2010 Topps Platinum NFL Retail

Greetings!

Hope everyone's having a good week.  By the time this is posted, I will be in the middle of my family's Disney World vacation (figured now is as good a time as any to test out the Blogger Schedule feature).  The Wifey, the boys, the In-Laws, and I hopefully won't be sweltering in the Florida humidity too much waiting for It's A Small World.

Anyway, since Training Camp's underway across the country, I figured a football pack is necessary...from the restocked $1.59 Target bin, here's a pack of 2010 Topps Platinum!

One of our former contributors posted a hobby pack a while back.  Even though he had a coupon, apparently the hobby versions cost $7 bucks for 5 cards back then.  I'd much rather pay $1.59 for one less card.

I don't buy a whole lot of football, so I didn't know about this set.  But, platinum infers shiny.  Me likes the shiny (on cards, not hot and humid Florida sun shiny).  Here's what I got:

#118 - DeSean Jackson
#76 - DeMarcus Ware
#23 - Mike Williams (RC)
#156 - Dwayne Bowe

Obviously the shiny does not pick up well on the scanner.  They're not too bad looking, I would just rather have the Topps Chrome setup where you can see the rest of the action.

Oh, you want to see the backs?

You didn't?  Sorry, I had them scanned in already.  Notice that the Williams RC is a little darker than the other 3.  I checked the cards and it appears the rookie cards are more glossy than the rest of the base cards.

Anyway, that's the pack.  More when I get home...thanks for reading!

2012 Leaf The Living Legend Pete Rose

Today we are opening a pack of a product I had never seen in person before finding one in the clearance bin at Target.  I'm speaking of 2012 Leaf The Living Legend Pete Rose.  Take a look.

2013 Press Pass Rookie Football

Here is the last pack of football I have scanned, but yet to post. Like the previous two, this was another pack wars pack. And if I was a football collector, I would not buy this garbage. Maybe I am being too harsh - you all be the judge.

Some big names on the pack - who will I get? Now, it's bad enough that Panini doesn't have an MLB license, so we get some crappy cards without team logos. How about not even having an NCAA license? Get ready to be amazed! And by amazed, I mean bored to death. Still too harsh?

Well....there you have it. Funny they shop out the team/school name, but leave the marks of the beast plain to see. They even photoshopped the bumper of the helmet. The name and the Press Pass insignia are foil. No cheating, now - what team is Star Lotulelei from? Answers at the bottom.

How about Deandre Hopkins?

Bjoern Werner?

Justin Hunter?

And last is Cordarrelle Patterson?

Give up? Click the school name for an unshopped image of the uniform.

Lotulelei is from Univ of Utah.
Hopkins went to Clemson.
Werner attended Florida State.
Hunter took some classes at Univ of Tennessee.
Patterson was a college teammate with Hunter at Tennessee.

Oh, and the backs?

Image recycled from the front. Now I will really get harsh - click "hall of shame" cuz these cards stink.

2004 Fleer Legacy

In my last post, I covered 1982 Fleer. In this post, I've opened a pack 22 years in the making from the time of that other pack: 2004 Fleer Legacy.

There are 5 cards in each pack of Legacy. The pack itself is thicker than 5 cards, and that is because the pack could contain a relic card.  If the pack does NOT have a relic, then there is filler.

The cards are gorgeous, slick, and are nearly borderless. Each card is done in the primary team color of the player. On the upper left corner, the player's name appears in white lettering. Opposite, in the lower right corner, the team name wraps around the inset border. Each card features a full-body action shot of the player and a watermark close-up of the player's face.  The "Fleer Legacy" logo shows up in the lower left corner near the border inset.

This pack did not have a relic, and instead gave us a promo card for Hot Prospects. Oh well, maybe next time.

1982 Fleer Baseball

As part of the pack-a-day season break I'm doing, several readers have donated packs to the cause. Workman41 bought several packs and them delivered to me. The 1982 Fleer Baseball was one of those.

I did not scan the wrapper, but I scanned all the cards that came from the pack. These really took me back to my childhood. Before we get into that, though, let's look at some of the cards. Each pack had 1 sticker and 15 cards.

The sticker (in this case, a Yankees team logo) was on the top of the pack. The cards themselves feature a rounded corner border in the featured player's team colors. The player name, team, and position appear in a solid-fill oval centered at the bottom front of the card. No where on the front does the manufacturer appear.

As you can see, we pulled some cool players of the day! The photography was pretty bad by today's standards. I would venture to say they were bad by 80's standards as well. Haha! That doesn't mater, though, because the uniforms and hair styles ensure there is no mistaking the era in which these were taken!

I think what sticks out the most to me is not the quality so much as the distance of the photo. Very few close-ups and even those still appear a bit further than we see today. Though the Mike Jones card is pretty close, comparatively. I also show you an example of a card back. The back features a light blue border (on all cards) with card Number, player name and bio, team logo, and stats for the player's career (essentially, though not always).  Fleer was notorious for having errors on their cards - from duplicate card numbers to incorrect stats to misspelled names. I have not checked to see if any of these are of an error variety.

When I was a kid, my friends and I would go to the local "Dairy" store and buy cards. After we picked out the ones we were keeping, we'd start flipping the ones we didn't want.  We didn't do the sideways toss. We held the cards by the long edge, raised our hand to at least forehead level, then thrust downward releasing the card so that it would flip end over end to the ground. We tried to "aim" the toss as to land on the cards already thrown, but this rarely worked. The rule was that face-down cards were fair game. If your card landed on another card face-up, you go all the cards your card touched. If your card landed face-down, it stayed there.  Any cards left on the ground after everyone had tossed their cards were returned to their original owners and/or traded.  We flipped a LOT of '82 Fleer.

