A Pack To Be Named Later

2006 Upper Deck Update

2012-02-01T00:59:00.001-06:00

Greetings!

I did not want to interrupt the flurry of posts these last couple of weeks, so I have been laying low. And after my run of non-sports packs, it's about time to get back to the old Target discount bin. Here's a pack of 2006 Upper Deck Update!

As madding alluded to in his Series 2 post, this Update set pushes the set to 1250 cards! 1250 cards (insert Don West voice here)!!!!! Let's see what we got:

#1022 - Jim Johnson (RC)
#1197 - Matt Stairs
#1160 - Rajai Davis (RC)

Rookie cards a-plenty here in this set, including cards for Dustrin Pedroia, Carlos Marmol, Adam Jones, Stephen Drew, and Chad Billingsley. For some reason, the Pat Neshek rookie card is pretty valuable, at least to those who follow Beckett.

#1134 - Melky Cabrera (RC)
#1094 - Jeff Mathis (RC)
#1070 - Bob Wickman (back)

#SA-JH - Star Attractions: Jeremy Hermida
#1239 - Derek Jeter (Checklist)

The Jeter's a short print (anyone know why?), so it's a pretty high-priced card in the Beckett. Close enough to a hit for me!

Anyway, that's the pack. Thanks for reading!

2009 Topps Allen & Ginter

2012-01-30T23:38:00.013-06:00

Ah the multi-pack box; I've actually pulled one or two good ones from these and they make an affordable mix to pick from.

2009 Allen & Ginter

Geovany Soto - National Pride subset

Victor Lustig - World's Biggest Hoaxes and Hoodwinks mini. According to the back of this card, Victor sold the Eiffel Tower for scrap metal.

Pat Burrell

Josh Outman Rookie

Chipper Jones - I always seem to get a Chipper Jones, man this guy has been playing for quite a while.

Chris Young

2011 Topps Lineage Rack Pack

2012-01-30T10:30:00.000-06:00

1996 Skybox Hunchback of Notre Dame

2012-01-25T14:09:00.000-06:00

I actually thought I had posted a pack of these before, but can't seem to find the post. Welp, that's a good sign to post this pack of movie tie-ins. The difference here: ACTIVITIES!

In this first group, there are two cards on which kiddos can color! This is only, what, about 15 years BEFORE Topps started doing Sketch cards?

If coloring isn't your thing, how about card-stacking? Yeap, collect all the cards and build your own tower!

Building not your thing, either? Well, then, how about a puppet show or some coinage? Yeap, we have coins you can punch out or we have finger puppets you can play with. Awesome old school interactivity!

1995 Fleer Batman Forever

2012-01-24T14:06:00.000-06:00

I remember Fleer. Do you? The good ol' days, eh...

How about a couple of Jim Carrey shots, showing a varied range of emotions:

He went to the Danger Zone....

1992 Upper Deck Comic Bowl IV

2012-01-23T14:01:00.000-06:00

Upper Deck did a series of baseball cards with Looney Tunes characters, so why not parallel that with football? Here, I busted open a couple packs of the ComicBowl IV packs:

1992 Food Lion Richard Petty 3-Card Pack

2012-01-22T21:30:00.001-06:00

1992 Skybox Star Trek Season Five Episodes

2012-01-22T13:57:00.000-06:00

For as big of a computer nerd as I am, I never got into the whole Star Trek thing. So, other than seeing some actors I recognize, I don't know anything about anything going on here. Oh, and the Sela card (er, the 2nd Sela card) is embossed. That's actually kinda cool.

1992 Pro Set The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles

2012-01-21T13:53:00.000-06:00

Another pack of these was posted previously, but since I decided to bust all my non-sport wax on MLK Day, here is another look at cards from this set:

The cards below feature some cool diversions: a set os 3d glasses and a 3d card to go with them and a treasure hunter card (the large foldout) with items listed on the back to find.

Since the fronts of the cards only showed stills, I thought I would show the backs:

1992 Champs Vintage Cycles

2012-01-20T13:50:00.000-06:00

I don't know anything about motorcycles, but looking through a pack of vintage bikes brought on a nostalgia I didn't even know I had. Very cool stuff!

2008 Upper Deck Timeline Retail

2012-01-19T20:29:00.000-06:00

1990 Topps Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cards Series 2

2012-01-19T13:50:00.000-06:00

Because one series of TMNT cards wasn't enough...

1990 Topps Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie Cards

2012-01-18T13:48:00.000-06:00

You remember these guys, right? Yeah, the "old" TMNT movie that your parents probably saw. Wait. No, no they would have been around to SEE it, but no one saw it. Well, a bunch of kids, maybe. Where was I? Well, this movie came out back in '90 or '89. Either way, Topps was really into movie tie-ins then.

1989 Topps New Kids On The Block

2012-01-17T13:43:00.000-06:00

I forgot to scan the wrapper. And, I forgot to scan the rapper. (rimshot!) I'll be here all week. No, really. That's my schedule. (One of the best Progressive Insurance spots ever.) What does any of this have to do with NTKOB? Not a dang thing.

1979 Topps Rocky II

2012-01-16T13:42:00.003-06:00

Yeap, that gum is from 1979. Want some? My wife walked in as I was about to open this, and I showed her the raised area of the pack where the gum was. She said, "You better not open that. It could be worth a lot of money," in her patronizingly sweet way she does when it comes to anything card-related. I opened the pack. She said, "Well, now you've exposed it to air. It's worthless. And cracked." I love my wife.

Each pack comes with a variety of cards and a glove-shaped sticker. These are classic Topps card stock, photography, and design. What's not to love?

2011 Bandai Thundercats

2012-01-14T14:54:00.000-06:00

What's this? New Thundercats trading cards based off the new Thundercats animated series? Yes please! I had no idea these even existed until I stopped in at Target to get my daughter a few packs of Panini Hello Kitty stickers. $2.99 a pack? Ouch. I'm of the curious nature so I had to take a look. 80 card set. Series 1 contains 68 common cards and 12 rare cards. Each pack contains 8 cards - 7 common and 1 foil rare card.

Driller (Character Card) #1-25

First card out of the pack is a winner! I love the updated design they gave to the Driller. Now if only Bandai will make an action figure of him because the original LJN figure sucks...no matter how rare he is!

Jaga (Character Card) #1-17

The wise sage to King Claudus and advisor to Lion-O.

Lion-O (Character Card) #1-02

This the rare foil card inserted 1 per pack. I like how Lion-O's eyes are foil and have a shiny appearance.

Companion (Scene Collection) #1-46 | Episode 3: "Ramlak Rising"

I don't always care for cards that just feature screen captures, but at least they added the episode the capture is from as well as some quotes from the scene.

Reunion (Scene Collection) #1-45 | Episode 1 & 2: "The Sword of Omens"

The first two episodes did a really good job setting up the story and introducing new fans to the rich Thundercats history. I liked getting a glimpse of King Claudus and his past relationships.

(Puzzle Collection) #1-74

I can't wait to see how these puzzle cards look in a 9 pocket page. I couldn't have been the only one that was surprised by the sexual tension between Lion-O and Cheetara early on...right?

(Puzzle Collection) #1-78

(Puzzle Collection) #1-69

Overall I'm really impressed with these cards. They have a slick matte like finish and the corners are rounded. They feel a lot like playing cards. I still wish the price was at least a buck less and 3 puzzle cards was a little too much for one pack. All in all though its a beautiful high quality set in which I plan to build.

2012 Topps WWE Classic

2012-01-14T13:08:00.009-06:00

Recent WWE cards release with CM Punk on the cover and shiny stuff printed on it. The set is very well designed. The names are big and easily read and "spotlight" shine making the wrestler on the card very important.

67 - Trent Barreta - regulated as jobber to the stars on Superstars

61 - Sheamus - "The Great White" and former two-time WWE champion. Favorite to win the Royal Rumble.

41 - Kofi Kingston - BOOM! BOOM! Current one half of tag team champions. Remember when he was suppose to be the next main eventer few years ago?

55 - Rey Mysterio, Jr. - the little big man been out with a serious knee injury since August/September.

59 - Santino Marella - CO-BRAAAAAHHHH!

68 - Triple H - It's The Game!

That's a fun pack to rip

2011 Topps American Pie Retail

2012-01-09T10:00:00.000-06:00

The never ending searching for the Frank Zappa card from 2011 Topps American Pie.

2011 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions Hobby

2012-01-08T14:54:00.000-06:00

1998 Skybox Star Trek: Insurrection

2012-01-06T01:39:00.002-06:00

Greetings!

