2016 Panini Certified Football

 Ended up picking up a pack of this at my last LCS visit.  Not really a lot of Panini products I'd want to buy especially with the price point of a lot of these products.  This was not one of those product, but seeing no baseball I wanted to purchase this is the pack I chose.  My base..

 Silver Mirror Parallel...

 And a hit..

 Ah gotta love getting a 4th String quarterback.  But at least he's still on the roster. I guess it's better than a kick in the pants.

2016 Topps Baseball Holiday Box

 I'm a sucker for the oddballs.  Anyway, if Topps hadn't cashed in on it's 2016 design enough they came out with this holiday design.  Only available at Wal-Mart in $20 Blaster boxes.  Each box guarantees a hit of at least a relic.  I've included the wrapper odds below.

I decided to pick the best pack of the box, which of course is the one with the hit. The base cards with the lone Brewer in the set.  200 cards in the set you'd think they'd spread the teams out a little more evenly.

 The only parallel in the set are these Metallic Snowflake cards.  Honestly if Topps has just made the set out of these it probably would have been a much better release.

 My hit was this Jose Abreu relic card.

2016 Topps Premier League Stadium Club

What good is a license if you are not going to use it? Topps has the license to the English Premier League, which is why anything Panini puts outs only references the national team for England. Topps has put out mini boxes with a hit per box, similar to Museum, but this is more their first real set release for the Premier League on this side of the pond.

And sure - why not use the successful Stadium Club design on it? For the cover boys, we have (right to left), Philippe Coutinho with Liverpool, Riyad Mahrez with Leicester, Zlatan Ibrahimović with Man U and Dele Alli with Tottenham. Being a 2016 release, the design will be of little surprise. Each box has two autographs. Eight cards....

I told you there would be no surprise. It's an exact copy of the baseball release, which is a near exact copy of the 1997 Fleer release. I would say, though, the images are your standard "in the run of play" and not the unique photos one would find in a SC release. No players during warmups, or dressed like goofballs. All the images are during a match.

SPURS HOT PACK! Wanyama just put his very first goal for Spurs past the Crystal Palace keeper.

Lukaku will probably not be at Everton at the end of this season. When you score like he does, on a very average team, and at his age, he is in demand from other teams.

SPURS HOT PACK! Kane was top scorer last season in the PL with 25.

Courtois from my fav team Chelsea. He's finally found his stride after letting in far too many soft goals last season. Currently has only let 11 balls past him this entire season.

EVERTON HOT PACK!! In the Premier League, there are 20 teams in the top tier. Not sure why I am pulling heavily from just a couple.

Here we go - Keeper Speroni from Crystal Palace. CP is a team I could really get behind, if only for their Dave Clark Five AMAZING start of each and every home game.

Palace has the most loyal fans. Let's flip a card over.

Instead of a repeat of the player's image, you get a generic stadium (Wembley? Goodison Park?) and the teams badge. Just the past season stats and a total along with a short bio on the player.

To my knowledge, all the autos are stickers, which is a bit of a shame. Dawson plays for Hull City. The owner of Hull City is Assem Allam, an Eqyptian businessman, and he has tried to change the name of Hull City to Hull Tigers. Needless to say, the supporters are not happy about this. I guess when you change the name of a team that's been around for 112 years, people don't like it. Luckily, the FA has turned his request down twice, and it will probably never happen.

I'll probably pick up a box of this to rip in the near future.

1996-97 NBA Hoops Series 1

The NBA is taking a break today, but will be geared up for its big holiday showcase tomorrow with five consecutive nationally televised games on the docket. Here's a 20 year old pack of basketball cards.

107 - John Starks - Hero to many.

174 - Chris Webber - This is a really nice full bleed design, much better than any other NBA Hoops branded set that I can remember.

65 - Antonio Davis - One of the towering Davis players that was featured in the Pacers lineup throughout the '90s, the other being Dale.

194 - Shawn Bradley Grant's Playbook - A subset that features, supposedly, some inside dirt from Grant Hill who was only 24 at the time. You'd think they would have chosen a crusty old veteran for this, or a retired player? Or a coach? Or an actual scout?

32 - Tony Dumas - Full color backs with college and pro stats as well as a different player photo. Nice.

173 - Rasheed Wallace - Early Sheed. This is definitely staying in the collection.

69 - Rik Smits - The back is a little miscut, but I didn't scan that side so you'll have to take my word for it.

H4 - Juwan Howard HIPnotized - A 1:4 insert pull.

12 - Eric Williams

189 - Karl Malone The Big Finish - The back of the card talks up Malone's previous playoff run, so that might be the theme here with this subset. Not sure.

24 - Scottie Pippen - Ending this pack on a bit of a star run.

112 - Shaquille O'Neal - Shaq is seen here dunking over a Vancouver Grizzlies player, with Los Angeles in his future.

1992-93 Upper Deck Basketball

Got jumbo pack of Upper Deck basketball. Contains 27 cards and feature cards from series 1 and 2.

474 - Shaquille O'Neal - It's Shaq! This is Top Prospects portion of the set with reading material.

488 - Michael Jordan - awesome shot of MJ about dunk with his game face on

487 - Harvey Grant - CHARGE!

465 - Malik Sealy  - journeyman career died in a car crash in 2000

455 - Checklist - Anthony Peeler and Duane Cooper pictured. This checklist feature UD Top Prospects. Peeler would have longer career (and spot in NBA Jam: TE) while Cooper would last two season in the NBA before spending rest of his career playing in CBA and Europe.

423 - Larry Johnson - Grand-Mama dunking over Hakeem the Dream while Sir Charles, wearing MJ number, watches.

454 - Dominique Wilkins - they call the Human Highlight Film for those thunderous dunks

387 - Larry Krystkowiak - the base card feature the name and UD logo on the front while the back shows a picture and part of his stats with NBA logo watermark covering it. For Larry he went to coaching after his career ended including year and half stint with Bucks. Currently coach for Utah Utes

340 - Jay Humphries

369 - Philadelphia 76ers - team card with now Knicks coach Jeff Hornacek on the front. Featured the history and did you know moments which have aged.

408 - Don MacLean - once won 6th Man of the Year award

354 - Cleveland Cavaliers - Larry Nance pictured

335 - James Edwards - stumbling for a shot while young Scott Brooks watches on

406 - Jeff Grayer

300 - Michael Cage

216 - John Bagley

221 - Chris Gatling - one time All-Star been on wrong side of the law after his career ended

270 - Jeff Sanders

186 - Gerald Glass

107 - Cliff Robinson - its the headband man

164 - Blair Rasmussen

142 - Stacy Augmon

RS16 - Clarence Weatherspoon - Rookie Standouts subset

65 - Tim Hardaway/Chris Mullins - teammates card

44 - Karl Malone - team checklist featuring The Mailman with backdrop of Delta Center. The arena is now known as Vivint Smark Home Arena.

82 - David Robinson - The Admiral laying it up

AD14 - John Stockton - another subset this one called All-Division team.

Impressive pack of cards to open.