2013 Enterplay G.I. Joe: Retaliation

Greetings...

Hope everyone had a good week.  50 years ago this month, this toy made it's debut:

Hasbro introduced the first G.I. Joe action figures during the International Toy Fair back in February of 1964.  The figures have come a long way from the original "America’s Movable Fighting Man".

There are only 2 Joe-related posts on APTBNL, here and here.  I knew where to find another pack to post, so off I went to the Dollar Tree.  I've seen them there before, but refused to buy them because it was 3 cards for a buck.  But still, the 50th birthday of the first action figure needs to be acknowledged, so here's a pack of 2013 Enterplay G.I. Joe: Retaliation!

OK, so it's 3 cards and a tattoo sheet for a buck.  Yeah, doesn't make it much better.  Here's the back of the pack:

Magic Mike is patrolling the back, letting you know what's in those fine tattoos.  Here's what I got:

#2 - Firefly
#T2 - Tattoo Sheet

I have yet to see Retaliation, so I don't know how much Firefly is used.  It seemed like he was only in the early episodes of the cartoon, disappearing halfway through the run.

Look at those tats!  I assume the top one is "Snake Eyes's Ninja Hexogram" and the one on the left is "'Brothers' Calligraphy".  Everyone should know what the "Cobra Badge" is.
 

#17 - The Ear That Sees
#10 - Duke

Jinx is taking on Snake Eyes in the one card I got that describes a scene from the movie.  Don't know if they kept the "bad luck" part of Jinx's persona; at least they brought over the "fighting good while blindfolded" bit. And hey, a Duke card...the back says Duke is Roadblock's second in command.  Wait, what?

Speaking of backs:

For those who are wondering, the cards themselves are very thin.  Interweb searches reveal that there are only 48 cards in the set.

Well, that's the pack.  Pretty bummed, right?  Well, I can't let the post end on a downer.  So, here's a link to the classic G.I Joe PSA parodies:

  
Have a great weekend...Yo Joe!

2013-14 Upper Deck SPx hockey

Hey all. It's been WAY TOO long since I have posted here. Which is wrong on my part, because I have about a half dozen scanned packs ready to post. I wish I had a good excuse, but I don't. I can only blame the Dutch (looking at you, Jeroen).

Yesterday I had some free time to hit my LCS. I was looking for cards for my Fox project, but nothing fit my budget. Bought a box of 92 UD baseball junk wax for fun ($12) along with a couple packs. Let's post the UD SPx cuz 1) I don't feel like scanning a jumbo pack of 2014 Topps, 2) it needs to be on this blog and 3) HOLY COW! You'll see why.

The box I believe is 12 packs with 4 autos or relics. I always buy at least one pack of each Upper Deck hockey release a year just because. I am glad Jeff behind the counter made this the day to purchase SPx. New rookie heart throb Nathan MacKinnon on the cover. Double rookie class logo as is on all the 13/14 releases. Just 4 cards in the pack. I got 5. And the dummy card.

Decent start with a Backstrom, though the guy will never get a Cup if he stays on the Capitals. Pretty busy design going on. The name is actually in a light blue-gray foil, as is the logo. Doesn't show up so well on my scanner. If you see the blueish hue off on the edges, there's the color. The B&W photo is not bad in this design, if it wasn't a copy of the color image.

Chara next. You can see the blue foil a little better here. Bit of a derp face on Zdeno.

Now why my scanner cannot pick up the blue foil, but makes this foil-ish card nothing BUT blue is a mystery. Here's a rookie insert. Look r-e-a-l-l-y close as that white sash and you can see "ROOKIES". And it's as hard to see in person, so no blame to my HP scanner on that. Yes, that is a very faint image of the same guy on the left.

Mike Ribero. Well, each set has it's filler. I just noticed the team name is not on the front of the card.

Here's the back. Oh boy - the same image a 3rd time. Only 5 years of stats, which seems to be the norm now on hockey releases. Only the team logo and the name in the stat lines. No mention of the city. Weird.

Ok - so that's the four. Technically, the Ribero was the last card of the pack. In place four was a card that was already in a penny sleeve. That was kind of strange. But considering what it was, I will give Upper Deck some slack.

