2013 Bowman Platinum Baseball retail

I love these 4 card packs.  They make scanning and posting so easy.
First up we have a shiny card of a Padre.

Up next a couple prospect cards. Mike here is now with the Rangers.

 And I hear Javier is pretty good too.

 My one insert was the Diamond in the Rough. Carlos is still in the Phillies minor league system.

2003 Decipher The Lord Of The Rings Trading Card Game - Tower Draft Pack

Greetings!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and are enjoying the weekend.  Yesterday, my brother, brother-in-law, and I (as well as our respective wives and girlfriends) headed to the theater to watch the final installment of the Middle Earth films.  Good times were had by most.  The ones who didn't have a completely good time were the ones who didn't watch any of the Peter Jackson epics, so of course they were bored and/or confused by the slow parts and the mention of far-off lands and hard-to-pronounce names.  But next year comes Star Wars and I'm sure everyone will enjoy watching that.

Two years ago, I journeyed to Dollar Tree to pick up Lord Of The Rings TCG packs for the site.  Last year, I went back but didn't find any packs, thus no post.  Sometime between that visit and today, I went back and lo-and-behold I found this one - it'll have to do.  It's a 2003 Decipher The Lord Of The Rings Trading Card Game - Tower Draft Pack!

As an aside, what's going on with the Dollar Tree card selection?  Sure, there's the sticker packs and 5-card Topps packs there, but the 30 card packs are a dying breed, and they're being replaced by packs only containing 6 cards!

Anyway, as mentioned before, I have no idea how the game is played.  This set was released back in February of 2003, and apparently it's purpose is to aid players with a booster draft format, where players pick cards from a common pool of cards in order to construct their decks.  The 29 cards are all from The Two Towers expansion set (1 rare and 28 commons).  Sounds like fun.  Here's what I got:

4C190 - Uruk Pursuer
4C187 - Uruk Foot Soldier
4C189 - Uruk Plains Runner
4C193 - Uruk Runner

The Two Towers was the 4th expansion set, thus the 4 in the card number.  The C stands for Common, and number after that is the card number in the set (out of 365).  Since most of these are going to commons, these are probably not going to be very exciting.

4C181 - Uruk Chaser
4C207 - Uruk-Hai Raiding Party
4C248 - Southron Bowman
4C221 - Desert Spearman

In my interweb searches I came across this site which has checklists, card images, and rules for the game.  Check it out if you're so inclined.

4C222 - Desert Warrior
4C227 - Easterling Infantry
4C226 - Easterling Guard
4C224 - Easterling Axeman

4C228 - Easterling Lieutenant
4C258 - Southron Wanderer
4C70 - Flashing Steel
4C87 - Valor

4C74 - Legolas, Elven Comrade
4C117 - Faramir, Son Of Denethor
4C135 - War And Valor
4C122 - Gondorian Ranger

Hey, a Legolas card!  
 

4C128 - New Errand
4R225 - Easterling Captain
4C314 - Pippin, Woolly-Footed Rascal
4C310 - Merry, Learned Guide

There's the rare card in the pack, a generic Minion.  Good times.  Almost done...

4C308 - Knocked On The Head
4C322 - Warmed Up A Bit
4C314 - Pippin, Woolly-Footed Rascal
4C266 - Eomer, Sister-Son Of Theoden
4C278 - Heavy Chain

I forgot to scan the back of a card, so if you really want to see it, take a look as the other Lord Of The Rings post.

Anyway, that's the pack.  That's a lot of cards without any excitement, but I guess if the purpose is deck building, the pack serves it's purpose.  Enjoy the last days of 2014...Happy New Year and thanks for reading!

2014 Topps Platinum Football Hobby Pack

Stopped in at Don's a couple days ago to check out his Christmas specials and ended up picking up a couple new packs this being one of them.

You get one parallel per pack.  I ended up with a common blue parallel of a suspended child abuser.

