2023 Panini Donruss Optic Football

Here's another new-ish quick one. Similar to yesterday's pack design, we have the football counterpart of Panini's Donruss Optic product. Once again, it's four cards for slightly over a dollar per card. Yikes!

31 - Brian Urlacher - Right off the bat, we start with a HOFer.

292 - Devon Witherspoon - Unlike the NBA pack, I didn't luck out with any inserts. I did end up with a Rated Rookie card, however. These have a slightly darker tint to them, apparently.

143 - Dexter Lawrence - A big dude in Giants blue (and red.)

101 - Austin Ekeler - I'm not much of a fantasy football player, but I did play last year and Ekeler was my top draft pick. He was frustratingly inconsistent. (I autodrafted, so I guess I deserved it.)

2023-24 Panini Donruss Optic Basketball

One of the latest Panini NBA offerings is a short and sweet one. I picked up a loose pack of their most recent Donruss Optic set for the low, low price of slightly more than a dollar per card. You know how it is these days.

12 - Scottie Barnes - Barnes made his first All-Star team this past February, improving slightly upon a very solid first couple of seasons.

69 - Dorian Finney-Smith - Like watching them on TV, this monochrome-dominant team's cards look like they're some weird black & white parallel.

189 - Klay Thompson - Thompson moved on from the Warriors in the offseason and signed up with the Dallas Mavericks. I can't imagine that going very well for Dallas considering how one dimensional and streaky that Klay is these days, although clearly the Warriors best years are far behind them as well.

19 - Donovan Mitchell Express Lane Prizm - This wasn't a bad pull from such a small pack, as I ended up with a parallel version of an insert of one of the league's premier guards.

2024 Topps Series 2 Retail

Greetings!

Hope everyone is doing well.  Ol' Jafronius was MIA from posting and blog reading for a couple of weeks; from June 8th through the 22nd the whole family was in the Philippines see family and partake in island hopping hyjinxs.  My parents wanted their 6 grandkids to see their homeland before they got too old to travel.  We all enjoyed out time there, even though there was some pretty oppressive heat when we were more inland and not by the ocean (there it was just hot).

I was overseas when Topps Series 2 was released, but there was plenty of packs to pick up when I returned, including the standalone variety:

The Angels in Order reported a $4 price tag for a Series 1 pack found at a Five Below.  This one cost me $3.50 at Target, so it appears Five Below upped the price a little.  Let's see what I got:

#672 - Wilyer Abreu (RC)

#684 - Tyler Stephenson

There are 350 cards in Series 2, continuing the excellent design.  Here's the checklist if you need it.

#456 - Cristian Pache

#506 - Nick Loftin (RC)

Nick's sporting the Royals' 2023 City Connect uniforms.  They say it's supposed to remind you of the fountains in Kauffman Stadium.  I say it reminds me that City Connect uniforms are generally silly.

#555 - Ezequiel Duran

#599 - Nick Allen

I do like the image busting out of the border.  You can barely see it with Ezequiel but it's quite evident with Nick.

#378 - Baltimore Brotherhood (Checklist)

#619 - Teoscar Hernández

I haven't been able to see the Home Run Derby the last couple of years due to work, but I heard this year was a nail-biter, maybe because Judge and Ohtani weren't playing.

#625 - Paul DeJong

#531 - Estevan Florial

#541 - Miguel Vargas

#FP-3 - Mallory Swanson (First Pitch)

The inserts start with First Pitch.  While I'm glad this insert is back, I'm bummed that there's only 5 cards in the set (2 of them with the Cubs).

I'm still having issues reading the Topps PDF, so I don't know the First Pitch odds, it could be 1 in 48 packs or 96 packs.

#FF-19 - Juan Soto (Fantasy Favorites)

#SMLB-37 - Clayton Kershaw (Stars of MLB)

20 cards make up the Fantasy Favorites set, which is either 1 in every 10 packs or 21 packs.  As usual, you get a Stars of MLB in every pack.

Here are the backs because humidity:

Anyway, that's the pack.  No big stars here, but those colorful inserts and base design still makes this a tolerable rip.  Enjoy the rest of the week everyone, and thanks for reading!