HO
LEE
$%#&!!!!!!

Are you kidding me?!?!?! This is a 1996 SPx buy back that was hard signed by the Great One. You can see the hologram in the middle with Wayne in those sad Blues sweaters. However, we get 99 in the Rangers to the right. This, by far, is the greatest pull of my life. And to think I was commenting to the LCS clerk Jeff before I picked this pack that I would probably pull a Clutterbuck relic or something. It turns out the penny sleeve held the COA that goes along with this card/autograph. Great finish for a $10 pack.

1993 Upper Deck All-Time Heroes

Here is a pack I came across a couple weeks ago that I had in a pile and never opened not sure where I got it because I really didn't like the whole idea of these cards for one there oddball size thin 2 1/4 by an extra long 5 1/4 and then there is the triple fold concept which I don't like any card with a built in feature to bend it and to make it not mint on purpose just isn't a good idea for me.  I believe Upper Deck did these to raise some money for B.A.T. (Baseball Assistance Team) since the logo is on either the front or back of every card.  Not sure but I think this was only a one season deal and where not produced again but here we go with the pack there was 12 cards to a pack and a total of 165 cards in the base set one of the cards in my pack is unnumbered and coloring on the back is a little different then the other 11 cards black vs. gold so thinking it's a subset or insert.

Wrapper

#30 Frank Chance, #42 Larry Doby & #53 George Foster

The backs of #30 Frank Chance, #42 Larry Doby & #53 George Foster

#71 Monte Irvin, #84 Mickey Lolich & #93 Gil McDougald

The Backs of #71 Monte Irvin, #84 Mickey Lolich & #93 Gil McDougald

#94 Sam McDowell, #103 Mel Ott & #115 Enos Slaughter

The Backs of #94 Sam McDowell, #103 Mel Ott & #115 Enos Slaughter

#144 Spahn/Matherson, #148 Evers/Chance & NNO Cobb/Jennings

The backs of #144 Spahn/Matherson, #148 Evers/Chance & NNO Cobb/Jennings

2013-14 Pinnacle Basketball

Here's another familiar brand name from the past that has been assimilated and rebirthed by the Panini monolith. Let's check it.

251 - Dikembe Mutombo - This is not a bad card to start with at all. This particular design focuses on the player and makes the background pretty incidental.

61 - Jared Sullinger - Here's a look at the back of the card. There might be some stats in there if you use a magnifying glass.

19 - Cody Zeller - The Bobcats era of Charlotte basketball is going to go down as a weird footnote, as the city will reclaim the Hornets nickname (and color scheme) next season if I'm not mistaken.

75 - Damian Lillard Artist Proof Red - Here's a big score for me, the big Blazers fan. Lillard was last season's Rookie of the Year and became the first player in league history to participate in five separate All-Star Events.

5 - Harrison Barnes Team 2020 - Here's an insert, I think. I like Golden State's jerseys as long as they're not the dreaded sleeved version.

7 - George Gervin Position Powers - Another insert. There's usually a decent amount of historical players in NBA sets, which is nice.

184 - Ersan Ilyasova - No one is going to take pro basketball in Wisconsin seriously looking like this.

141 - Al Horford - And here's an Al to finish things up.

2013 Topps Update Series Retail

Greetings...

Hope everyone is well.  Crazy weather we got in the Midwest.  We had a wintery mix this morning, which turned to rain (temps were pushing 50), then fog, now the fog has cleared but the wind is picking up, because the cold front's coming in which will drop temps back in the 30's.  Hope the flooding won't be too bad, and I hope the leaks in the garage don't get worse.

Anyway, everyone's talking about the new Topps flagship set, and how awesome / bad it is with it's great / stale photography and it's OK / bad inserts.  But we at A Pack To Be Named Later are old school.  So old school that we have yet to post a pack of the 2013 Update Series...until now!

