2015-16 Panini NHL Stickers

Panini putting out their usual stickers set. This one feature NHL with 7 stickers. You can buy the book for $2. On to the stickers

192 - Tampa Bay Lightning - jersey sticker

80 - Florida Panthers - another jersey sticker

316 - Tyler Seguin - they have Donruss logo on the corner of the player stickers

226 - Karl Alzner

442 - Patrick Kane - All Star Skills Competition sticker

92 - Jussi Jokinen

19 - Loui Eriksson

Get to sticking on this

2013-14 Upper Deck SP Authentic hockey

With each year UD puts out it's SP Authentic release. I'm a sucker for this set, though I actually never built any year. Still, it's a nice mid level set and you get decent hits in the boxes. The stars of the release are the rookie autographs - on card and clean.

As you recall with the half season, 13-14 was double rookie class. MacKinnon and Yakupov get the poster for the product. Five cards in a pack. Here we go....

Yup - you get some retired players in SP Authentic. These were God awful Kings sweaters. With SP Authentic, you get a white background, though with this year's release they added some linear and polygonic (is that a word - it is now) images behind the player. Foil for the UD set logo, team log and player name. Boo! The card has an Olympic feel to it, or is it just me?

OH BABY!!!! The glorious Whalers uniforms get the due they are deserved, but people forget the glorious Nordiques and their fantastic sweaters. Let's put the Avs into a Winter Classic and have them dress up like this. Just once. Please? Mats is rocking what appears to be the Mikita bowl on his head.

It's nice to see the Panthers having a great season so far. The Hawks won the 2010 Cup with Stan Bowman as the GM. But that team was built with the hard work of Dale Tallon, who left the organization just before the 2009-10 season to become the GM of.....the Florida Panthers. The man knows how to find talent, just like he could identify the location of a blocked shot.

Barber - one of the stars of the feared Broadstreet Bullies of the early 70's. Barber used his stick to put the pucks into the net and not to viciously slash players like another member of the LCB line.

Nice! Did get one of the Rookie Watch autos from the box. Sean Monahan was the 6th overall pick a couple years ago and turning into a decent player for the Flames. I think I sold this card already. Or traded it. I know I no longer have it though.

1998 Topps The X-Files: Fight The Future

Greetings!

Hope everyone is doing well.  Tonight FOX aired the second episode of the six-part X-Files mini-series / event / return / Season 10 / whateveryouwanttocallit. I call it glorious.  I was a big fan of the series and had no problem seeing it's return to the airwaves, as long as you can "get the old band back together".  Sure Mulder's looking more tired and Scully's hair isn't as red (but still in heels), but hey, it's their show, and if Chris Carter's got stories to tell, you might as well tell it with them as the leads.

Anyway, to mark the event, here's a pack of 1998 Topps The X-Files: Fight The Future!

Fight The Future was the subtitle of the first X-Files movie, which aired between seasons five and six of the series (the peak of the show's popularity).  Many moons ago I came across packs at the LCS, and after confirming that I apparently never bought any of it when it was released, picked a couple up for nostalgia's sake...good thing I stopped at a couple packs, because just like my DS9 experience, 15+ plus years in a sealed pack did not bode well for the FBI agents.  Here's what I got:

#49 - The Pole of Inaccessibility
#M6 - Mystery Card 6

Yikes, the Mystery Card took a beating.  Too bad too; they came 1 in 12 packs.  An image would be revealed if you applied heat to the card, like rubbing your hand against it.  I made the image and then scanned it, but most of the picture went away by the time the scan finished.  This one is a curled up alien fetus; you can kind of make out it's head in the upper right corner of the card. 

#18 - The Explosion
#10 - The Black Oil
#43 - Scully Is Transported

This was a 72 card set with character, story, and behind-the-scenes cards.  They had autograph cards too, but just of the secondary characters.

#42 - Mulder Shot
#27 - Scully Examines the Dead Fireman
#26 - Dr. Ben Bronschweig

I scanned some of the backs for you:

You'd be lucky to get a write up like that in movie sets these days.

Anyway, that's the pack.  Too bad the passage of time was not too kind to the cards; we'll see how the passage of time treats the characters of one of the greatest sci-fi shows ever.  Thanks for reading!

2012-13 O-Pee-Chee hockey

I'm amazed the number of OPC I get in hockey repacks that are not posted here at APTBNL. Let's cross another one off the list with the OPC release for the '12-13 NHL season.

Sorry - kind of tilted. UD went with the black and white photo look on the pack and getting Hawks captain Toews on the cover. Just in case you did not know, this is the biggest set of the year. At 500 base cards and another 100 Legends, they are not lying. Eight cards.

It's all the player with OPC. Solid photos, but nothing like you will get in the Upper Deck flagship hockey release. Not of bading at the bottom. Maybe too large, but simple. Like the pack was beige, the border is on the cards. The bar with the team name will change color, and like past releases, this color is not part of the team's look.

This sweaters were dreadful. The newer Dallas is better.

