Topps Chrome Mutant set

Pending me getting off my duff and sending all the miscut cards from my two boxes of 2010 Topps Chrome in to be replaced (and them actually being replaced with non miscut cards) I will be pretty close to the set. This is just an assumption, but I am fairly certain I am near completion.

But closer to my heart is a mutant set of Topps Chrome. I have to do something with all those refractors, and checkerfractors, and the rainbow of fractors that you end up with, orange, red, blue, purple and gold. I don't have any red refractors for my set, the only red refractor I pulled in my two boxes as a T206 Austin Jackson Chrome Red. Which is a pretty nice pull, as it is numbered to 25.

The cards I have:

(r)=refractor

(c)=checkerboard refractor (what else do you call them? Superfractors? Sortasuperfractors?)

(o)=orange

(p)=purple /599

(g)=gold /50

(b)=blue /199

(rd)=red

(au)=auto

2, Lee (c)

3. Kershaw (o)

4, Abreu (o)

5, Cueto (o)

6, Fowler (r)

7, Mantle (c)

12, Martinez (c)

13, Porcello (r)

15, Scutaro (p)

16, Kendrick (o)

25, Gonzalez (o)

28, Griffey Jr, (o)

29, Happ (r)

36, Beckham (o)

38, Ichiro (r)

41, Sanchez (c)

45, Figgins (r)

48, Upton (p)

50, Mauer (r)

51, Wells (c)

54, Phillips (p)

57, Hamilton (r)

59, Lind (r)

64, Halladay (r)

72, Price (o)

73, Berkman (o)

74, Ethier (o)

77, Iwamura (o)

79, Jurrjens (o)

85, Youklis (c)

86, Utley (c)

87, Andrus (r)

90, Rios (r)

92, Hernandez (p)

94, Fukudome (o)

96, Cruz (g)

97, Hochevar (o)

99, Carpenter (r)

101, Pena (o)

102, Peavy (c)

103, Lopez (p)

106, Ellsbury (p)

113, Kiroda (c)

118, Cain (c)

120, Santana (c)

121, Oswalt (p)

124, Soto (r)

129, Haren (o)

130, Matsuzaka (r)

131, Bourn, (o)

133, Quinten (r)

134, Verlander (r)

139, Reyes (c)

140, Uehara (c)

141, Longoria (r)

142, Buehrle (r)

143, Tulowitzki (r)

144, Rodriguez (p)

146, Choo, (c)

147, Reynolds (o)

154, Gordon (o)

155, Napoli (c)

156, Carbrera (r)

157, Sizemore (p)

160, Floyd (c)

161, Molina (r)

162, McLouth (o)

163, Uggla (r)

164, Pence (r)

169, Garza (p)

175, Sizemore (b)

179, Ely (o)

180, Donald (b)

181, Colvin (au)

183, Rogers (o)

184, Davis (c)

186, Gilespie (au)

187, Hughes (o)

189, Ramos (r)

190, Stanton (r)

191, Donaldson (o)

193, Zadadzki (r)

194, Valdez (c)

197, Hicks, (c)

203, English (o)

206, McCoy (au)

208, Texeira (au)

210, Matusz (r)

212, Strasburg (o)

214, Nova (o)

217, Takashaski (r)

218, Oliver (b)

219, Stubbs (r)

220, Davis (r)

94/220 42%

I like the checkboard-fractors, the regular refractors, the blue, red, purple, orange and gold, in that general order. The golds may only be numbered to 50, but they are kind of ugly. I will post some doubles if anyone is after any refractors. If anyone wants an orange something and can trade a refractor of the same player, I would probably consider it. That goes of the rest as well.

A numerical analysis of a miscut 2010 Chrome hobby box

I saw a good deal on hobby boxes of Topps Chrome on the ol' internet the other day, so picked up a couple. The 2010 rookie class is pretty exceptional, at least, so far, with some rookies that seemed destined for stardom. Just ask Ryan Klesko. Add in different refractors, colorfractors, xfractors and various chromed-out inserts, and it adds up to a fun break.

That is, until you really look at the cards you pull. Most of them, and I have numbers to back this up, are miscut.

A card can only be miscut in two ways and still be regulation size, x-axis, left-right, and y-axis, up and down. You can't have a good side opposite a bad side, you just get two crappy sides.

Or four. Exhibit A, John Ely, being miscut on both axis.

And exhibit B, just what you don't want to see, a miscut Strasburg, miscut on the x-axis.

Honestly, I don't mind a little off center. But that is a big swath of white on the right hand side. And there is no excuse for that.

Or at least to the extent that it was present in my box.

A Chrome box has 24 packs, 4 cards each. Some might have a super thick card, like a manu-patch, but this box did not. Thus 96 cards in the box.

25 of those cards were rookies, 2 were autos, the rest were base or inserts.

Of the 2 autos, both were well cut. But both were the Cub's Tyler Colvin. And one was smudged.

Of the 25 rookie cards, 25 were miscut. Yes, 25 of 25. 100%

Of the 69 remaining cards, 23 were miscut. 33%

That means of the 96 cards, 48 were miscut. Exactly 50%.

We have gone way past 1981 Fleer numbers here.

Then there is the pringle issue, the habit of the cards to curl into a pringlesque shape. I ripped a pack of 2005 chome, and they were as flat and level as a flat and level board.

But that is another gripefest entirely.

I have a second box that seems to be about the same, although I did not run the numbers, so speak. Perhaps I will.

So do you have similar numbers in your boxes, box breakers? Retails seems a smidge better, as in, I have a rookie card from retail that ISN'T miscut. At least one. From hobby, I have none.