Thursday, October 27, 2016

2016-17 O-Pee-Chee hockey

Wow - a week with not posts. This will not do, so let's post a pack that is sitting on my desk. This year's OPC set from Upper Deck. If you have viewed past sets, you will see a lot of the same with the 2016-17 release. I happen to have both a hobby and retail pack on my desk. Here's the wrappers.


Retail is blue and the hobby is yellow. There are just a couple more possible insert sets and slightly better odds hobby over retail. Carey Price goes home on retail and road on hobby, sweater wise.


I think this is a better design then the past couple years. Very simple with standard white borders. Brand logo at the top. Easy to read play name. Team badging in a nice matching colored border. Player position abbreviated in English and French. I think OPC is a small step down photo wise for Upper Deck, but the set tends to focus on the player and not the action around him.


Well this is a good pack for me. Base card, but All Stars get the extra banner at the top.


WHO??? Yeah - Plotnikov played all of 13 games with the Yotes and is plying his skills (or lack of) in the KHL.


OPC Retro insert. These fall one in a pack hobby and 1:2 in retail.


Darcy Keumper is looking deep within your soul. He knows what you did.


OPC has a set of playing cards in the packs you can build. Surprised Marchand is the two of spades. I think he should have been the jack of asses.


Glad the Panthers got new sweaters this year. They needed a change.


This is a team that needs to kill it's current sweater and use their alts as the base. The flying C orca is a horrible logo. This is 1000 times better. Simple is the way to go, Vancouver.


Card backs. Besides a little tweaking it's the same every year. And that's good keeping the same basic back for one design. But not over ALL your sets. Are you listening, Panini? Full career stats, and if your career is short, a lot of open space to write down a grocery list.

Thursday, October 20, 2016

50 Assorted Houston Texans cards

One of those random 50 team cards. This one featuring Houston Texans which I picked up at Fanzz shop at Memorial Way Mall. Cards will be divided by sets
2002 Topps Finest: 26 - Corey Bradford
2004 Topps Bazooka: 91 - Jamie Sharper
2004 Leaf Rookie and Stars: 37 - David Carr
2004 Bowman: 94 - David Carr; 117 - Vontez Duff - Duff would play one season in the NFL with Chicago Bears
2004 Playoff Honors: 38 - David Carr
2004 Upper Deck Diamond Collection All-Stars: 49 - David Carr
2005 Fleer Ultra: David Carr
2006 Topps Turn Back the Clock: 7 (of 22) - Mario Williams - remember when Reggie Bush was to go first overall in the draft to Texans, but Texans pulls off a shocker selecting Williams. The pick immediately got vilified. Williams became All-Pro while Bush struggled with injuries. Funny how things work out.
2006 Upper Deck SP Authentic: 34 - David Carr
2006 Topps Total: 184 - Lewis Sanders/Marcus Coleman/DeMarcus Faggins; 433 - Domanick Davis
2007 Topps: 69 - Ahman Green; 71 - Ron Dayne
2007 Topps Draft Picks and Prospects: 37 - Ahman Green - Topps got lazy re-using the same picture from their base set
2007 Score: 213 - Ahman Green; 304 - Jon Abbate; 373 - Jared Zabransky - Abbate would have short career while Zabransky of Boise St fame would pile his trade in CFL
2007 Fleer Ultra Fresh Faces: FF-DW - Darius Walker
2008 Score: 120 - Kevin Walter; 121 - Owen Daniels; 122 - Andre Davis; 123 - DeMeco Ryans
2008 Playoff Prestige: 40 -Ahman Green
2009 Upper Deck First Edition: 61 - Mario Williams
2009 Bowman: 100 - Kevin Walter
2010 Panini Classic: 40 - Steve Slaton - one year wonder
2010 Panini Epix: 40 - Steve Slaton
2010 Topps: 140 Matt Schaub
2011 Topps Rising Rookies: 9 - Andre Johnson; 56 - Matt Schaub; 117 - T.J. Yates; 151 - Brandon Harris; 153 - Brooks Reed - talk about horrible design. Yates would start 5 games in his rookie season and be a backup in his three seasons before going to Falcons. He returned to the team in middle of last season starting two games before tearing his ACL. Harris played three seasons with the team. Reed is now a member of the Falcons.
2011 Topps: 48 - Vonta Leach; 49 - DeMaco Ryans; 74 - T.J. Yates; 306 - Kevin Walter; 428 - Owen Daniels
2011 Panini Threads: 60 - Brian Cushing; 62 - Matt Schaub
2012 Playoff Prestige: 77 - Jacoby Jones
2013 Score: 86 - J.J. Watts, 356 DeAndre Hopkins; 334 - Alec Lemon; 414 - Ray Graham - nice card of Giga-Watts and what's this? Hopkins rookie card on this random team pack? Nice!
2014 Score: 88 - Andre Johnson; 92 - Garrett Graham; 385 - Tom Savage; 437 - Xavier Su'A-Filo

