2016 Topps Opening Day

Greetings!

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend.  The APTBNL offices aren't very populated these days; the staffers must be on vacation or something.  After helping my sister and brother-in-law move to their new house this afternoon, I figured I should take out the camera and put up a quickie post.  It's some 2016 Topps Opening Day!

Grabbed a pack since the Target had them on sale this week.  7 cards in a pack, let's see what I got:

OD-143 - Evan Gattis
OD-20 - Anthony Rizzo

Everyone's favorite Buddha posted a rack pack already (so I don't have to!), so there's no need to go into analysis for this release.  It's a 200-card set, and here's the checklist for those who are interested.

OD-8 - Russell Martin
M-6 - Mascot

Cool, a mascot!  They come 1 in every 5 packs.  Not sure why Topps couldn't say his real name, D. Baxter the Bobcat...perhaps they didn't want to offend their other mascot, because that could hurt.

OD-94 - Lucas Duda
OD-65 - Hector Rondon
OD-169 - Taylor Jungmann (Future Stars)

And there's some backs for you.

I'm pretty pleased with the camera pics, so maybe I'll keep this going.  I may have to limit this to 2 cards per shot, but the turnaround time is much faster when compared to using the scanner.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and thanks for reading!

2012-13 Panini Contenders basketball

And into the pack stash I dive. I finally cleared out the scan folder of older packs, but I still have quite the grouping of packs to post. Today, we visit the NBA from 4 years ago.

Just like their card backs are super boring, it seems all the releases of Contenders have boring packs as well. No cover boy/girl. Just stripes and a little bit of info about the product. Small 5 card pack.

Ya know - the design is not that bad. Context is gone, but the look is clean. THis could easily be a higher end release with the look of it. Foil only on the Contenders logo at the bottom. Otherwise, everything is easy to see and view. I like the faded silhouette last name.

If any negative, it's the fact that the smoke background is identical. Just recolored. Would be nice to see a few different patterns.

Insert set. I haven't followed basketball in many, many years, so not sure if this is a great pull or not. The design though.....meh.

I really have no idea if this pack is any good. Who are these people?

LINSANITY!!!! I know this dude. Jeremy is not into taking this photo. Seems like he's thinking "I can't believe I get the chest pass card in the set."

One other thing about the Lin card - with all that red, it really looks as if the back card backgrounds are not pure white but slightly....ever so slightly....toned a bit. Then again, that could be my scanner.

1992 Conlon Collection

Presenting another one of the dollar packs I landed at the Vermont card show. This post picks up where this post left off. This is a pack from the second series of the epic Conlon Collection set from the early-to-mid 1990s.

The second series was released in 1992 and, as you can see by the wrapper, Megacards added a bit of an enticement as it advertised 20,000 randomly inserted cards "personally autographed by some of the living greats from this historic era."

I won't leave you hanging -- there are no autographs in this pack.

However, there is a heck of a lot of history, and who doesn't love history? (If you don't, why the heck are you following baseball?).

The second series runs from cards 331-660. Let's take a quick look at all 15 cards.

 #434 - Pie Traynor, Great Stories

The pack's face card features star Pie Traynor on one of the many subsets contained within the main set. The "great story" on the card back is from Burleigh Grimes, who said that Traynor was such a good fielder that Grimes once wandered to the back of the mound after giving up a rocket to third base, figuring there was no way even a fielder like Traynor could get to the ball. The next thing he knew, Grimes nearly had his head taken off by a throw from Traynor to first base.

#654 - Syl Johnson, Cardinals
#632 - Hi Bell, Cardinals

Celebrating 100 years of the Cardinals at the time.

#610 - Phil Weintraub, Giants

#588 - Bill Terry, Trivia

The back laments that everyone knows that Ted Williams was the last American Leaguer to bat .400, but what about the last National Leaguer to hit .400? What about Bill Terry? Stupid attention hog Williams.

#566 - Roy Hughes "Jeep", Nicknames

Another subset. Hughes was not called "Jeep" because of his hipster vehicle, but because he was so quick on his feet. "Jeep" meant something else back then, I guess.

#544 - Roy Hartzell, Everyday Heroes

#500 - Morrie Arnovich, Reds

#522 - Harvey Hendrick, Cubs

#478 - Sheriff Blake, Cubs

#456 - Percy Jones, Third Straight Cub

#412 - Merv Shea, Tigers

#390 - Jim Weaver, Reds

#369 - Montgomery Pearson, Yankees, No-Hitter
#346 - Dutch Leonard, Red Sox, No-Hitter

The last two cards are my favorites because of the No-Hitter subset theme. Each card features full boxscores from the game.

2016 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions

If you haven't been buying Goodwin Champions for the past few years because the images are creepy -and let's be honest, they have been creepy - I think 2016 will get you back into Goodwin. Because UD really made a beautiful set this year.

Remember, Goodwin Champions is UD's version of Allen and Ginter, but much more robust in regard to the athletes depicted. From UFC to wresting to golf to auto racing and a few more, you will get the wide range of sports and superstars to collect, along with insert serts (WW II autographs are available in the boxes) plus other great inserts, autographs and relics. But enough of me singing the praise of this year's release. Let's show it.

Alright. Granted. Paige is AMAZING to look at. But take a few seconds off the center of the card and look at that layout. The scroll work in the corners. The simple, legible font. The faded background. Easily the best looking release since the original in 2009. Upper Deck really learned something from their Art Institute drop out employees and did some filters to actual images and improved the look 10 fold.

And Paige VanZant. She can kick my ass any day and twice on Sunday.

Horizontal cards look just as great. Gone are the creepy paintings and in are realistic images.

Goudey inserts are one of the sets available.

