The Best

You want to buy a box of '07 baseball cards. Problem is: the $3 cheap-opacks don't hold any good autographs or game-used memoribilia, and you can't justify spending your whole paycheck on 6 card "box" of the luxury brand. No problem, since I have already blown tons of money finding out which sets have the best bang for your buck, the best inserts, the most autographs (for your $$), and the down-right prettiest cards out there. Don't waste anymore time buying the cheap packs unless you want a closet full of ten cent cards ten years from now. You want cards to cherish, look at everyday (see pics of some of my pulls throughout this Review), and who knows, someday sell it here and pay off your college loans.If youlike togo the expensive route, I will shed light on the better buys out there. My goal here is to direct you towards collecting the most quality, best designed, and best player autos out there in the growing (yes I said growing) card collecting industry. FYI, I'm not hear to talk about base sets (i.e. Upper Deck Series One or even Topps Update) and I don't buy Donruss, I think they're the Toyota Scions of baseball cards and most people, MOST PEOPLE, will agree...
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Topps Co-Signers [7/10]:The title sounds enticing, you're thinking oh boy lots of autos! You're right, and there are some big hitters in this set like triple signed cards with the likes of ARod and Ryan Howard. Sadly you will collect tons of nameless (and worthless) rookies while trying to find these elusive cards (and have doubledoubledoubles of all the base set, which is ~ 100-120 cards). The price is greathowever and you'll most likely pick up some cool autos like Alex Gordon or Tulowitzki in the process. Or you could get really-really lucky and get the Arod/Howard/D.Wright triple auto. My advice, if you do buy them, go for the boxes, they're cheap on okay (~$70) and gee 3 autos per box, which is only behind the rates of Bowmans Best and Bowman Sterling for getting the most (# and quality) autographs for you dollar.

Bowman Chrome/Bowman Draft Picks [10/10, 7.5/10]: Here is your best set of the year in my humble, and now broke opinion. Buy quick because the price of these cards is on the rise! First off they are relatively inexpensive at ~$100/box on okay (probably less - make sure not to buy the $45 box, they have autos, but in my experience they're not as good). Second there are all different types of refractor cards of all different types to collect (the cards that reflect the prism sorry vets) - the autos gee in refractors too, and they're worth a BUNDLE (see the picture of my gold REF Kevin Mulvey Auto). Chances are you'll pull a refractor auto even after a couple of boxes. This set contains probably 2 of the hottest cards of 2007: the Joba Chamberlain and Tim Lincecum autographs. Imagine if you pulled a red refractor auto, that's out of 5 total cards in the known universe! Not likely but amazing cards are still out there. Quickly for Draft Picks: same rules apply except you will get more non-chrome cards. This set is all potential future Jeters and Markakis'and there are plenty of good autos to find in here, as well asgame used bases, inside thick refractor cards. If you were to buy one box for the rest ofyour life, I'd buy a box of these, because for the price you won't get any better.

Upper Deck Spectrum [7.5/10]: another good deal for the money, plenty of the things collectors like - game used and autos galore. Like Co-Signers you will filter through a lot of rookie autos and jerseys of players that aren't that interesting, however Spectrum has loads of cool autos (some from actors in Hollywood) and low serial numbered relics. A good buy, and a pretty cheap box to get on okay (~$70). Again, you'll probably have the geplete base set in spades after a few boxes, but the inserts make this a pretty good box.
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SP Legendary Cuts (9.5/10): any set that has a chance to pull dimaggios and gehrigs is my kind of set - granted the base cards are crap and the inserts are much better. However, if you put a little time into these you will pull a Cut Signature and maybe you'll get lucky like me and pull a Film Reel card (see pic below: reel of film of Gehrig hitting a homerun - pretty darn sweet). The benefits outweigh the risk of losing all your hard-earned dough with this set. Also the game used possibilities are ENDLESS - there are tons of Kirby Pucketts, Ripkens, Boggs, Bench, Yastremskis, etc in jerseys and bat barrels - no other brand does it like this and that's why LCuts is ranked so high....Go gobble 'em up!


Artifacts (5/10): 4 cards per pack, lackluster designs on the relic cards - Antiquity, Divisional Apparel, etc. - they suck. And the autos don't get any better - sure there's a Ripken in there somewhere but you're sure as hell not going to get it. Save your money.
Allen and Ginter (7/10), Turkey Red (5/10), Topps Chrome (5/10), Masterpieces (6/10): I grouped these together because these 4 brands are pretty cheap (except Masterpieces which is a worthless card design with drawings which I cannot stand, they inherently DEVALUE the card when a picture is not present). Topps Chrome is a nice card set for the cash but not enough valuable autos to make it worth it to put a lot of time into buying packs