1997-98 Skybox Premium Series 1 Retail Basketball

Hey! I have a little basketball card club thing going on at my primary blog right now, Cards on Cards. Supporting the club (which literally costs nothing) keeps entertaining programming like this alive on this blog and the others I may post in. I may buy more crummy packs for $1 that contain NBA cards if I have some solid contacts to give those cards away to when I'm sick of looking at them. This pack was less crummy than the NBA Hoops pack I recently showed off, despite having almost the exact same pack wrapper. It compensated for the lack of crumminess by having most of the cards stick together.

33 - Joe Smith - Joe Smith was the 1st overall pick once upon a time, and had a very long career in relative anonymity. I don't think having the name "Joe Smith" did him a lot of favors, but it also probably kept him from being remembered as a complete bust.

71 - Loy Vaught - Just remember recent Clippers fans, there was a time when your fans were excited about Loy Vaught. Okay, actually, that's probably not true.

14 - Sean Elliott

26 - Jeff Hornacek - Hornacek and Stockton were quite the backcourt in Salt Lake. And quite obnoxious to virtually anyone that wasn't a die hard Jazz fan.

119 - Dennis Rodman - Is Rodman attempting a shot here? Did he really do that?

121 - Stephon Marbury - Starbury!

96 - Chris Webber - C-Webb! Was there a better time for NBA basketball than the 1990s? I really don't think that there was.

104 - Tim Thomas - Thomas was another generically named, disappointing high draft pick. He didn't seem to have the work ethic Joe Smith had, though, but he got paid like crazy.

- Allen Iverson Answer Reebok ad thing - Is this a shoe ad? Insert card? Both? Neither? It's really bizarre looking, and shiny.

2010-11 Upper Deck Hockey series 1

So far, I post hockey packs on days my Blackhawks play...and they win. Granted, the game started (Hawks up 2-1), but who am I to ruin a good thing. Plus, it's a pack that we haven't posted. It's another I pulled from a 10 pack repack from Target. So let's get to it.

You can't tell from the glare, but this pack contains 8 cards. Big shock we have Sid the Kid on the cover. The card companies forget there are other players in the league. I love the price sticker on the pack. Five bucks at 7-11. I remember seeing packs at 7-11. I never picked up any cards with my Slurpee, though.

First out of the pack is a great shot of a great player. I am not a big fan of the black and white shot in the bottom corner, and at times the name is hard to read.

This is how you use a horizontal card. Fill that baby up with the body, the stick, the puck, and have a player hanging off your back to finish the scene. What you get more in hockey cards than baseball is great views of the fans watching.

I keep looking at this card, and from the regular shot and the small head shot, I am positive this is a CGI generated player. Curtis....could you look any more plastic?

Now THAT is a name! Since the Hawks are playing the Wild right now, I think Latendresse is looking longingly at the Hawks celebrating yet another goal.

Crappy insert of a crappy player. Moving on.

Nice insert of a quality player. I think the white at the bottom, though, is a bit of wasted space.

Here is not how a card company should do a horizontal card. Such the snooze.

Last card. I didn't pull a Young Gun as advertised on the pack. Oh well. Here's the card backs, btw.

As you see, the portrait on the front is in color on the back. Pretty straight forward. Nothing flashy.

Ok - it's 2-1 end of the first. I'm posting, then I am back to the television. Go Blackhawks!

1997-98 NBA Hoops Series 1 Retail

Hey! I have a little basketball card club thing going on at my primary blog right now, Cards on Cards. Supporting the club (which literally costs nothing) keeps entertaining programming like this alive on this blog and the others I may post in. I may buy more crummy packs for $1 that contain NBA cards if I have some solid contacts to give those cards away to when I'm sick of looking at them. Here's a pack I regret buying:

121 - Steve Nash - This is remarkably bad. I guess I should have known better than to try and answer my question of "whatever happened to NBA Hoops?" In comparison, Panini's revival of the brand name looks pretty impressive.

131 - Mitch Richmond

140 - Shawn Kemp - I suppose it's fair to comment on the Kings-to-Seattle situation. So I will. I hope it happens.

67 - Dale Davis - Master of the "pump fake it five times and leave the ball short off the front of the rim".

79 - Travis Knight

8 of 10 - Grant Hill Chill with Hill - Wow. I don't even know what to say.

90 - Armon Gilliam

80 - George McCloud

51 - Theo Ratliff - The '90s were weird. The Pistons were green back then. And on acid, I guess.

65 - Erick Dampier

 77 - Robert Horry

2 - Dennis Rodman League Leader - Rodman averaged 16.1 rebounds a game in 1996-97.

40 - Robert Pack

56 - Joe Smith

11 of 30 - Hakeem Olajuwon Talkin' Hoops - Bill Walton is back on the air doing college games these days, which is great/terrible. I'm happy for Walton being healthy enough to get back to doing his job, but he is not good at that job. Then again, Dick Vitale still seems to have a job.