I didn't expect Hopkins rookie in this. Sometimes you get a winner out of random team card packs.

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

2016-17 Hoops

The 2016-17 NBA season, it's 70th, begins one week from tonight. but the first card set of the season, Hoops, has been out since sometime last week. My mom got me a box to celebrate my birthday, which is today, so I thought I would share the very first pack out of my box!
New Warriors superstar Kevin Durant appears on the box and pack. It's going to take some time to get used to that combo!

P.J. Tucker becomes my first card of the season. Even better, it's an alternate uniform in the photo! For the guy who writes Uniform History, that is always a good thing- several new uniforms appear in this set for what I believe is the first time on cardboard.
As you see with the next card out, each team's cards feature team color-keyed borders in a wooden floor design. I really like the design. NBA Hoops logo is foil, nothing else is. Card fronts are high gloss. White borders are kind of lost on this blog design, but they are there.
A LOT of players changed teams during this offseason- about 1/4th of all 450 NBA players changed teams by my estimation. there are a lot of photos that don't match the current team. I've been trying to convince Panini to make a series 2 for Hoops to show the 150 players they didn't include in series 1 and the guys with new teams...feel free to drop Panini a line on their blog and tell them you want it too, as they DO listen to fans on some things!
 The first Rookie Card of the season! This one shows a photo from Summer League, most feature photos from the Rookie Photo Shoot. I always like the first set of the year to see all the new people added to the world of card collecting. There are 40 rookie cards in the set, and they aren't as short printed as they were in the last few years. For the last several years they were less than one per pack, now they average 2 in most packs, but some packs have none or 1. Either way, they are not as hard to get.
Not a lot of guys who wear #39.
two rookies in pack #1! Jaylen Brown was the #3 pick and is expected to see regular action with the Celtics as they try to dethrone the Cleveland Cavaliers. Brown is an unusual case in that he did not hire an agent, he's acting as his own agent. He's known to be one of the smartest people in sports.
This might be Argentine Legend Manu Ginobili's final NBA season.
Second year in a row I've pulled an insert from this set in my first pack! I love this insert. It's got several tiers of numbering, progressively getting smaller as each round of the playoffs occur. It's an 86 card set, and is actually the most common insert in the set. The borders are team color coded. I pulled 6 of them, including one each from the semi-finals and conference finals.
Sam Dekker is supposedly healthy for the first time in his short NBA career, as of right now he's most well known for a photo his mom posted on Twitter of him mowing the lawn shirtless with a push mower. Really!
Steven Adams appears in another alternate jersey.
Jabari Parker has never had a season where he did not miss a large part due to injury. Hopefully the 3rd time's the charm for him. His father Sonny was also an NBA player.
Some players who changed teams did get studio photos with their new jerseys, and Turner is one of them.

Here's the back...not much to it. A lot of white empty space, incomplete stats and a small blurb about the player. For Tucker these are actually complete stats but for other players it's not. 5 years is the max they give, I believe, but I have not looked at the backs too closely yet. I'd rather have complete stats and less team logo. The white isn't as bright as it was last year.
Overall I love the set, and I'll have a full Box Break Review up on Cardboard History very soon.