2021-22 Wild Card Alumination Basketball

My wife was at a store and the had boxes of 4 packs 8 cards per pack for $8.50 so she picked up 2 for me.  These are all college guys Rookies in my opinion not a great checklist.  But lets see a pack.  First is the unopened pack, then the 6 base cards and then the back of the base.  Each 8 card pack is to include 2 inserts which there are a lot of, here is a link to the TCDB.com page for the set if interested in all that is possible https://www.tcdb.com/Checklist.cfm/sid/310348 .  The 2 insert I received were a Light Show & a Starbright.  The biggest name in the packs I opened was Josh Giddey and this pack had 2 different cards of him a Base and the Starbright.  

Pack

Base Card Design

Base Back Design

Starbright Insert Front design

Starbright Insert Back design

Light Show Insert Front design

Light Show Insert Back design

2024 ABD Yuto Horigome Quickstrike

I'm guessing there aren't a lot of collectors interested in Japanese skateboarders, but that's okay.  This blog's agenda is to rip at least one pack of every card product ever made.  So here you go...

Let's kick things off with the skater featured in this product.  Yuto Horigome is a twenty-five year old skater from Japan who has won three gold medals at the X Games and two gold medals at the Olympics in street skating.

Last month, I discovered ABD Collectibles produced cards for him as well as other skaters.  Collectors can either purchase individual packs or full boxes on their site.  Boxes are available for $126.90, while each pack costs $12.69.  The advantage of buying a box is that you are guaranteed an autograph.

Since I really wanted Yuto's signature, I grabbed a box.  If you're interested in seeing the autograph I pulled, click here.

Alright... enough mumbo jumbo... let's check out the first pack of the box:

I really like the logo.  Reminds me of a package of Pop Rocks from the 80's.

According to the back of the pack wrapper, each pack contains only three cards: two collectible cards and one redemption card.

Card #1:

English Hollywood 16 Non-Foil

There are only three different cards in this product:  Hollywood 16, Portrait, & Franklin Switch Tail.  

However each card has four different versions:

#1:  English Non-Foil

#2:  English Foil

#3:  Japanese Non-Foil

#4:  Japanese Foil

Based on my personal box break, I think that each of these versions were printed in equal quantities.  There are hand numbered parallels that are randomly inserted into packs that are much rarer.  Unfortunately, I did not pull any of these in my box. 

Card #2:

English Hollywood 16 Foil

Based on my scans, it's hard to tell the difference between the non-foil and foil versions.  However they're very easy to tell apart in hand.  Here's a photo of the cards side by side:

Card #3:

The third card in the pack is advertised as a redemption card, but it's actually more of a contest card since not ever card is redeemable for something.

Collectors can check to see if they won, by scanning the QR code.  Unfortunately... I couldn't find any information on odds of winning.

Well that's it.  Three cards for $12.69 (+ tax).

What are your thoughts on a product like this?  There has to be at least one other card collector out there that's also a fan of Yuto, right?

Happy Friday and sayonara!

2024 Topps National Trading Card Day Baseball

 

You are looking at a pack of 2024 Topps Trading Card Day baseball cards. The cards come in a cello wrapper, revealing one of the included cards. These were released on August 3, 2024, as part of National Trading Card Day and available through select hobby shops for free to anyone who asked. As of the writing of the post, a final checklist had not been published by Topps (that I could find anyway). The showing card is Dansby Swanson:

The front of each card features the team insignia in the upper left corner. There is a thin gradient border along the top of the card. The player is shown, taking up much of the front of the card and has a diagonal white stripe pattern to the left side of the card. The second card is Javier Baez:

Along the lower right side, a diagonal set of lines in white and the team’s primary colors is displayed along with a team color and white border near the bottom. The player’s name sits on the left bottom and the “Topps Trading Card Day” appears in the lower right. Up next, Carlos Correa:

This is followed by Mike Trout:

And the last player card in the pack is Zack Gelof:

The final card in the pack (which also serves as filler to hide the last player card), is a "Join the Hobby!" card encouraging collectors to visit the Topps website and buy merch.

The back of the cards repeat the insignia in the upper left. The team and player name are at the top. Card numbers are shown in the upper right and are labeled as “NTCD-B##.” As there are various sport and non-sport versions, I presume the “B” is for baseball.

Below the player name is biographical information, and on some cards, a paragraph detailing fun facts about the player, and then statistical information. The bottom has the Topps logo and various copyright information.

I haven’t been able to visit a hobby shop in years, and didn’t even realize there was one in Little Rock until I searched the NTCD list for participating shops. My wife and I were in LR to help my daughter move apartments, so I grabbed the chance to drop in for a free pack! Now that I know central Arkansas has a shop, I’ll be visiting the place as I am able when we make trips in that direction. As I was going in, a couple presumably in their 30s was walking out with their free packs as was a guy about my age. The shop had a large stack of cards and I picked the top one. Not sure what they do with leftover packs. Do they just keep giving them away? Do they sell them? Rip them? No idea.