Ness monster.
Bigfoot.
So, I start opening up my packs of Topps Heritage cards and I get a Chromium looking card of Aaron Judge. I flip the card over, no serial number.
Weird, but I am in the middle of opening up packs, so I just set it aside and open the pack. I get another Chromium looking card of Jose Ramirez. No serial number.
At this point I am intrigued, but I am still not going to stop for two of these cards in two packs.
Then the next pack started out with this card......
and ended with this card......
I knew something was up with the box of cards that I was opening. I checked out a few different checklist type sites, you should read Cardboard Connections, and I found the answer was indeed something called a "Hot Box". These aren't just Chromium cards, or Chrome, or whatever you want to call them. They are some form of purple Chrome.
I was stunned, so what did I end up? This is great stuff for a retail box. I mean, it's not Al Kaline, but for $20 at Target.....
All a very good haul, but I got one other card, which is going to go along way towards putting together this set.
Hot Box!!!!
I don't anything about Heritage, or it's hot boxes, but I have to assume that this was a good thing, and something that was well worth your twenty dollars... so congratulations on picking out this loaded box!
ReplyDeleteI was happy with the results for a retail box. Hard to beat these results.
DeleteLove that Kiermaier. Congrats on a great blaster!
ReplyDeleteThank you Tim!!! The Kiermaier is definitely going in with my good Bulls cards.
DeleteHot boxes are definitely real and they're definitely in Heritage. I got one off a shelf in a Walmart I very rarely go to back in 2014:
ReplyDeletehttps://nightowlcards.blogspot.com/2014/03/good-things-come-to-those-who-whine-pt-1.html
Didn't get any Kershaw relic out of it though.
I also bought an A&G hot box once.
Yeah, I got a hot blaster of Heritage High Numbers a couple years ago. I also had no idea what was going on...might have been the first blaster of Heritage I bought, so I just thought it might be normal. No hits in mine, and the best player I got in purple was Trevor Story.
DeleteTopps should promote this better.
Wow. That's quite a box Night Owl.
DeleteWow, I didn't even know that retail hot boxes existed although I did know about hot hobby boxes. And you got a Kershaw #'d jersey relic to boot! Congratulations!
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize that they existed either. Kershaw card is a great pull for a retail box.
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