A Delightfully Hit-Heavy Hobby Box of 2014 Topps

I guess I have a new tradition.  Last year when the flagship set came out I bought a box, and I used that purchase to justify this one.  My goal was to get most of the base set knocked out and a few of the more common Griffey inserts.  Turns out I got zero Griffeys.  None.  Nada.  But I don't consider this purchase a failure by any means.  I ended up with a bunch of great hits, and immediately scanned them all for your face balls to enjoy.  Here they are without base card interruption.

This was in my very first pack:

I'm not going to lie - I was pissed.  I thought this was going to be the one relic in the entire box, and nothing against Ben, but I don't collect him or his team.  I got worried this box would be a bust.

Then this was in my second pack:

This is one of those framed rookie reprints they've been talking about.  It's got to be a quarter-inch thick and weighs about a half pound.  This one is the black-bordered version, the most common, but she's a beauty and probably my favorite pull from the box.  But wait, there's more.

This was in my fourth pack:

My first ever silk collection card.  This is of the newly-mustachioed Jeff Samardzjidzidjaba.  I'm officially a fan of this parallel.

But the hits kept coming.  This was in my seventh pack:

That would be the 1/1 black printing plate of Andres Torres.  I don't know him, but hopefully somebody will.  It's the first printing plate I've ever pulled myself.

In my eighth and ninth consecutive packs were these guys:

A couple of lovely foil-stamped vintage buybacks.  Part of me was thinking "hot box" at this point, but thereafter the hits stopped and all I got were relatively standard parallels and inserts.  Here's all of them:

These cards without relics don't really do it for me.

These are growing on me.

So are these.

These I find just OK, but I do like the concept.

These are not quite red, but they're not quite pink, either.  They're puce.  Puce.

Still not sure what to do with these Power Player cards.  I'll probably just bite the bullet and put the codes into the website.  Maybe I'll win a cool autographed Griffey or something.

As for the base cards, the box contained 296.  Number of duplicates?  ZERO.  Well done, Topps.

I have yet to comb through my base cards for SP's, but I'm happy with my hobby box even if I find none. 

As a whole I like the 2014 set.  I hear a lot of complaining about the cards around the blogsphere, but I really have no idea why.  The photography is fresh and fun, and I even like the base card design.  It's neat.  No hate here.

As usual, most of this is available for trade for Griffeys.  I only need 22 cards to complete Series 1 now, so I'll have that list up soon.  I also have a bunch of extra base cards from my previous 2014 purchases, so those are available, too.