Hope everyone's New Year celebrations were great, whether you partied till dawn, or turned in before the ball dropped. May 2012 be just a good as 2011, or for the pessimists out there, may 2012 suck less than 2011.

Here's the last of the crawlspace packs (for now). If I remember right, there was a bookstore in the mall that had a box of these; long after the movie was released, the packs were marked down to $.50 each, so I indulged. Here's some Star Trek: Insurrection cards!

These are the equivalent to the Topps Widevision cards made for the Star Wars movies. It was a 72 card set. Amongst the inserts are 19 Autograph cards (1:36 packs) and 7 Gold cards 1:720 packs. Did I get an autograph? Of course not!

#6 – Mission Log 5

#10 – Mission Log 9

F. Murray Abraham played the baddie, pictured on the first card. For those who haven't seen the movie, Picard's crew comes to the defense of a planet whose inhabitants are kept young-looking due to the some sort of technobabble. The baddies want to kick the inhabitants off the planet so they can live there and be all young-looking too. I don't blame them, seeing how ugly they look now. Oh, the "Insurrection" in the title refers to the fact that Starfleet has ordered the Enterprise to evacuate the inhabitants, as the misguided Admiral had an agreement with the baddies. Thus Picard leads the "insurrection."

Surprising to me, the kid in the second card has been pretty busy, according to the IMDB. He has appeared in a bunch to TV shows as well as the Twilight movies. See, there IS an acting life after appearing in Star Trek!

#47 – Soundbytes 23

#18 – Mission Log 17

The Soundbytes cards have a line from the movie on the back, relating to the scene on the front. Pretty boring. The Mission Log cards are a summary of the movie itself. The second card is a pic of Murray facing off against the guy from Hardcastle and McCormick.

#69 – Alien Races 5 (Cuzar)

#R-5 – Picard / Crusher (Relationships Insert)

There was a subset of cards featuring the races introduced in the movie. I don't remember where these folks popped up, probably during the fancy dinner scene.

The Relationships Insert cards were seeded 1:8 packs, so a bonus for me.

#52 – Profiles 1 (Captain Jean-Luc Picard)

#23 – Mission Log 22

#3 – Mission Log 2 (back)

The latter cards in the set focused on the main characters. An example of the card backs show too much empty space. Compare this to the backs of the Soundbytes cards, where there is no image in the back and the movie quote takes up the whole back in large font.

Well, that's the pack. Got an insert at least. The cards, like the movie itself, were a disappointment for me. The movie would be fine for a two-partner during the show's run, but when it's movie time, you have to produce a better story.

Enough of the non-sports excursion. I'll be back to sports cards next time. Again, Happy New Year everyone, and thanks for reading!

1995 Denny's

2012-01-02T14:05:00.000-06:00

This could be the first post of the year, why not? After spending a night out on New Year's Eve and (for this year anyway) the night after New Year's Eve, what comes to mind first? It's not overwhelming exhaustion because you're usually too tired to think about that. It's not about the one that got away because most of the time at parties like that, there's not much chance anyway. For me, at this point, there's one thing, filling up on greasy food at a late night stop. It can be chicken and waffles, breakfast omelets, milkshakes of enormous size (with fries for dipping), or what have you.

In the '90s, Denny's was a purveyor of a certain atmosphere of 2 am breakfasts, the grand slam, and packs of baseball cards included for a small addition (usually 59-79 cents) to the cost of the meal. Let's see what the 1995 edition looked like. The checklist was one card of one player from each team (only 28 in 1995).

Here's the wrapper. Ooh, a hologram. It's not just a card...it's a hologram. Does this mean that the player image can be projected into the subspace and becomes an illusion or does it mean it shines in strange colors when tilted?

It looks like Greg Maddux wins. The hologram on the left is actually kind of strange. When the card is tilted from left to right, Maddux has a smiley face and then a stern face. This must have been because of the strike and winning the Cy Young award. It's hard to reconcile those two emotions.

Happy New Year!

1999 Topps Star Wars Episode 1 Widevision Series 2

2011-12-31T03:44:00.000-06:00

Greetings!

Well, I wasn't able to do a double post, but that does not matter as it's enough to get us past 200 posts for 2011, which is good enough for me! Hopefully we can get to 200 posts for 2012 as well, as I'm sure there are still many packs out there to open up.

I posted some Episode 1 Widevision cards yesterday. Nowhere on the package did it say it was Series 1. Is it a surprise that there was a Series 2?

Good thing there wasn't a Series 3; they can't fit a third character on the wrapper. This is still an 80 card set, with a couple of Chase Card subsets. Let's see what we get:

#73 – The Menace Of Maul

#16 - Watto (back)

The front of the Watto card is a picture of Qui-Ron Jinn and Watto in his junkyard. While the Series 1 cards followed the movie plot, the backs of the Series 2 cards were more on general or behind the scenes information.

#76 – Battle To The Death

#2 - Qui-Ron Jinn

The first few cards in the set were reserved for the major characters in the movie (#1 was a Title Card). Again, the base cards from Series 1 followed the movie, so there were no base cards there dedicated to the characters.

#66 – Palace Attack

#34 - Courageous Astromech Droid

The cards are glossy and follow the established Topps Widevision format. Series 1 had red borders while Series 2 has blue borders.

#3 – Obi-Wan Kenobi

#63 – “Get To Your Ships!”

That's the pack. Another bummer that I didn't grab one with a Chase card in it.

I hope everyone has fun tonight and that you all have a Happy New Year! Keep up the great work on the blogs and keep posting here! Thanks for reading!

2011-12 Pinnacle Hockey

2011-12-30T23:15:00.011-06:00

NHL Winter Classic coming up signaling spending Sunday afternoons on NBC watching hockey. Panini unleashes another year of Pinnacle with 8 cards in a pack. When it comes to Pinnacle the designs are usually hit or miss with good photography.

100 - Ville Leino - decent design on the front of the card since all the photo cards printed horizontally. The back have no stats, just talks about the player's highlights.

95 - Justin Williams - good shot of him trying get near the goal hoping to deflect a shot

198 - Criag Anderson - the tried behind the net shot of the goalie still works

156 - James Wisniewski - enforcer known for his hard checks, head shot, taunting Sean Avery, and hotel commercial when he played for Chicago.

258 - Erik Condra - icebreaker card which runs 1:6 packs featuring rookies. I like the "nufex" design making the rookies looking like a future star.

123 - Dustin Brown - awful shot and print of a card just showing his back side. Couldn't Panini pick a better shot of him?

137 - Ryan O'Reilly - must be taken in practice as he's taping up the blade of his stick.

180 - Andrew Ladd - likely wristing the puck

This pack is a miss but I do like the simple design.

1999 Topps Star Wars Episode 1 Widevision

2011-12-30T11:22:00.001-06:00

Greetings!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and are looking forward to New Year's festivities. For me, Christmas seems to come and go very quickly, but that's probably what happens when you have two little boys running around.

Here's another crawlspace pack. Those Toys R Us Star Wars repack boxes had a lot of these as filler too. Here's some Star Wars Episode 1 Widevision cards for you all to enjoy!

Earlier in the 1990's, Topps released the original trilogy in its Widevision format, and they were pretty popular if I remember correctly. They were released right in the middle of my collecting heyday, so I was all over those cards. The pain was finding the pages that held 6 cards per page.

This was an 80 card set, with 16 sticker cards and 10 foil insert cards. Let's see what we got:

#19 – An Emergency Escape

#48 – He’s on the Leader

The cards are glossy and the images are pretty sharp. The borders used followed the original trilogy's format. I would have preferred a whole-card image, but at least they are consistent.

#33 – Hit By A Sandstorm (back)

#25 – Bargaining With Watto

The backs have a brief description of the scene on the front. They also have a second image with a quick summary of that scene as well. Again, the original trilogy set was set up the same way.

#59 – Judgement Of The Jedi

#78 – The Lightsaber Duel

#23 – Refueling And Repairing

#54 – Qui-Gon And The Jedi Council

That's the pack. Not a bad set to try to complete. Too bad the pack I grabbed didn't have any inserts in it.

One more to 200 for the year! Perhaps a double post is in order.

Thanks for reading!

2005-06 Topps 1952 Style Basketball

2011-12-28T01:41:00.002-06:00

With the NBA finally kicking off this week, I thought I'd show off a random basketball pack that I got from my girlfriend as stocking stuffer material. The 1952 Topps baseball design has been rehashed and reused many, many times over the years, but I haven't really been exposed to it in another sport until now.

62 - Kirk Hinrich (Hinrich took over as the Hawks starting point guard last season and set career low marks in points per game and assists per game. He's currently injured.)

36 - Al Jefferson (Jefferson is the focal point of the "rebuild mode" Jazz offense.)