It's the standard 330 card set, with the parallels, inserts, 1971 Topps Minis (instead of 1972...don't know why they switched it up), and scanner cutting off borders.  Here's what I got: 

#US165 - A.J. Pierzynski
#US147 - Charlie Morton
#US225 - Chris Getz
#US321 - Grant Green (RC)

See, this is how the Update Series should be:  rookies, players in new uniforms, and players they didn't get to yet.

#US313 - Mariano Rivera
#US320 - Chris Archer (Emerald Foil)
#FF-8 - Nolan Ryan / Yu Darvish (Franchise Forerunners)

I know the Rivera cards in the 2014 flagship are awfully good, but this one is pretty good too.  The Emerald parallel is 1 in 6 packs, while the Franchise Forerunners card is 1 in 8 packs.

#US150 - Gerrit Cole (RC)
#US276 - Torii Hunter

Click here to get a full list of the different parallel cards in the Update set.  Who got the Prince George parallel?

#US249 - Madison Bumgarner
#US177 - David Ortiz (Checklist)
#US293 - Robinson Cano

Getting the Bumgarner and Ortiz card back to back makes me chuckle.  Why's Madison all not impressed with Big Papi?  Perhaps he thinks Ortiz's still on the juice*.

Here are some backs:

Anyway, that's the pack.  Thanks for reading!

* Begin disclaimer:  Let it be known that the writers at A Pack To Be Named Later do not actually know if Madison Bumgarner actually thinks David Ortiz is still taking steroids to enhance his play.  The writers at A Pack To Be Named Later also have not contacted Madison Bumgarner, or his representatives, to see if he thinks David Ortiz is still on the juice, nor did they contact him to find out why he's all not impressed with what's going on to his left.  Furthermore, the writers at A Pack To Be Named Later do not have any evidence that David Ortiz is currently taking steroids, although it did appear that he did so in the past.  This is why the writer of this post found the two cards back to back amusing; perhaps he's the only one who found it amusing.  End disclaimer.

1995 Topps Football Series 2

       I was in the supermarket buying Valentine's dinner for one when the second most depressing thing hit me - we are 2 weeks removed from football and 2 weeks away from even spring training baseball - that's absolutely smack dab in the middle of the darkest sports time of the year (unless you like relentless basketball).  So I did the only thing I knew would (briefly) cheer me up, I headed for the silly sports card vending machine at the front of the store.  Like an 8-year old, I pulled all the change out of my pocket and found I had $1.41 and quickly did the math of what would be the most economic use of this pile of coins.  There is always a few old junk wax packs in the machine for a buck or less, but I saw something this time I hadn't seen before: 1995 Topps football packs.  Seeing they were only $1.25, it was clear that this would be a fine way to kill a few minutes before I ate my tuna steak and roast potatoes while watching bad TV on the most "romantic" night of the year. 

The pack itself is both modern and yet also seems so old fashioned.  Look at how brief the odds are for inserts - just five listed and a little blurb about the Power Booster cards.  That's it.  These days, it is listed in the tiniest font possible, quoting an endless array of parallels and impossible autographs, not to mention the disclaimers about the odds being averages and the fact that these cards might not be real, don't mean shit, might not exist, and have no value, etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum ad nauseum.  One more thing, on the front, shouldn't the word "series" be above the 2 and not under it?

Enough about the sad state of current cards, let's look at these beauties:
Andre Reed just made the hall of fame so that is a nice start and if you are a Patriots or Jaguars fan, the beginning of this pack is right up your alley.  I honestly have never heard of either of those Pats players and I lived in Boston in 1995.  I wonder if James Stewart had a Jimmy Stewart impression down for the occasions that required it?

The design of the 1995 Topps football follows the baseball design (as the basketball cards did as well), something Topps did a lot in the 1990's.  I also liked when they customized the design elements for the sport while keeping the overall design in tact.  Alas, this design does not require that.

The football backs are also almost identical to the baseball backs, though they don't make the direct reference to Diamond Vision for obvious reasons.  Plus, Nick Lowery and I have the same birthday.  Lovely.

