Box Break - 2012 SP Signature Edition Baseball

I stopped by the LCS a few days back trying to decide how much, if any, 2013 Gypsy Queen I wanted to pick up this year.  I entered The Daily Dimwit's case break so I figured I would pick up a pretty nice stack of Giants. Sam was also going to build some sets and random them off so I thought I would wait until that drawing to pick up much.

In the end, I went with 2 packs of Gypsy Queen which netted me a couple of Cubs minis, inserts of RA Dickey and Joe Morgan and a few base cards.  I have been a fan of Gypsy Queen in the past but for some reason this year's design isn't doing it for me. I certainly want all the Giants but outside of maybe a couple more packs here and there I will probably refrain.

What I did decide to buy was a box of 2012 SP Signature Edition baseball.  This is the product I have typically referred to as a sticker dump by Upper Deck.  I am pretty sure they just looked to get rid of all the baseball auto stickers they had laying around the warehouse.  Not the best set ever but I really wanted to open something and there were a couple compelling reasons (at least ways to justify it in my mind).

First, I had just picked up the McCovey on Sportlots (see this McCovey Monday post) and the set was fresh in my mind. Second, the price point had come down a ton since first release.  I believe this box was selling for around $120 when it came out and I picked this one up for $54.  Finally, my LCS has indicated that there have been some great pulls recently including a Sandy Koufax and 2-3 Derek Jeters.  So in a moment of weakness I took the plunge.

This box consists of 3 auto cards, 1 of which is a multiple signature card.  I will share my pulls in the order they appeared in the box:

The first card is an auto of injured Rangers pitcher Neftali Feliz.  I scanned both the front and back to show off the entire design.  The front has no picture of the player, just a silhouette of a generic player, the name, team and career years circle the silhouette and the bottom right corner shows a baseball diamond with the players uniform number on it.

The back shows 1 line of career stats, a little biographical info on the right and the Congratulations! info authenticating the autograph.  Not a very inspired design and with the McCovey and this pack my thoughts that this was mostly a quick auto dump were confirmed.

Next up was a "Prospect" auto.  I am not too sure how much of a prospect Jonathan Meyer is for the Astros.  He is a third baseman who played in High A ball last year and hit .272 with 8 HRs and 57 RBI.  This year he is in AA.  He was a 3rd round draft pick and played High School ball in Simi Valley, CA which is real close to my company's head office.  Almost the same design, the jersey number is missing and replaced by a baseball and the career years are missing replaced with Prospect.

Finally the best hit of the box, a dual signature of Billy Williams and Alfonso Soriano.  It is always nice to pull a HOF auto.  This one is from the Franchise Focus subset and features a top Cubs player from the 1960s and 2000s. It is serial numbered 03/35.  This design isn't too bad in my opinion of a card without pictures but in reality isn't the picture supposed to be what the card is all about?

If anyone has an interest in any of these 3 cards, I am sure I could be persuaded to trade them so drop me a line.