38 - Al Harrington (Harrington comes off the bench these days in Denver.)

102 - Tyson Chandler (Chandler was one of the cap casualties of last year's championship winning Mavericks team. He's with the Knicks now.)

96 - Mehmet Okur (Okur recently was moved to New Jersey where his role is still an uncertain one. This makes five active players out of five in the pack - not bad for a set that's nearly six years old at this point.)

2011 Topps American Pie

2011-12-23T20:25:00.009-06:00

Topps puts out another nostalgic set featuring actors, actresses, movies, cars, and other various stuff throughout the decades. Price tag of $2.99 sounds a risk on these cards.

14 - First Instant Camera. Remember Polaroid instant film cameras? Who once owned one? Introduced in 1948 for the holiday season.

6 - Jimmy Stewart. Notice a trend? Best known for his starring role of Christmas classic, "It's a Wonderful Life."

35 - First Corvette Released. A Chevy classic that first appeared in 1953.

121 - John Belushi. It's a foil card of Bluto from Saturday Night Live and Animal House fame.

129 - Saturday Night Fever. To this day I still have not seen the movie.

111 - Pong. The game that started video game trend.

2003 Fleer Transformers Armada

2011-12-23T13:42:00.001-06:00

Greetings!

Here's another crawlspace pack...just what you all wanted for Christmas! I believe this was a $.99 pack in the Target bin, and you all know my love for all things Transformers...here's some 2003 Fleer Transformers Armada!

Five cards per pack, 122 cards in the set, with various inserts. You can see the full checklist here.

Armada is the first series of the so-called "Unicron Trilogy" (the other series being Energon and Cybertron), because Unicron, the planet-munching Transformer, plays some sort of role through all three series. The animation and writing is very Japanese. At this point in the show's overall history, I'm not paying much attention to it. Here's the pack:

#64 – Smokescreen

#31 – High Wire

I seem to remember some controversy for the Smokescreen character, just because of the name...in the original series, Smokescreen was a race car. It fit, because Smokescreen's ability in the old show involved blowing smoke out of his tailpipe to confuse and divert the Decepticons. Here, Smokescreen's a crane. The name does not fit the character. Now again, I did not watch the show that closely, so maybe he did distract the Decepticons by puffing smoke out of his tailpipes or something. Anyway, Hasbro's later use of the name associated it with race cars again, and all is well.

I was planning to show the back of High Wire, but I guess I messed up. Nothing exciting, though, it's just a brief description of the character.

8 of 10AP - Armada Poster Card / The Star Saber

These cards came 1 in 9 packs. It is pretty shiny, too bad the scan did not turn out so well.

8 of 10AP - Armada Poster Card / The Star Saber (back)

#117 – Puzzle: D / Piece: 6

Here's the back of the Poster Card , for those who are interested. The 4 puzzles are each made up of 9 cards.

#117 – Puzzle: D / Piece: 6 (back)

#55 – Skywarp

And here's the back of the Puzzle Card. Yes, the Puzzle Card I got is part of the same image as the Poster Card. The Decepticon Skywarp ends the pack...at least he's still a jet here and not a minivan or something.

That's the pack. Merry Christmas to all; more next week. Thanks for reading!

2002 Topps Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

2011-12-20T20:42:00.001-06:00

Greetings!

A long time ago, in the same galaxy, the Toys R Us in town used to have large repack theme boxes. There were Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh boxes, but what caught my attention were the Star Wars boxes. It was something like ten bucks for 20 packs. The focus of my purchases were the old Star Wars CCG packs (and if you're all good little boys and girls, I'll get around to posting some of those packs), but they filled out the box with other packs as well, like these...2002 Topps Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones!

According to the interweb, there were 100 base cards, 10 silver foil cards, 8 prismatic cards, and 5 panoramic cards. They came 7 cards in a pack, and the packs were graced with several characters from the movie (this pack has Jango Fett staring me down). Let's see what we get:

#77 – The Jedi’s Last Words

#78 - Padme’s Rescue Plan

#60 – Reporting To Mace And Yoda

The front of the card has a scene / behind the scene from the movie and the back has a brief write up of the scene / behind the scene.

#3 of 10 Anakin Skywalker Silver Foil

The Silver Foil has a ratio of 1:2, so not very exciting. Less exciting is the back, so I didn't even bother to scan it. It just gave the name of the character and the subset number. It is shiny, though.

#79 - The Capture of Kenobi (back)

#47 – Young Heroes In Disguise

#99 – Jedi Tall And Jedi Small

The front of the Kenobi card is the scene where Obi-Wan is suspended in mid-air with Count Dooku interrogating / taunting him.

That's the pack. The card quality is good, with decent pictures and enough info on the back. In my younger days, this would definitely be something I would be trying to complete. Who knows, I may already have the whole set, based on the number of packs they used as filler. More later...thanks for reading!

2007 Wizards of the Coast Transformers: 3D Battle-Card Game

2011-12-16T02:02:00.000-06:00

Greetings!

Here's another pack from the crawlspace. I remember being curious enough about it to pick a pack up from the Target $0.99 bin. I am long past my card game phase, but never outgrew my Transformers phase. We've seen the post on the expansion set Energon Wars, here's the premiere set...Transformers: 3D Battle-Card Game!

You can view more info on the release here, and info on the overall product here. Alas, I didn't do as a complete of a scan as Colbey did with the Energon Wars set (I didn't get the backs of the character cards), but too late, the pack is back in the crawlspace, and I ain't going back in there until it's time to put all the Christmas stuff away. Besides, it's scary and dark down there. Here's what I got:

Here's the token card and the cover of the Game Rules. Colbey did a good job recapping the rules, so no need to put them here again.

The Autobot I picked up is Mirage, a common card.

The Decepticon I got is Protoform Starscream, an uncommon. That's good, I guess. The rare cards are the main characters from the first movie, in case anyone was curious.

That's the pack. If the voting follows the Energon Wars pack, this will make the Hall of Shame...oh well. More later...thanks for reading!

2003 Fleer Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Series 1

2011-12-14T00:24:00.000-06:00

Greetings!

A couple of weeks ago, I was in the crawlspace getting the Christmas decorations out when I came across several boxes of my non-sports cards. Looks like I'll have something to add to the site after I'm done with the sports posts. Anyway, I grabbed a few I knew wasn't on here for scanning and will be posting them for all to enjoy.

Not sure specifically where I got this pack. I know I didn't buy it, so I believe it was a giveaway at one of the several conventions I went to during my carefree youth. Good thing too, because it would have sucked if I spent good money on this one. Here's a pack of 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cards!

By the way, this is the third TMNT set we have on the site, all from Fleer and all from 2003. Fleer was really milking it back then.

You see the odds of getting a couple of the inserts listed on the pack. Several interweb searches finally led me to discover that there were 125 cards in the base set. Here's what I got:

#19 – Donatello: Weaknesses

#39 - Michelangelo: Weapon

Not sure if the images are from the cartoon. I would image the Donatello one was. I am impressed with the Mikey image.

#122 - Checklist

#19 – Donatello: Weaknesses (back)

#111 - Puzzle: C / Piece: 9

Showing you the back of the Donatello card, because, yes, it's a duplicate. I would have thought that this travesty was a characteristic of the old wax packs, but oh well, at least the pack was free.

Here's the back of the checklist and the Puzzle card, for those who are interested.

Well, that's the pack. It appeared the set has some potential, if the Mikey artwork as any indication. My next few posts will have some robots, as well as a Trek to a Galaxy Far, Far Away...

Thanks for reading!

2008 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia

2011-12-09T10:00:00.000-06:00

Wasn't 2008 the last year that Donruss/Playoff were in existence? It's a shame we lost another card manufacturer. Oh well let's take a look at another cheap-o football card pack.

#131 Julius Jones

I don't mind the top half of the card's design, but the bottom is ugly. It's 2008 (or least it was) - why is there so much of the gaudy gold foil on the card?

#42 Marion Barber

These Spectrum parallels come in red, blue and black variations. I have no idea which color is "rarer" since the pack lists no odds.

#33 Kenny Watson

#90 Wes Welker

#48 Tony Scheffler

Shut out from pulling a Panthers card. Boo. Anyone want any of these?

2008 Upper Deck Football Heroes

2011-12-08T09:00:00.001-06:00

Let's change up the pace a little and look at some gridiron cardboard courtesy of the cheap-o box at my local Target store.

I never bought much of the Baseball Heroes stuff, but when I did I liked it. Before today I've never even knew what these Football Heroes cards looked like. Just like with the baseball set I'm now hooked!