You can see the silhouette for the right winger is different that the left wing on the Booth up above.

OPC retro insert. One per pack. These are nice and remind me a bit of my favorite set Champs. I need to get boxes of Champs.

Rainbow foil cards drop one per four packs. The player pops on these cards.

I got a Hawk! Ummm....whoopie?

Total set builder pack - no real stars within.

Simple back with OPC's full career stat lines.

Topps Star Wars:The Force Awakens series 1

How about that - Random picked the last pack in the folder. We already put up the preview release for TFA. Here is the actual set now that TFA is in the theaters. I need to go catch it another time or two.

I believe there are three different packs you can pull - Kylo, Rey and Fin. Six cards per pack, and I do believe there are potential hits of autographs in the packs, some relics as well as some manu-relics.

Fairly simple card design. I am not sure why it's SOOOOOOO red. Every base card is red. Like really, really red. They should have added more color, because when you have a character like Sarco here in his red clothing, you really get the red. Tne name and that line that separates the photo from the bottom banner is the only foil. Bad use of foil, though.

You can pull those foilish cards like Topps has used recently in their flagship set. In TFA, though, the foil cards are numbered to /250.

Concept art insert set. Full bleed. Gorgeous. 20 cards in the set - hobby only.

Movie Scenes insert set. Also 20 cards in the set. Also hobby only.

Here comes the First Order and the parallels, in the form of colored foil. If you can't tell, this is green. Guaranteed a green per pack. Other colors are blue (1:2), purple (1:4), gold (#/100) and platinum (1/1). Gold and platinum, though - hobby only.

Looks like we have some extra space when Topps goes to the side, so you see they added Kylo in the lower right. I wonder if series 2 will be a different color, just like the '77 release.

Small write up on the back based on the image seen on the front.

2015 Topps Opening Day Rack Pack

Greetings!

Hope everyone is doing well.  Haven't posted in a while, but thankfully my fellow APTBNL contributors stepped up and kept things lively here.  We exceeded 2014's total number of posts, so hey, that's kinda cool.

With the Hot Stove still sizzling and Spring Training about a month away, fans should be getting excited for Opening Day.  And since the 2016 version isn't out yet, here's a 2015 Topps Opening Day Rack Pack!

My last post was the standard 7 card pack; this is the 24 card pack that was sold for 3 bucks.  I'll just fly through the cards:

#135 - Stephen Drew
#161 - Arismendy Alcantara
#13 - Drew Hutchison
#199 - Aaron Sanchez

There were 200 cards in the Opening Day set.  Moving on...

#35 - Travis D'Arnaud
#2 - Curtis Granderson
#1 - Homer Bailey
#88 - Christian Yelich

Wait, what, the first card in the set is Homer Bailey?  

#29 - John Lackey
#23 - Greg Holland
#39 - Albert Pujols
 

#111 - Dilson Herrera (RC) (Blue Foil)
#FF-15 - Danny Santana (Franchise Flashback)
#SC-06 - Rajai Davis (Superstar Celebrations)

I mistakenly put the Superstar Celebrations card above the other two.  Those cards come 1 in 3 packs.  The Blue Foil cards come 1 in 2 packs, and the Flashback cards come 1 in 3 packs.
 

#72 - Coco Crisp
#44 - Jonathan Lucroy
#97 - Lance Lynn
#55 - Francisco Liriano

#80 - Alexei Ramirez
#46 - Chris Owings
#79 - Jered Weaver

#187 - Daniel Norris (RC)
#176 - Lucas Duda
#121 - Mike Leake

Here come the backs:

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

2015 Topps Valor football

Topps Valor is back, and it's about the same as ever. Since I don't collect football, I am not sure how many years Valor has been produced, but I know it was around last year, and here it is for this current season.

Gronk on the cover. Valor, to me, seems like the base you would find in a high end hit release. Which is a nice idea. I think about Museum, or Tier One and some of the other high end sets that have base. Some would make decent sets, but who would ever build the base. One certainly wouldn't build it by purchasing packs. So, in a sense, Valor is a nice product. Six cards in a pack.

As a football card, they are horrible. As an art card, they are beautiful. And that's what I mean about being the base set from a high end product. All in all, these are truly gorgeous cards. Lots of contrast manipulation, ala Stadium Club. The player and team logo (lower right) have high gloss. The rest of the card is not matte, per se, but very satin. Valor logo at the top is bronze foil.

If you are a rookie, the RC logo is also high gloss. The player name is easy to read. That image sure looks shopped.

This is an insert of some sort. Strength is an non numbered parallel. There are also Speed, Courage, Discipline, Glory, Valor and Heart.

And here's Speed. Nothing too exciting.

BTW - those tick marks you see at the lower right is part of the card design. That's not my scanner nor damage to the cards.

No hits - oh well. Still, if I was a football collector, this is a set that would look really nice in a binder.

Single year of stats along with a career. Just so happens Parker is a rookie. Other players would have the previous yer in the NFL and full numbers.