Do I have a complaint about 2016 Goodwin? I guess the average complaint as of past year's: The autos and relics are a bit lower key then you can in other products. But I am not sure you collect this set for the hits. It's more a quirky set, and the look this year makes it.

FORE! I mean FIVE! That's the last card of this pack. Here's the backs.

Think A&G quality paper, cuz that is exactly what it is. I was watching someone rip a case, and then he and I did a box each from the few that were left. He pulled a sweet WW2 German infantry uniform relic. I pulled one of the WW2 autos.

That's a bonus scan - not from this pack. The pack I pulled it from only had this and one other card, it's so thick. Farner won a Silver Star for his actions in the Philippines and spent 3+ years as a POW. You can here his story (in his own words) below.

1994 Fleer

This is the second pack of 1994 Fleer opened here on A Pack to Be Named Later (the first was opened by madding back in 2010).  I actually bought an entire box of 1994 Fleer off of eBay and I've been ripping the packs one-by-one on my blog (Nachos Grande).  I decided to do a single pack rip over here at aPtbNL since it's been quite some time since I've written here!

Without further delay, let's rip that shiny green foil open.

Each pack promises one insert, but we'll get to that last.  First, the beautiful base cards.  A simple, clean design - and 15 cards (14 base, 1 insert) per pack makes each pack feel worthwhile.

71.  Ron Tingley

There are a number of great action shots scattered about the set - including some really great horizontal cards (such as this Tingley).

110.  Derek Lilliquist
120.  Paul Sorrento
140.  Bob MacDonald
147.  Kevin Appier

198.  Rick Aguilera

The back of the cards features a secondary image of the player to go along with team colors for the shaded boxes (the Twins getting red and blue shades while a team like the Athletics gets greens and yellows).  It's a small thing, but it's much appreciated (and it stands out even more when you have the set in a binder since the cards are arranged by team within the set)!

252.  Mike Aldrete

How low can you go?

444.  Darren Holmes
502.  Jose Uribe
587.  Lenny Dykstra
599.  Ben Rivera
614.  Orlando Merced
685.  Jeff Brantley
689.  Will Clark

The standout images from this pack all happened to be horizontal.  I had to go back and pick one "regular" card (Appier) just to prove that not every card was arranged horizontally!

And our one insert?  This time around we got the box hit - one of the Tim Salmon cards.
2.  Tim Salmon

The Salmon card isn't nearly as ugly in person as it is in the scan.  You can't really tell, but the card is on foil board - and there is a "crinkled paper" design in the background of the foil.  It's certainly not the prettiest card I've ever seen, but it is better than the scan.  On the other hand, it's a pretty lame "box hit."

2016 Topps / BBC Doctor Who Timeless

Greetings...

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend.  If the Blogger Scheduler does it's job, this auto-post is being published on the exact minute of my birth 40 years ago.  Yes kiddies, ol' Jafronius turns 40 today.  Not sure what I'll be doing, but I wasn't going to worry about putting a post together.

In the baseball world, there's lots of folks born on this day.  Terry Pendleton played for 5 teams.  Lee Elia's the mouth behind a legendary rant (NSFW, duh).  Shoeless Joe Jackson may or may not have been involved with the Black Sox Scandal.  Night Owl has a blog.

It's a good thing I don't have a quest to collect cards from all ballplayers born on this day...out of 39 players born on July 16th, only 11 played in the last 40 years.  That means a lot of vintage, which means, uh, no.

When you hit those numerical milestones, one tends to think about their mortality.  Unless you're a Time Lord, I assume.  It's a pack of Doctor Who Timeless!

I was wandering through my local Toys R Us last week and saw these just hanging there.  I never expected to see retail packs of this stuff (I didn't see last year's debut set anywhere but in online box breaks), so I forked up the 5 bucks for these 2 packs - both packs come sealed in this TARDIS-looking card back.  Here's the back of the card to show you the odds of pulling cool stuff:

Here's what I got, Pack 1 first:

#92 - The Day Of The Doctor
#59 - Partners In Crime

First off, you may be wondering about the quality of the images in this post.  I apologize in advance, I took pictures of the cards instead of scanning them in.  Some turned out better than others.

#53 - Doomsday
#42 - Father's Day

Here's a link to the checklist for those who are interested.  It's a 100-card base set, with all cards from various episodes over the show's 50 years, in air-date order.

#20 - The Ark In Space
6 of 13 - The Sixth Doctor (Doctors Across Time)

The pack does not give odds on the Doctors Across Time insert set.


10 of 10 - Susan Foreman (Companions Across Time)
#66 - The Stolen Earth (Green Parallel)

The pack says the Companions Across Time insert comes 1 in every 2 packs.  The Green Parallel comes in every pack, from what I learned from the interwebs.

Here's Pack 2:
 

#38 - Rose
#31 - The Caves Of Androzani

The episode title is in silver foil, making it just barely readable even when looking right at the card.

#14 - The Three Doctors
#54 - Runaway Bride

I don't think the image they used for The Three Doctors came from the episode itself.  I think it's a promo shot they did back then.  That's too bad.

Topps did a poor job with proofreading some of the episode titles.  It's a minor nitpick, but the actual title is "The Runaway Bride."  The back of The Stolen Earth refers to "A Christmas Invasion" instead of the real title "The Christmas Invasion."

Yeah, I know.

#84 - Power Of Three (It's actually The Power Of Three...OK I'll stop it)
5 of 13 - The Fifth Doctor (Doctors Across Time)

5 of 10 - Rose Tyler (Companions Across Time)
#35 - The Curse Of Fenric (Green Parallel)

And of course here's some backs:

 

Just a simple episode summary with no extra scenes from the episode itself.

Anyway, those were the packs.  Don't think the $5 price tag is worth it, but hey, birthday!  Enjoy the rest of the weekend, and thanks for reading!