#206 Billy Sims (Legendary Heroes)

#253 Tom Morello (Guitar Heroes)

What? How did this card get in my pack?

#102 Adarius Bowman (Rookie Heroes)

#163 Jonathan Stewart (Rookie Heroes)

Woohoo! A card that fits into my collection (Carolina Panthers) that I don't have.

#39 Dwayne Bowe (Football Heroes)

#8 Brett Favre (Football Heroes)

Some would say this card makes the pack a winner. I say meh.

I can say I hope to find more of these in the discount box at Target in the near future. There is just something about these "Heroes" sets that make them so much fun to collect.

2011-12 Upper Deck hockey (retail)

2011-12-07T19:35:00.013-06:00

Another pack of hockey cards from this year this time from Upper Deck. Bought this at Target and comes with 8 cards.

191 - David Krejci - still using good photography along showing the names, team, and position at the bottom of the card. The back has the player's mug along his stats.

109 - Pierre-Marc Bouchard

175 - Rene Bourque - checks a Coyote on the boards

125 - Evgeny Dadonov

94 - Ryan Suter

70 - Sergei Gonchar - still playing and slapping a puck

36 - Chris Stewart

38 - David Perron

Not a good pack

2011-12 Score hockey

2011-12-03T17:36:00.012-06:00

Panini unleashes another year of Score with Martin Brodeur on the cover pack. Seven cards for a dollar? Not a bad deal. Let's see who's in this pack.

220 - Justin Williams - not a bad card design with team logo on upper right corner, team name horizontal on the left, and name near the bottom of the card.

423 - Victor Hedman - 2nd overall pick in 2009 draft known for ending Sidney Crosby 2010-11 season. Already at -7 in +/- this season.

70 - Jochen Hecht - has played 5 games this season battling injuries

347 - Chris Pronger - can still go

239 - Brad Staubitz - Wild enforcer was suspended six games earlier this season for boarding penalty.

Playoff Heroes 5 - Nathan Horton - Playoff Heroes insert card

4 (glossy) - Antii Niemi (Season Highlight) - glossy card which is one per pack. Season highlight of Sharks vs Blue Jackets game in Sweden. I picked up a pennant of the game from Sharks team shop this year.

Who wants try collect this set again?

1992 Upper Deck Baseball

2011-12-03T01:42:00.001-06:00

Greetings!

With less than a month left before the end of the year, we are 12 posts short of 200 for 2011. A downward trend, for sure. I hate joining the party when it's dying down. Anyway, I'm gonna do my darnest to help get to that 200th post...who's with me?

Found this pack and saw that it hasn't been posted here yet. We've seen the High Series, so we know what to expect. Might as well get on with it then...here's some 1992 Upper Deck!

The Williams being referred to here is the Ted Williams "Baseball Heroes" subset. Won't be finding one here:

#15 - Roger Salkeld (RC)
#58 - Dmitri Young (RC)
#181 - Randy Milligan

I wonder how many PSA 10's Dmitri has of his own rookie card.

#205 - Jose Lind
#246 - Lenny Dykstra
#214 - Bill Spiers (back)

Nice photo of Bill on the back of the card (way better than the front). Never liked the limiting of stats to the last three years.

SP3 - "Prime Time's Two"

Don't know if SP stands for Short Print, but Beckett's listing at least 4 SPs in the set. The back has a write-up on Deion's switching back and forth between the Braves and the Falcons during the 1991 season.

#368 - Steve Finley

#338 - Sam Horn

#456 - Robin Yount

#469 - John Wehner

Young Finley and a Hall of Famer in this group. Growing up, I never considered Yount to be Hall-worthy. I guess that's a result of only watching Cubs games (no cable so no nightly baseball highlights and no American League games - the White Sox were on SportsChannel).

#544 - Eddie Zosky
#533 - Todd Zeile
#639 - Rob Murphy
#608 - Eric "Ker" Plunk (lame, I know)

And that's how it ends, not with a bang, but a kerplunk. Enjoy the weekend, everyone...thanks for reading!

1998-99 Fleer Ultra Basketball

2011-11-27T23:00:00.001-06:00

Greetings!

I hope everyone's Turkey Day was excellent, and that those who went shopping this weekend found what they were looking for.

Those looking for the end of the NBA lockout got what they wanted, sort of, as all that stands in the way is the approval from the owners and players. I welcome the return, as well as the condensed schedule that comes with it. No watching D-Rose on a Tuesday and then waiting till the weekend silliness.

To mark the occasion, here's a pack from the last year there was a shortened NBA season. This came from a repack box I picked up. Clear the lane, Keith Van Horn is driving some 1998-99 Fleer Ultra to the hoop!

10 cards per pack, with Chauncey Billups wondering what he's doing on the wrapper since the Nets are playing the Nuggets. Everyone's used to the Fleer Ultra design, with its excellent photography and curvy names. The backs (room permitting) have a "Dare To Compare" section where they take the player's stats from last year and dared to compare it to a random year's stats from a much better player. I'll put that in parenthesis next to the player's name. Here we go!

#84 - Tariq Abdul-Wahad (1985-86 Detlef Schrempf)
#2 - Antonio Daniels (1967-68 Walt Frazier)
#1 - Keith Van Horn (1982-83 Dominique Wilkins)

See, Keith's up against Bobby Jackson. Perhaps Chauncey's future projecting himself or something like that.

#42 - Rik Smits (Fleer did not Dare To Compare)
#37 - Bobby Jackson (1960-61 Lenny Wilkens)

#39 - Steve Smith (back; 1973-94 Earl Monroe)
#95 - Derek Anderson (1970-71 Jo Jo White)

Showing the back of the Steve Smith card since it's the most boring shot of the pack. I do like the backs, I just don't remember if the "Dare To Compare" was always a part of it.

#49 - Detlef Schrempf (Fleer did not Dare To Compare; I'm sure Detlef's not too happy his stats were used in a Tariq Abdul-Wahad comparison)
#25 - Joe Dumars (again, Fleer did not Dare To Compare)
#5 - Issac Austin

I wonder if they Dared To Compare the stats of His Airness.

Anyway, that's the pack. What, you didn't think I was only capable of baseball cards and cartoon robots, did you? Thanks for reading!

1991 Fleer Ultra Football

2011-11-27T17:45:00.001-06:00

Hooray, feetball! Everyone likes the feetball, yes? Here is a pack full of today's latest stars!

199 - Steve Jordan (Interesting choice of photo here.)

210 - Eric Martin

294 - Mike Pritchard (This is a college photo from Pritchard's time at Colorado. Fleer tried to block out the Colorado on the uniforms in the foreground, but you can see they left it on one of the players on the sideline. Nice.)

222 - Dave Meggett (You always want David Meggett on your side in a game of Tecmo Super Bowl. Meggett is currently serving a 30 year prison sentence for doing some burgling and sex crimes.)

232 - Wes Hopkins (This was from the era that made me an Eagles fan. I wish I could say the same today.)

253 - Tom Rathman (Here's a look at the multi-photo back card design.)

163 - Michael Irvin (Who decided that it would be a good idea to put a microphone in front of Michael Irvin?)

29 - Reggie Langhorne

96 - Tom Hodson (Hodson is part of an elite club of Terrible Pre-Tom Brady Patriots Quarterbacks.)

187 - Cleveland Gary (First name for a last name, last name for a first name.)

200 - Mike Merriweather

107 - Ron Stallworth (I miss these Jets uniforms. They've been going "retro" for far too long now.)

260 - Reggie Cobb

90 - John Offerdahl

2005 Upper Deck Classics

2011-11-22T23:53:00.001-06:00

Greetings!

So, it appears madding and I have been trading sport card volleys and everyone else is content to watch. I'm new to the game, so perhaps this is the equivalent to the off-season here at APTBNL.

Anyway, since it's my turn, here's a pack from the old $1.49 bin. As it turns out, it's too bad I only picked up one of these...feast your eyes on some 2005 Upper Deck Classics!

8 cards per pack, here we go:

#28 - Earl Weaver
#84 - Rollie Fingers

I wonder if the backgrounds for the cards in the set were photoshopped. I mean, it appears Rollie's pitching on the beach or something. In any event, it's a nice start, especially since I don't see many Rollie-as-a-Brewer cards.

#70 - Monte Irvin

#CC-RS - Classic Counterparts: Nolan Ryan / Tom Seaver (#1507 / 1999)

The serial number's on the bottom right corner of the card. It's almost hidden there; it took me a while to realize that it was numbered. The back of the pack says these are seeded 1 in every 14 packs.

#CC-RS - Classic Counterparts: Nolan Ryan / Tom Seaver (back)
No # - Upper Deck Rewards dummy card (not pictured)

Here's the back of the card for those who are interested.

