2011 Card Karma?

I tried to refrain from being "that person" who had to go out and buy the new Topps 2011 product on the day of the release, but I failed miserably.  Since getting back into the hobby, this is probably the most excited I've been. This set encompasses a few things I love: new packs, baseball cards, and diamonds (after all, they are a girl's best friend)!  Yes, another female collector here for those who weren't in the know.  Consider yourselves informed.


So, considering most people who have been posting have mentioned that they got their 2011 product at Target, I decided to go to Target as well.  They had a ton of packs ($1.99 each), around 5 rack packs left($4.99 each), and several blasters as well, although it took awhile to find these as they were hidden on the bottom shelf.  Of course those are $19.99 each, but they do include a commemorative patch card in each box.  Not wanting to go crazy, and anticipating buying lots more of this product in the days ahead--I am planning on picking up a hobby box soon--I bought one pack and one rack pack. 


Hopefully my first pack rip of 2011 will lead to good card-karma, as I got some really nice pulls out of the loose pack I opened. 

First card pulled out of a 2011 pack:

Former Ray Carl Crawford

Two inserts: Cabrera is RDT15, Gibson is 60YOT-13.

A very diamond infused Buster Posey All Star Rookie card.

And from the first pack I opened in 2011, not one, but TWO cards for my player collections, and one is Harry Leroy Halladay III! Needless to say I was pretty excited I pulled these.

As for the rack pack I bought, nothing super, but here are a few scans:

Latos mini, bad scan, but the card is poorly centered too.

The back of the Latos, and a very shiny Willingham.

And happily, another Halladay card!

My first impressions of 2011 Topps are that I like the cards, but there are SO many parallels and inserts and manufactured cards that it will be difficult for anyone to complete anything other than the base set. I thought that those really shiny diamond anniversary cards would be annoying, but I actually really think they look cool.  If nothing else, these are interesting packs to open due to the amazing variety. 

Let me apologize for the bad scans. Why am I such a bad scanner? It seems simple enough, but I always seem to do something wrong in the end. Oh well, you get the idea.

I'm still undecided as to whether I am going to chase this set or not. Time will tell I guess, depending on how much of it I wind up with.

The cheapest I've seen the hobby boxes on eBay are for around $68 shipped. If anyone knows of any other good deals on the hobby boxes please share your knowledge!