Let's take a look of the rest of the pack:

The back of that Warren Moon looks a lot better than the front because thanks to time and pressure, it was stuck to the front of the Darren Reed and they had to be physically separated, thus wrecking the front of both cards.  Pity, since I am a huge Warren Moon fan (no, really) and even have a Moon Vikings jersey from back in the day.  The rest of this pack was downhill from there, with Chiefs fullbacks and failed Bears quarterbacks (is that an oxymoron?) being the lowlights.  We end the same way we began, with a Buffalo wide receiver, though I seriously doubt Russell Copeland will make the hall of fame.

2001-02 Fleer NBA Hoops Hot Prospects Retail

Greetings...

Hope everyone is enjoying their Valentine's Day.  The Wifey is a room mom for both kid's classrooms, and since both classes had parties today, I had to come off the bench to be room dad for one of the parties.  Hats off to teachers who have to deal with lots of little munchkins all day.

Since this is NBA All-Star Weekend, it's time to get a pack of ballers on the site.  From the (then) $1.49 Target bin, it's a pack of 2001-02 Fleer NBA Hoops Hot Prospects!

My over 2 year old Beckett does list this set as "Hoops Hot Prospects".  It was the second year of this set being called this way.  There was no "Hoops" set in either year, though.

The set consisted of 108 cards...wait, what?  Fleer couldn't round up?  Anyway, there were 80 veteran cards and 28 rookie cards.  The back of the pack says the rookie cards are called Future Swatch, numbered to 1,000.  Don't know if there are rookie cards, and then there are rookie cards with a piece of a jersey in it, or if there is no parallel and the rookie card comes with the jersey swatch.

The big rookies were Tony Parker and Pau Gasol.  Here's what I got:

#30 - Gary Payton
#42 - Sam Cassell
#12 - Marcus Camby

The bottom of the card is slightly textured to feel like a basketball.  Too much empty space for me though. 
 

#29 - Iakovos Tsakaliois
#58 - Jermaine O'Neal

The foil is everywhere; the team name at the top, the circle, the Hoops logo, and the player name are all foiled up.  If you notice on the O'Neal card, there is a little white space at the bottom of the Hoops logo, showing the foil being a little off.  I have a couple of other cards where the foil was off everywhere on the card.  Quality control issues still existed at the beginning of the 21st Century.

Here are a couple of backs for you: 

The basketball texture did not continue on the card backs.  Notice Fleer only showed the prior year's stats on the card, breaking it down by quarter.  Bonus points for effort, but I still prefer full stats and some sort of write-up.

Anyway, that's the pack.  Not a very appealing set, with the QC issues, the (apparently) hard to find rookies, and the lack of inserts.  Oh well.  Enjoy All-Star Weekend, and thanks for reading!

1992 Upper Deck Minor League Baseball

I just love ripping foil packs.

So much more than plastic, close second to wax.

Some familiar names here, but no real big names.

Manny Ramirez used to be, or should I now say, COULD HAVE BEEN a big name.

Got an insert at 1:9 packs.

Players of the Year, Scott Lydy in the Athletics association.

I'm working on this set if anyone is interesting in trading.

2013 Press Pass Parks and Recreation Hobby

Parks and Recreation is probably my favorite show. I was surprised to see cards existed for it, particularly a hobby version. This is technically going to be a highlighted box break...I'll show you some of the base and then the three hits.

Each box includes 2 autographs and a relic.

First some of the base...



Most of the cards are episode cards, highlighting a particular episode. This is a parallel, falling one per pack.



Some of the cards highlight the actors, like this one... Retta, who plays Donna Meagle.



Here are a couple of the "website" cards. One highlight's Tom's business "Rent-a-Swag" and the other highlights the "City of Pawnee" website.

And now the hits...



Here is Mo Collins, who plays Joan Callamezzo, Pawnee news anchor. She also played Gina in the 40-Year-Old-Virgin, and was a cast member on MadTV.



Here is Aziz Ansari! This is red ink numbered 01/99. Pretty cool to get a main cast member autograph. He, of course, plays Tom Haverford.



Finally, my relic is from Aubrey Plaza. A cool part of this set is that the relics are all the clothing items shown in the picture on the card. Plus, I just plain love Aubrey Plaza.

Anyway, fun break!!!!