#24 - Dave McNally (back)
#76 - Phil Niekro

Not very impressed with the card backs. The picture's the same as the front, and there's just a brief career summary and lifetime stats. The team logo for that era is prominently displayed, though...and by the way, welcome back, cartoon Oriole!

#64 - Kirk Gibson

#125 - Ryne Sandberg (Retro Star Rookies)

The Ryno Retro Rookie ris ra rinner, er, winner of this pack. The pack says the RSR's seeded one in every 4 packs. Other Rookies include Mickey Mantle, Mike Schmidt, Nolan Ryan, Ted Williams, and Tony Gwynn.

Anyway, that's the pack. I would have definitely gotten more if there were more to get.

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving. If I remember right, K-Mart's having a 20% off sale on trading cards.

I am thankful for finding this blog, as the contributions of all of you has made it possible for someone like me to see cards from packs I would never have bought (and in some cases, thankful I didn't buy them when I had the chance). Thanks for reading!

1992 Upper Deck Comic Ball IV

2011-11-16T01:14:00.004-06:00

Upper Deck mixes Looney Tunes, a few NFL greats, and their passion for making quality trading cards. How could this go wrong? Comic Ball IV: Comic Bowl follows a strong lineage that brought us such quality sets, like this one. Let's go crazy, NFL style!

83 - "Zee Smell of Victory" (What language is he supposed to be speaking? Also, are some of these football players smoking? Skunks shouldn't emanate visible odors even if they are spooked or ticked off.)

98 - "Half Time" (I have no idea what's going on here, or why there's a strangled cartoon duck wearing a t-shirt that says 1/4 on it.)
98 - "Half Time" (This is the same stupid card, only this one is damaged. I thought I'd take the opportunity to show the back of the card, which turns out to be a whole lot of nothing.)

182 - "Gut-Check Time" (No idea, Bugs. No idea.)

150 - "Hoppin' Half Time" (Sad frog on a pillow. I guess this beats Nickelback halftime shows.)

148 - "Hoppin' Half Time" (Sad frog is happy now. I always thought he was sort of a drunk and/or possibly afflicted with multiple personality disorder.)

34 - "Hang Time"

51 - "Run & Shout" (What IS Yosemite Sam, anyway? A really, really short trigger-happy redneck?)

64 - "I Get a Kick Out of You" (For some reason Eggbert doesn't get a lot of Looney Tunes love.)

162 - "Martian Touchdown" (It seemed like everyone had a Marvin the Martian t-shirt in the '90s.)

108 - "Crowd Control" (Daffy looks pretty tame by today's football fan standards.)

111 - "Crowd Control" (Just remember: actual NFL Hall of Famers-to-be were dragged into this mess.)

2004 Topps Chrome

2011-11-11T23:45:00.001-06:00

Greetings!

I couldn't let Nigel Tufnel Day go without a post from another old time pack. I have two packs of this and they don't have the Target discount price on the back of them. Since I don't actively buy Chrome, this means the wifey purchased them for me, probably for a stocking stuffer...and I don't turn down gifts from the wifey.

Let's turn the shiny to 11 with a pack of 2004 Topps Chrome!

Only 4 cards in the pack...let's see what we got:

#47 - Trot Nixon
#19 - Aaron Rowand

Hot-To-Trot and member of the '05 Champs lead off the pack. I am assuming these are direct images from the 2004 base set. I like the Roward card, showing the field during batting practice with the crowd slowly filtering in.

#21 - Luis Castillo (Gold Refractor)
No # - Checklist (front)

The Gold Bordered Refractor Parallel comes 1 in 10 packs, per the back of the wrapper. The checklist card is thick, mirroring the 2004 Topps Update checklist, but missing the puzzle piece front. I guess those puzzle pieces were not in Chrome, and therefore that whole puzzle thing confuses me more...how many packs do you need to get to complete that puzzle?

No # - Checklist (back)

#33 - Jeff Weaver

No need to show the backs, since it's the same setup as the 2004 Topps base set. In the other pack, I got Geoff Blum, Gil Meche, Terrence Long, and Curt Schilling. Other than the Gold Refractor, no real winners here. Oh well.

Turn down the volume from 11 before you leave...thanks for reading!

2010 Upper Deck World of Sports

2011-11-09T00:21:00.004-06:00

Here's another one of those wacky dollar store finds, although it's from a supposedly legitimate company that makes their own sports cards. This reminds me of the old Classic Four Sport cards that started coming out when I was in high school, except with Lacrosse and Tiger Woods for some reason.

76 - Thierry Henry (Henry is a world class soccer player, but my opinion of him is pretty low based solely on one MLS match that I watched this season.)

68 - Brad Davis (Two soccer players that I've heard of in the same pack? I guess it helps that my city has an MLS expansion team and there wasn't a lot else going on here this summer.)

183 - Brandon Kozun (The internet tells me that Kozun plays for the Manchester Monarchs of the AHL, an affiliate of the LA Kings.)

130 - Joshua Fields (Fields is a Red Sox prospect who was acquired from the Mariners this summer as part of the Erik Bedard deal.)

293 - Pat McCabe (I'm not going to pretend to know anything about lacrosse players. Is this card obscene?)

274 - Chris Garrity (Annnnnd this guy.)

2004 Topps Traded and Rookies

2011-11-04T23:45:00.000-05:00

Greetings!

So when does the Hot Stove season officially begin? Once the World Series is done? When the winter meetings begin? Not sure. Us Cubs fans are certainly interested in what Theo Epstein and his team can do. Hopefully the majority of fans are reasonable and will not expect a huge turnaround in the first year. Fans have waited 103 or so years, what's a few more?

Here's another from the (then) $1.49 Target discount bin...2004 Topps Traded!

Ten cards per pack, featuring Topps Chrome. It does not say how many Chrome cards can be in a pack, but the back says a Chrome Refractor Parallel is 1:12. Let's see what we get:

T106: Chad Gaudin (Devil Rays Prospects)

T206: Jerome Gamble (First Year)

T19: Reggie Sanders

After eight pretty decent years with Reds, Sanders proceeds to spend a year each in San Diego, Atlanta, Arizona, San Francisco, and Pittsburgh before winding up with St. Louis.

T165: Brooks Conrad (First Year)

T142: Kody Kirkland (First Year - Topps Chrome)

No #: Checklist 1 of 10 (front)

Here's something that confuses me (big deal, I'm confused by a lot of things). The 10 checklists in the set are a part of a huge puzzle where you can assemble an image of the entire 2004 set. This is the only pack I have so I don't know if every pack has a checklist. It also appears to be random, i.e. the 10 Traded checklists are not the last 10 cards of the puzzle, as evidenced by this checklist holding images from Series 1.

No #: Checklist 1 of 10 (back): Here's the back. Holy crap, you need 110 cards to complete the whole thing? There are 10 checklists for the Traded set, so there's a 100 cards left. I checked my 2004 cards and I don't have any other checklists. How often were these things seeded? Are there really 50 checklist cards for both Series 1 and 2, or did they use other cards for the puzzle? Does anyone have the complete puzzle?

Also, seriously, Topps, Pokey Reese is the first card in the Traded set? There were no All-Stars you could have used? I mean, Carlos Beltran and Andy Pettitte are right there on the checklist!

T100: Kevin Youkilis (Red Sox Prospects)

T15: Billy Wagner (Topps Chrome)

T95: Chien-Ming Wang (Yankees Prospects)

T65: Miguel Batista (back)

T87: Kurt Suzuki (A's Prospects)

Nice group of cards to end the pack. Me thinks the Chromes I got are not the Refrator Parallel. Showing the back of the Batista card since the front is pretty boring. Also, the picture they have for Miguel is the same as the front of the card. The other cards have a different shot.

Anyway, that's the pack. Looking forward to Hot Stove season, whenever that starts. Thanks for reading!

PressTine Baseball

2011-11-01T23:58:00.006-05:00

Here is another dollar store product much in the vein of the Cards One packs that they used to carry. This appears on the surface to be a completely different company, but as you'll see they seem to take the same kind of approach to their so-called product. Admittedly, the primary reason I purchased this pack is because of this PressTine company's ridiculous slogan: The Best of All Times! Apparently I will get All The Stars Past & Present in this pack, so let's check it out.