2013 Topps Archives Football

Let's keep the folder cleaning going - day 2, more football. Yet another pack wars pack.

We will get licensed NFL teams and players this time around. Like the baseball Archives, Topps dives into their older designs. With 2013, Topps goes back to showcase 4 different styles: 1959, 1976, 1985 and 1986.

Let's start with 1959. Decent design, but a crappy image when you throw the pink glove on the card. Plus the 1959 cards were posed shots, not action.

Somewhat faithful back. I like the retro font for the quiz question. But the long bio does not belong. It should be a blank area to rub a coin and reveal the answer. Score - 6/10

Moving to 1976. Again with the action shot. I guess that's what the kids what nowadays. Or you just can't get the players to pose like you used to.

The back is closer to the original than the '59. Granted, you have the logos in the lower right, but all that legal crap is just required with the cards produced now. Score: 7/10

Jumping to 1985. Again with the action photo, but dang Topps hit the mark on the front. Even to the word make in the upper left. Font in a little too close, but it's a good look.

Only the card stock sets this design back. Good job on this year, Topps. Score: 9/10

Last we have 1986. The green is all wrong. The font colors are all wrong. The font style is all wrong. It's close, but not close enough.

The back is a bit better. Just the different logos at the lower right. Getting the back right saves the front. Score:7/10 Here's the rest of the pack.

And I got one insert in the pack.

Homage to the 1970 Glossy. Rounded corners. Seeded one in every six packs.

1991 Space Ventures Space Shots Series 2

Another junk wax gem. This one is called Space Shots featuring photography space shots from NASA missions, satellites, and astronauts. According to back of the pack its 110 card set with 25% of the profits going to Astronauts Memorial Foundation. While its 12 cards per pack I got two doubles. Time to blast off with this pack.

 178 - STS 41AC - Tumbling EVA - back of the card has picture of astronaut patch along with info about the mission.

 211 - Galileo Passing IO - picture of artist conception of Galileo satellite probing with one of Jupiter moons with Jupiter in the background. The mission ended in 2003 plunging into Jovian atmosphere.

194 - Moon From Galileo - shot taken from Galileo satellite

213 - Galaxy M-81 from Astro - shot of M-81 from Astro telescope. Technology at its infancy it improved through the years and decade with multiple telescopes. This what M-81 looks like from Hubble Telescope.

 124 - Owen K. Garriot - one of six astronaut scientists chosen in 1965

 164 - Apollo 11 - Setting Up Flag - I'm glad they put this shot in this set as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set up U.S. flag on the moon.

 118 - Harrison "Jack" Schmitt - one of six astronaut scientists chosen in 1965. After NASA he took up politics serving US senate

 180 - STS 41C - LDEF Deployment - Stands for Long Duration Exposure Facility used to expose various items especially seeds in space. It was retrieved from space in 1990.

 179 - STS 41C - Nelson at Solar Max - Solar Maximum satellite used to investigate solar phenomena. This shot feature astronaut George Nelson riding Manned Maneuvering Unit to repair the satellite. Mission ended in 1989 when it re-entered the earth and burned up.

 

177 - STS 41B - Stewart with MMU - Astronaut Robert Stewart testing flight of Manned Maneuvering Unit. Nice shot of the earth in the background.

Now back to earth and hope you enjoy small bit of space education.

2002 Upper Deck Retail

I bought eight of these bad boys recently at 50 cents a pop. It's hard to beat that kind of price for any pack that could possibly contain those "hits" that the kids love so much. I've actually been a big fan of this design for awhile, so it was an easy call to make this purchase. Here's the first pack off the top of the stack. I'll probably do something at a later date with the rest of the packs over at my own blog.

79 - Chris Carpenter - Right off the bat, here's a great card that will go into my personal collection. Carp has been struggling to return to active MLB duty while dealing with some weird physical issues, but if he never pitches another game you can still look back at what an amazing career the guy has had.

53 - Ramon Ortiz - Ortiz is still active and is pitching for the Blue Jays this season, or at least has a few times.

453 - Juan Uribe - Uribe is currently in his third season with the Dodgers. That's three active players in a row out of an 11 year old pack. Not bad.

205 - Doug Mientkiewicz - And Mientkiewicz busts up the streak.

263 - Keith Lockhart - Was Lockhart Atlanta's own David Eckstein?

237 - Nick Johnson - Johnson had an injury-hexed career. And really gross mustaches.

489 - Ken Griffey Jr. Griffey Gallery - There must be a massive Griffey subset in this set because I seem to get one of these in nearly every pack.
 

463 - Manny Ramirez World Stage - It would be really odd if Manny Ramirez made his triumphant return to the bigs right in the wake of the "MLB Finally Decides to Get Tough About PEDs" situation.

2012 Fleer Retro Football

Been a while since I have posted. And I have a directory loaded with scans, so let's clear this bad boy out. Here is a pack I ripped from my LCS's pack wars a month or two back.

Like the wrapper for Fleer Retro hockey, they nailed it with this pack. Five cards per pack. Let's have at it.

No NFL contract for Upper Deck, so they tap into their college license. Nice pull right out of the pack with Sanders. This is the guy that should have the NFL rushing record. A lovely remake of the classic Fleer Ultra look.

Image reuse on the back, unfortunately, but otherwise they have done the reproduction right.

How about some Fleer Metal? I think I ripped one or two packs of Metal in the past, both baseball. But I cannot complain about opening a Starr.

Ahhhhhhh - the 90's in all it's glory. I like the Skybox logo at the lower left.

I stopped ripping football in the early 90's, so I have no idea what set this is a throwback to. If it even is one. A bit boring of a design.

More metal. Dwayne Allen. At least foil works well in this regard.

Didn't get a hit - just more Metal. This was a fun pack to rip.