What Was My Last Pack For A Year?

As I was getting and closer to my departure date I had to determine which product would be my last packs for quite some time.  It had to be something fun and enjoyable to open and so the obvious answers for me were either Allen and Ginter or the newest product at the time Topps Chrome.  I had opened my fair share of A and G so I went with a blaster of Chrome.  

The blaster gives you seven packs and one extra which in the past meant eight packs of the standard retail packs.  This year they changed it up and that 8th pack is now four purple refractors.   I wish that that had been explained a little better on the box.  

And so I ripped into these seven packs fully expecting the Cardboard Deities would shine down on me a rookie autograph to commemorate this special occasion.  Turns out, I must have pissed off the Deities because I was able to full two standard refractors...

One X-Fractor...

And two notable rookies...and that was it.  

And so I moved onto the refractor pack which has to be better than the regular packs, right?  

And, yes, it certainly was better than the regular packs but it just wasn't what you would call "last pack ever" material.

I couldn't just leave it there with that bad Chrome taste in my mouth.  So the day before I left, I ran to Target and bought a jumbo pack of Allen and Ginter.  I enjoy the A and G jumbo packs because it gives you two mini cards at a lower than two pack cost.  Surely this would bring me the sense of closure that I needed!

First we have the base and I'm happy to got the Roger Federer card in a pack without tracking it down elsewhere.

This Roger Maris is my favorite base card of the group.  Allen and Ginter did a great job on the classic player cards in this year's set.

A great insert!

And last but not least I've got a Lou Gehrig mini that makes me feel a lot better than how I felt after my  Chrome blaster.

After having been in Ukraine for about a week it has been as I suspected.  I've seen no sign of sports cards of any kind, including soccer.  My city of Kharkiv was even one of the host cities for the 2012 UEFA Euro Cup and so I thought there would be an outside chance of finding soccer cards but no luck so far.