2009 Upper Deck - 703 - Hong-Chih Kuo

1990 Score - 270 - Bruce Hurst

1994 Donruss - 455 - Domingo Cedeno

1988 Topps - 245 - Rich Gedman

1993 Score Select - 181 - Kal Daniels

1992 Donruss - 82 - Chris James

1986 Topps Traded - 102T - Ted Simmons

2001 Fleer Premium - 110 - Jose Offerman (I don't think I'm familiar with this set.)

1983 Topps - 137 - Woodie Fryman (Fryman already looked like more of a coach than a player at this point in his career.)

1992 Leaf - 39 - Charlie Hough

1990 Donruss - 316 - Mike Scioscia

1999 Bowman - 308 - Jason Phillips

1988 Topps - 338 - Brian Holton

1994 Leaf - 376 - Jody Reed (Looks like the gold stamp alignment was slightly off on this card, or perhaps it was miscut.)

1989 Fleer - 598 - Charlie Puleo

2008 Upper Deck - 662 - Troy Percival

1989 Fleer - 28 - Wally Backman

2003 Donruss The Rookies - 48 - Ryan Wagner

1991 O-Pee-Chee Premier - 28 - Danny Darwin (Shouldn't it be O-Pee-Chee Premiere?)

1991 Topps Stadium Club - 215 - Greg Colbrunn

1990 Classic Blue - 53 - Jerry Browne (Classic? Really? And yes, if you're counting - and I'm sure you are - this makes 21 cards. Bonus for me, I guess?)

1994 Topps Series 2

2011-10-28T20:09:00.008-05:00

Greetings!

At this moment, Game 7 of the 2011 World Series rages on. Most are saying this goes down in history as a classic Series. I guess any championship that gets to the seventh game can be considered to be a classic.

In honor of tonight's Game 7, here's a pack from the last year there was no World Series. From the shoebox of unfiled packs, here comes some 1994 Topps Series 2!!!

I checked the collection and this appears to be the only pack of Series 2 I purchased / received. Looks like a jumbo pack of some sort since there's 29 cards to go through:

#549 Ron Darling

#763 John O'Donoghue / Mike Oquist (Baltimore Orioles Coming Attractions)

#508 Wayne Kirby

I vaguely remember Darling with the A's. The back of the Coming Attractions lists the scout who signed the player. Per Baseball-Reference.com, O'Donoghue went 0-1 with a 4.58 ERA in his only season with the O's (and the majors). Oquist lasted a little longer, going 25-31 with a 5.46 ERA over 7 years and 3 clubs (O's, Padres, and A's).

#574 Willie McGee

#754 Jason Myers (Draft Pick - Giants)

#739 Jon Ratliff (Draft Pick - Cubs)

#770 Mark Kiefer / Troy O'Leary (Milwaukee Brewers Coming Attractions)

Odd to see Willie in a non-Cardinals uniform. Ratliff was a big Cubs prospect but then disappeared. Going back to Baseball-Reference.com, Kiefer pitched for 4 years with the Brewers, going 5-1 with a 4.29 ERA and 1 Save. Troy O'Leary is the clear winner of the Coming Attractions sweepstakes, playing from 1993 through 2003, peaking with the BoSox and finishing with the Cubs.

#689 Omar Olivares (back)

#736 Dave Valle (ToppsGold)

#689 Omar Olivares (ToppsGold)

It's a Valle sandwich! The card back meets with my approval, with the picture and full stats. ToppsGold was not impressive in this set since only the name and the Topps logo gets the gold treatment. Then again, I don't remember ToppsGold being all that anyway.

#760 Ryan Hancock (Draft Pick - Angels / ToppsGold)

#719 Tom Pagnozzi (ToppsGold)

#503 Steve Frey

#541 Jeff Juden

#569 Mike Felder

#495 Mickey Tettleton

#399 Frank Castillo

#430 Dave Winfield

#592 Jay Howell

#531 Rob Deer

The back of Deer's card showed he led the league in strikeouts 4 times, including 2003. He was traded from the Tigers to the Red Sox that year, so the card shows he stuck out 120 times for Detroit and whiffed 49 times for Boston. If you don't look closely, you'd think 49 strikeouts lead the league that year.

#556 Guillermo Velasquez

#677 Eddie Guardado

#688 Brian Dorsett

#486 Wally Whitehurst

#738 Greg Harris

#429 Bryan Hickerson

#593 Omar Vizquel

#687 John Smoltz

#476 Dave Hollins

2004 was Omar's 6th year in the majors...and he's still going!

Well, that's all she wrote. Time to see if the Rangers can make it interesting again. Thanks for reading!

2002 Topps Series 1

2011-10-25T14:55:00.005-05:00

Greetings!

Time to follow up my debut post with the first of many unfiled packs. I'd pick them up from the (then $1.49) Target discount bin from time to time but never got around to putting them away; they'd wind up in shoeboxes and sit in their wrappers until I'd come across them a year or so later. Then I'd make a goal to put them away but then something else came up and then they'd sit in shoeboxes again until I'd come across them a year or so later again. The circle of life, I guess.

Will the sophomore effort be as good as the rookie post? I doubt it. But here it is anyway...2002 Topps Series 1!!!

Will there be a randomly inserted original Topps card of a Hall of Famer in this pack? Well, no:

#124 Jaret Wright

#145 John Smoltz

#224 Roger Cedeno

I remember when Jaret Wright was supposed to be a big deal. I like the Negro League Stars jersey Cedeno's wearing. They should have more pictures of players in the alternate jersey; it adds some variety to the team sets.

#155 Omar Daal

#210 Hideo Nomo

#208 Marquis Grissom

By this time, all 3 players above have been well travelled. Nomo's in the middle of the 1 team per year tour.

#246 Einar Diaz (back)

No # Logo Race Card

#363 America United We Stand (Angels / Mariners)

I like the card backs, clean with a picture of the player and complete stats. Anyone try to get the hat? The back of the card says you have to find a Team Sticker Card randomly inserted into packs; on the card, there's a small sticker you'd use to fill in the spots on the Race Card. Get all the teams on the Race Card and you can mail it in to get a baseball hat of your choice. I don't remember getting a Team Sticker Card.

Oh, and the America United We Stand card is not an insert. It is shiny, though.

#263 Mike Cameron

#243 Torii Hunter

#264 Paul Konerko

Hunter's entering his prime here, and Paulie's a couple of years into it.

Checklist 2/4

#104 Daryle Ward

#262 Jay Bell

FYI, the checklist boarders are white. Was 2002 supposed to mimic the '89 Topps design? All you need is the team name spelled out on the wave.

Anyway, that's the pack. More later eventually. Thanks for reading!

2010 Cport Stickers

2011-10-24T18:33:00.001-05:00

I have procrastinated on publishing this post for a while. Last Fall I had the pleasure of spending some time in Moscow and while I was there, this is the closest thing I found to trading cards.

These are stickers of players from the Russian Soccer League. The CPORT in the title of this post is not a misprint. In Russian the S sound is symbolized by the same character as our letter C. The P is similar to our lower case n but I didn't carry the transliteration through the remainder of the word.

As I stated in my FC Bayern Munchen post last week, I don't really know anything about Soccer, Futbol or Stickers so this is strictly presented for purposes of folks that know more about those things then myself.

2011 Sport Stickers Wrapper

At the very top of the wrapper you see the word "Cnopt" preceding the capital H. This is how Sport is spelled in Russian. Plurals do not end in S so there is no such word as SPORTS in Russian.

The word that begins with the H is the Russian word for Label or Sticker.

Ok enough of the language lesson - onto the stickers:

Martin Kuschev (silver foil-y looking insert)
I will translate the names the best I can. The Martin part is likely correct here - Kushev is probably correct - sounds Russian.

Jan Golenda
Oleg Evanov or Ivanov

Dmitri Kudrachov
Team Zenit half sticker

Zenit is the representative from St Petersburg. I recognized them here by their uniforms. Their sponser is the energy company Gazprom which is fairly common in Europe I believe.

The Website for these Panini Stickers is www.sportsticker.ru - However, it is a single page written entirely in Russian.

Other European Futbol Stickers Posts

2011-12 FC Bayern Munchen
Additional Russian Futbol Stickers

2011 Topps Heritage Minor League Pack

2011-10-20T21:58:00.002-05:00

Cross-posting this over here too BECAUSE I CAN. Have I even posted here in the past year? Who knows?! Here's some gosh-darn BALLCARDS.