I ended up pulling the Rams first round draft pick and #2 overall.  Still it's an offensive lineman not the flashiest of pulls, but it's on card and Greg even put an inscription on it.  All the rookie cards are chrome in the set, where the base veterans are a flat foil board.

2013-14 NBA Hoops Retail

Greetings!

Hope everyone's ready for the last weekend before Christmas.  This time of year always seems to zoom by.  Anyway, it's time for another pack from the scan folder.  At the time it was scanned, cards from the set were not up here on APTBNL, but there has since been 2 posts.  I guess I'm the opposite of the busy Christmas season.  It's a pack of 2013-14 NBA Hoops!

The pack was picked up at Target.  10 cards, possible insert, cut-off borders (thanks, scanner!).  Let's see what I got:

#59 – Paul George

#7 – Steve Blake

#267 – Ben McLemore (RC)

Paul George is the player who suffered a horrific leg injury over the summer during an exhibition scrimmage.  When I first heard that an NBA star broke his leg, I automatically assumed it was Derrick Rose.  George wants to try to come back this season.  Probably won't happen, but he gets bonus points for trying.

#3 – Andre Iguodala (Above The Rim)

#20 – Chris Paul (Courtside)

Two nice looking inserts.  Too bad I couldn't tell you the odds of getting one.

#249 – Devin Harris

#285 – Reggie Bullock (RC)

I wonder if Panini just had all the rookies line up on front of a black curtain and then had them drive in for a slam one at a time.

#46 – Goran Dragic

#158 – Austin Rivers

#53 – Jameer Nelson

Jameer was on the Mavericks at the start of the year, but was traded to Boston for Rajon Rondo this past week.  Mark Cuban apparently finalized the deal while serenading Stephen Colbert.

Who wants backs?

Anyway, that's the pack.  More later.  Have a great weekend, and thanks for reading!

2014 Topps Update Chrome Baseball

I was out doing some Christmas shopping and passed by the card rack and notice that Topps once again put out a "value" box of Update with Chrome Update bonus packs.  I use quotations because you get 5 eight card packs of Update and 2 four card packs of Update Chrome for $15. Which really isn't that great of a deal, but since it's the only place to get packs of Update Chrome you have to pay the piper. They also didn't call it a Megabox this year.

The checklist is small.  Just 55 base cards and only 2 parallel refractors, but there is the chance of relics and autograph relics.  There also is only one insert set, but more on that later. 

This shouldn't take so long with only 4 cards in the pack lets take a look.

One of the two rookies I would have wanted to pull.

And I got one of the only inserts in the set.  I have to say I really like the look of these verses their unchromed counterparts.

My team, the Brewers, only has one card in the whole set and that's Jonathan Lucroy's relic, no base cards, no auto relics, so I don't have much to chase and really no reason to buy anymore.

2013 Upper Deck SP Authentic football

While you still get football cards produced by Upper Deck, you only get your NFL players in their college colors. But that doesn't stop UD from using it's license when it can.

A pre-Manziel release, being from 2013. Andrew Luck as the poster boy (I had to look it up on Google). Nice plugs for Nike, with 3 prominent views of the mark of the beast on the wrapper. If you have seen any SP Authentic (ummm.....sidebar?), you will not be very surprised by the look. But in the motto of we rip everything, here we go. Five cards total in the pack.

Not too much to say about the layout that hasn't been said before. That being said....what's with that SP logo in the lower left? Have I never noticed those before? SP Authentic always has a look that gives it a clean, high end feel.

The one thing you get is all the college costumes. And yes, I call them "costumes". College football is far less about tradition and more about dressing up like morons each week. Hell yes I am looking at you Oregon. And pretty much all the rest of the schools.

If you can't tell, the only foil is the logo, the names and that bar above the names.

Purple and gold do not go together.

And that's the end of the pack. The flipside?

College stats, recycled B&W photo, short bio and college logo. But the rear layout is nice and simple.