2008-09 Upper Deck Hockey series 2

The NHL is back. My Blackhawks are off to their best start in 40 year. Game tonight against the most hated team in my mind - the Dead Wings. Let's rip some more hockey! From a repack box, here's a pack of Upper Deck for the 08-09 season.

 

Jerome Iginla on the pack. Five cards, with one possibly being a rookie Young Guns. Did I pull one?

JR as a shark. I hated the day he left the Hawks, and I know he always felt like a Blackhawk his life. Even now. Oduya needs to give up his sweater and the Hawks need to raise it into the rafters.

PACK WINNER! Seabs at home, starting the breakout. Too many ads in the background, though.

Dacy Tucker on a Victory insert card. Nice shot of a uniform that need to lose the Bettman stripes and the blue side panels. Tucker would retire a year later.

Local boy (born in Arlington Heights, IL) that is no longer on a NHL roster and playing in Europe.

 

The lockout ended and Zajac jumped on an 8 year contract extension. Nice snow job on the photo. The Devils need to dump the black and go back to green. Just saying.

So a pack that started well, then fizzled at the end. Did I mention the Blackhawks are 5-0 right now?

1999 Fleer Ultra Baseball (Hobby)

Either my blog searching capabilities are garbage or it's actually true that no one has even busted a pack of 1999 Fleer Ultra on this fine little blog.  Either way, here's a pack out of a recent hobby box that I busted.

There is a special print card in every pack - how do you beat that?!  I'm betting right now that I don't get one of those one-of-ones.

6.  Troy O'Leary
73.  Ken Caminiti
76.  Marquis Grissom

Standard fare here, I like that the color of the player name differs depending on the team.

93.  Wilson Alvarez
101.  Cliff Floyd
103.  Manny Ramirez

The backs of the cards also differ in color depending on the team.  Fleer was usually pretty good at customizing its sets based on the team pictured.

156.  Chipper Jones
187.  Michael Tucker
192.  Sammy Sosa

Sosa is verifying the fact that he got to second base for all to see.

131G.  Gold Medallion Edition:  Geoff Jenkins

The Gold Medallion Edition cards are 1-per-pack parallels in hobby packs.  Other than that, nothing much super exciting here (though the Chipper and Sosa cards are decent pulls).  The photography in the set is pretty good - if only the big font size for the player name didn't obscure so many of the photos!  

1991 Ultimate Sportscards Hockey

Hockey is back - YAY!!! To celebrate, I picked up a repack box of hockey from Target. If you want to see it all, I will be doing a repack wars post on it over at 2x3 Heroes. There are a few packs in the box that I will be adding here since they have yet to be posted. We will start with the oldest pack in the box: 1991 Ultimate Sportscards Hockey. Here's junk wax at it's finest. A company with no licensing jumping into the trading card business. It's bad, but in a glorious way. Trust me. Here's the wrapper.

That is one cluttered wrapper. As you see, this is the "premier" edition, which I think means "only" in French. Check out the preview of the card on the wrapper. Notice the jersey? Yeah - it's some company named Smokey's out of Las Vegas. They were a card shop that did pretty well in the business in the early 90's. Then they had some trouble. With the Feds. So let's enjoy this as them trying to go legit, and sucking pretty bad at it. Oh - you have the standard sweepstakes card in the wrapper to - we'll get to that. Ok, time to start ripping.

HO.

LEE.

SH*T.

That is GOLD right out of the pack. For you that can't place your hunks, you are looking at Scott Niedermayer. I have been meaning to get some TTMs out in the world. This baby is #1 on my list! BTW - this (unfortunately) is not the standard of the cards. But I think we know where Be A Player got their idea.

I am guessing this is some kind of insert? Note the crappy uniform - no licensing. This is Tyler Wright, 12th overall for the Oilers in 1991. His career was very blah.

It says Mikael Nylander, but holy crap dude - you look older than Gordie Howe! Always nice to see "Hartford" on a hockey card. Too bad it's that garbage Smokey's sweater, though.

Dody Wood. Oh the jokes that are meant to be made.

Jassen Cullimore in an action shot with.....some other draft pick guy. Ex-Blackhawk who had a semi-decent career and is currently in Europe.

 

Here's the card backs. WOW! Jassen collects cards. I wonder if he blogs and would a trade with me?

And we finish with quality. Most have no clue about Markus in Philly, probably because he was actually drafted by the Pens and played in Pittsburgh for 2 years before making a name for himself  in Vancouver. So well done, Smokey's. Nice error card.

Ok - time to win. We got autographed sets (wonder if they were faking those at Smokey's in '91), calendars and posters. I just have to mail my winning ticket by Sept 30, 1992. Umm - I thnk it's expired. Ok - what might I have won 20 years ago?

LOSER!