First Topps had Bowman Heritage as a late-season Heritage/Retro type product. It was inconsistent but generally good. Topps then killed Bowman Heritage viciously and with malice aforethought and replaced it with Heritage High Numbers Presented By And Including Two Topps Updates And Highlights But Not Traded Or Rookies Series Three Series That You Already Bought Two Jumbo Boxes Of A Month Ago And Do Not Want At All But You're Getting Them Anyway Instead of Two More Heritage Cards So Suck It. Last year they had no late season retro set at all which was probably a good idea since the 1961 design is horrible. Topps must have overbought the cereal box card stock this year though because late season Heritage is back again, this time in a minor league set. I assume Topps wanted another late season prospect dump product to try to sucker collectors with ZOMG FIRST CARDS even though minor league cards are the red headed stepchildren of the hobby. Since it's a minor league set, there is little to no demand for the product so it's a Hobby only product. If Topps had included some veteran cards along with the prospects they likely would have sold more and maybe even been able to sell it in retail outlets. Huh, a set like that sounds familiar... what set would that be... Oh yeah. Bowman Effing Heritage. That product was probably the pet project of an executive that was squeezed out in a boardroom power play so we will never ever see it again. Sorry Folks, you get what Topps wants, not what you want.

What we get is a '62 Topps retro set with minor leaguers. Details can be found at Baseballcardpedia. Long story short, 200 card base set, 50 short printed all-stars, autos, relics and parallels, oh my. Oh yeah BRYCE HARPER HNNNNNNNNG. I got this pack for three bucks and a quarter, I don't expect to see a pack go for much more than that to be honest. Not that I'm likely to buy another pack with Topps Series 3 out. Gotta chase those Liquorfractors. Here's mah pack. No card numbers because I left the actual cards upstairs and if I go up there I'm getting beer and you can forget about this getting posted before December.

Seth Blair

Pitcher - A Ball

Cardinals - 1st Round 2010

Thanks to Byzantine free agent draft pick compensation rules, the 46th overall pick is now considered a first rounder.

Garrett Richards

Pitcher - Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in Orange County, California, USA, Earth, Third Planet in the Sol System, Southern arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, Parallel Universe #590273978593223461

Angels - 1st Round 2009

Don't expect a lot of commentary, I don't know who these people are.

UPDATE: Well, crap. Garrett got a cup of coffee this year!

Tim Beckham

Shortstop - Triple-A

Rays - 1st Round 2008

#1 overall pick in '08, only 21 and in Triple-A. He'll be up to the bigs soon enough.

Robbie Ray

Pitcher- A Ball

Nationals - 12th Round 2010

They can't all be first rounders. I just love giving Topps crap about anything, but ever since I pulled cards of Kris Medlen, Johnny Venters and Tommy Hanson in various Bowman products and my initial reaction was "Who the @#$! are these bums??" I've learned it's best to respect their scouting department if nothing else.

Edward Salcedo

Shortstop - A Ball

Braves - International Signing 2010

MIXED FEELINGS ALERT: I pull my first card of one of the Braves' most heralded prospects and it's this hideous piece of garbage. I don't care if it's serial numbered, this is awful. Why, Topps? WHYYYYYY

Trystan Magnuson

Pitcher - Oakland A's

Drafted by Toronto - 1st round 2007

First card in the pack to have made the bigs already. #56 overall is NOT a first round pick. Sorry. There needs to be a First-and-a-half round pick designation.

Maikel Cleto

Pitcher - St. Louis Cardinals

Mets - International Signing 2007

This dude might get a World Series ring! What's he doing in a minor league set?

Jean Segura

Second Base - High A

Angels - International Signing 2007

Awwww, this guy is adorable. I want to pinch those cheeks and give him a cookie. He's also the #57 overall prospect in 2011 according to Baseball America.

Jaff Decker

Outfield - Double-A

Padres - 1st round 2008

145 strikeouts in 133 games. Someone get Adam Dunn the hell away from this kid. Of course if he can manage to figure out how to bop 30 homers a season he's got a 100-million dollar contract waiting for him. Also: Jaff is his given name. I'd normally criticize his parents for sticking him with that name, but I gat my e's end a's mixed up whila typing ell tha tima. Saa?

Ok, there's a pack of artificially antiqued young-un's. I apologize for any eye strain the Salcedo may have caused.

2008 Topps Series 1

2011-10-19T03:00:00.001-05:00

It's World Series time! I wish I had a better pack to post to commemorate the affair, but unfortunately we're stuck with something I found lurking in a dusty corner of my room.

17 - Cristian Guzman (OH)

254 - David Murphy (WRITTEN IN THE STARS)

298 - Cecil Fielder / Ryan Howard / Adam Dunn (A MILLION MILES AWAY)

175 - Delmon Young (A MESSAGE TO THE MAIN)

87 - Maicer Izturis (OH)

274 - Jermaine Dye (SEASONS COME AND GO)

MMS50 - Mickey Mantle Story (BUT I WILL NEVER CHANGE)

- David Wright Topps of the Class (P.S. David Wright wants you to stay in school.)

90 - Vladimir Guerrero (AND I'M ON MY WAY)

313 - Kameron Loe (The Rangers are probably glad they don't have this guy anymore, huh.)

147 - Marlon Anderson (Also... what the hell does "a message to the main" mean?)

2011-12 Upper Deck Victory Hockey

2011-10-18T18:15:00.000-05:00

The 2011-12 NHL season is in full swing, and it's a shame that no 11-12 hockey cards have made an appearance yet on A Pack to Be Named Later. Since I was in Target today I decided to rectify that by spending just a dollar:

Victory was the first 2011-12 product to hit shelves, a few weeks back now. For those of you who don't collect hockey, this is Upper Deck's significantly cheaper alternative to its flagship set. Sort of like Topps Opening Day baseball. There's a 250-card base set, with cards 201-250 containing rookies, and a small variety of inserts and parallels. Upper Deck, can we please get someone other than Sidney Crosby or Wayne Gretzky on a wrapper? 6 cards for a dollar, let's see what I got:

#193 - Alex Ovechkin

I'm not a Victory guy, I don't intend to collect this set, and I'm not really the biggest Ovechkin fan either. All of that being said, I think that's a nice looking card and a pretty good way to start the pack. Maybe it's the Capitals jersey, I don't know. As far as the design itself I don't feel too strongly one way or another I guess. Every year a gigantic VICTORY seems to make an appearance in the background somewhere. I guess it's hard to complain too much when the packs cost less than what a cup of coffee now goes for most places. Here's the back:

I do think the phonetic spelling is kind of cool, especially in a league with so many European-born players. Given some of the name-butchering I've heard on major networks already this season, I'd say there are a few play-by-play guys who could benefit from picking up some packs.

#54 - Erik Johnson

Two #1 overall draft picks out of the gate. Ovechkin was taken first overall in 2004, Johnson in 2006.

#100 - Brian Gionta

Ugh, a Canadien! The Captain no less...

#GB-JT - John Tavares (Game Breakers)

These Game Breakers inserts fall at 1:2 packs. Could this be Tavares' breakout year? 5 goals and 3 assists in just 4 games so far...

#32 - Matt Stajan

I'm sorry but this card is just plain boring.

#40 - Joni Pitkanen

Finishing things off we have Joni Pitkanen. So...there you have it. The Ovechkin and the Tavares insert saved this pack from being a dud.

Cards One Ultimate Super Jumbo Pack

2011-10-15T21:10:00.024-05:00

Bought this at Dollar Tree today. It's another pack of random cards courtesy of Cards One. 30 cards for a $1? Not a bad deal. Shoot the front of card is likely worth half of how much I paid for if you are going by Beckett value. I got lucky on this pack as I got 4 extra cards making it 34. Half the cards have dinged corners and nicks on it. As for the cards:

1983 Topps: 524 - Tom Brennan

1984 Topps: 400 - Cal Ripken, Jr. (All-Star)

1986 Donruss: 571 - Cliff Speck

1986 Fleer: 598 - George Vukovich; 397 - Kent Hrbek; 347 - Mike Easler; 650 - Gus Polidor/Mark McLemore

1987 Fleer: 569 - Keith Moreland

1987 Topps: 207 - George Frazier; 275 - LaMarr Hoyt; 564 - Larry McWilliams; 472 - Billy Doran;456 - A's Leaders

1988 Donruss: 12 - Tony Fernandez (Diamond Kings)

1988 Topps: 91 - Joey Cora

1989 Fleer: 619 - Rick Schu ;499 - Lance Johnson

1989 Topps: 399 - Wade Boggs; 636 - Bill Wilkinson

1989 Upper Deck: 44 - Jim Eisenreich

1990 Fleer: 335 - Jerry Reuss

1991 Fleer: 298 - Kevin Reimer; Phillies sticker

1991 Score: 128 - Greg Hibbard

1991 Topps Stadium: 102 - Ron Karkovice

1991 Upper Deck: 787 - Hubie Brooks; 187 - Luis Polonia

1992 Fleer Ultra: 569 - Tim Jones

1993 Upper Deck: 323 - Jose Guzman

1994 Score: 379 - Tim Raines

1996 Score Select: 36 - Rico Brogna

1999 Pacific: 19 - Harold Baines

1999 Fleer Sports Illustrated: 126 - Jason Kendall

1999 Upper Deck SP: 66 - Tony Torcato

Vintage Sports Cards Jersey and Frame Set (Follow-Up)

2011-10-13T23:27:00.006-05:00

I made it pack to K-Mart tonight to grab the other two packs I left behind yesterday. Have a look at what came out of them.I know right? I'm not quite ready to shout "Mantle-Jo!" yet though. I have my lucky moments as any of us do, but this is too much to not question, isn't it? So, this intrepid APtbNL investigative non-journalist asks what you think of all this? Legit? Too good to be true? Shut up and enjoy your Mantles, you overly-dramatic, humble-bragging buffoon? What say you, champions of the card blogging universe?

Vintage Sports Cards Jersey and Frame Set

2011-10-13T09:00:00.001-05:00

So I picked up one of these for $3.99 at K-Mart yesterday. It's already been posted on my blog, but I thought it might be worth posting here too. So without further ado, here it is. No more words need be said.

1985 Transformers Action Cards

2011-10-12T22:11:00.007-05:00

Greetings!

Long time reader, first time poster, so be gentle. After following the site (and several of the blogs) for a few months, I decided to jump into the fray and partake in your reindeer games after unearthing several boxes of random packs. I never got around to filing them away with the rest of my cards, but my inactivity may be to the site's benefit. So, yeah, I planned it that way, yeah, that's the ticket.

For my inaugural post, I decided to go with the very first pack of anything I bought. Hey, it was bought over 25 years ago, but since it was just a pack, I figured it counts. I humbly present for your review, a pack of 1985 Transformers Action Cards!

Front:

From what I could gather from the interweb, these cards were produced by Milton Bradley (no, not that guy). There were 192 cards in the set, consisting of the box art for most of the "Generation One" Transformers and stills from several first season episodes. The eight card packs also came with a sticker. The sticker had the box art image for one of the Transformers as well as that character's motto.

Back:

The backs of the character cards gave a summary of the "Tech Specs," which was the character's bio found on the back of the box. The backs of the episode cards gave a generic summary of the scene on the front. They also referred to these cards being from "Series 1," but there was no Series 2 ever made, sniff, sniff. Finally, this pack was bought in Canada, but it appears the set was not produced with French subtitles.

I found it funny that my younger self did not want to waste the sticker, so I taped it to a paste of construction paper. Yes, I said taped; closer inspection reveals the sticker is still on the paper it came from!

Anyway, hope I didn't bore you all with this post. Next time I'll scan the cards individually (25+ year old cards deserve to rest in their page, in my opinion). Thanks for reading!

2008 Upper Deck Series 1

2011-10-11T23:54:00.006-05:00

Here's another pack in the I Can't Believe No One Has Posted This Yet series. Did anyone ever notice the weird "Made in the USA Unleaded" logo on the front of these packs? I can't tell you how many of these packs I've opened before and I've never once noticed it.

211 - Kevin Millwood

289 - Jerry Owens

55 - Matt Wise

65 - Troy Percival (At this point, I guess I should stop and make a comment. Of the first four players pulled in this pack, which one is actually still in the league? If your answer is "Kevin Millwood", you would be correct!)

53 - Yovani Gallardo (Gallardo will be dueling Chris Carpenter in Game 3 of the NLCS tomorrow night. Exciting stuff!)

92 - Micah Owings

170 - Nook Logan

30 - Travis Buck

167 - Hanley Ramirez (We'll see if Hanley can rebound from his freefall and actually put some people in the seats at the new Fish stadium.)

264 - Bobby Seay

288 - Scott Podsednik

310 - Billy Buckner (No relation.)

391 - Jim Thome Season Highlights

328 - Luis Mendoza (This is a confusing card because Mendoza actually appeared 6 times with the Rangers before 2008 and yet Upper Deck did not have a current photo of him. That seems like more of a Topps thing.)

356 - Prince Fielder Team Checklist (As long as Prince keeps hitting his home runs at the wrong end of a 9-run drubbing, things will be alright in my book.)

347 - J.R. Towles

YSL2230 - Joe DiMaggio Yankee Stadium Legacy (I've heard that next season, Upper Deck is planning a Sun Life Stadium/Pro Player Stadium/Dolphins Stadium/Land Shark Stadium/Joe Robbie Stadium Legacy insert set to be discovered in all of their terrible, unlicensed products. True fact. Confirmed.)

SQ-8 - Ryan Howard Starquest Common (Ouch. I hope Howard recovers soon and well.)

2011-12 FC Bayern Muchen Stickers

2011-10-04T20:18:00.000-05:00

Happy Oktoberfest!

Actually, I think Oktoberfest has officially concluded, but that is only a technicality for this posting. I got to take in my first Oktoberfest in Munich last week and while I was there I spotted these:

These are Panini stickers for Munich's local squad. While we were at Oktoberfest, FC Bayern won a pair of games to move to 4-0 in their division which was the top division in whatever league they play in I think.

Unfortunately I know very little about futbol or soccer so this won't be very informative. And the stickers are not any more informative. The fronts don't tell you who the player is and the backs are basically identical.

(click to enlarge)

I am not a sticker collector, so maybe this is common but the sticker below is half an image that needs to be matched to another sticker.

Another half photo sticker. I checked this bottom doesn't match the top above.

There you have it, 5 Stickers of guys that I have no idea who they are - If I was more ambitious I would dig around for a checklist to see if I can figure out who any of these futballers are, but I am to lazy.

Stay tuned, time permitting I anticipate posting some other stickers over the next couple of days.

2011 Topps Baseball Update

2011-10-03T22:36:00.016-05:00

Already out and got a pack of these at Walmart.

US198 - Kevin Jepsen

US196 - Philip Humber

US12 - Greg Dobbs

US171 - Matt Lindstrom

US231 - Charlie Blackmon

US94 - Ryan Vogelsong

US241 - Brandon Wood (gold)

US169 - Ezequiel Carrera (platinum diamond)

US306 - Brandon Phillips (All-Star)

US238 - Carlos Beltran (All-Star)

US175 - Mike Trout

US166 - David Ortiz (Checklist #1)

2011 EA Madden 12 Hall of Fame Edition

2011-09-16T02:27:00.001-05:00

I have a bit of an odd relationship with Madden (the videogame; I don't know the man personally). Much like the El Niño weather pattern, my playing time with a particular version of the game flows and ebbs every couple of years or so. I last dabbled with Madden using the 08 Edition (Favre Cover) on the 360, and last played it with any real amount of time, using the 07 edition (Shaun Alexander cover) on the PS2. I thought the 08 version was pretty weak, so it turned me off for a good long while.

So, upon hearing the news that Madden 12 (~~Kelly~~ Peyton ~~McGillis~~ Hillis cover) has "a new collision system", I put on my special faith underwear and headed on over to GameStop, hoping that "new" equals "better". When I arrived at the store, I noticed that EA had released two versions for the PS3 and the Xbox 360--a standard edition, and a ~~Extra Money from Your Wallet~~ Hall of Fame Edition.

EA, in the past, have released a Special Edition (05 - Ray Lewis cover), a Limited Collector's Edition (08 - Dos Equis cover) and a previous Hall of Fame Edition (07 - John Madden cover). However, there seemed to be an interesting difference with this most recent HOF version, other than the $30 price difference at retail.

Guaranteed to be included in the package is a autographed Panini football card of the HOF Edition's cover boy, Marshall Faulk. I had never purchased a "premium" version of Madden before, so I figured, why not? I'm interested to give this version of the game a try, and I get some extra DLC; plus I get to treat the game box like a guaranteed Faulk-jo auto hit card pack!

The back of the box goes on to describe that there are four different designs of cards that have been randomly inserted into Madden.

Much like a turducken.

Out of what would ostensibly be a four card set, there's a Panini art style white card that somewhat matches game box art, there's a photo card of Faulk while he was with the Colts, a photo card of when he was with the Rams, and what appears to be a sketch-type card variation of the Rams card.

Since scans of the cover don't look so hot, I thought it might be appropriate to show a photo of the game case / unintentional card pack:

Not too shabby. It became time to crack this this case. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that not only is the game case wrapped in its usual plastic, but on either end of the slip cover, the game case is taped to the slip cover oh-so-subtly. Observe:

Interesting that EA would want to prevent casual (or even concerted?) efforts to take off the slipcase.

So after removal of the first layer, we have a normal game box, but missing Ms. Hillis, and featuring Mr. Faulk:

It's actually nice to see that the insert on the back of the game case is different from the rear side of the slip case. Apparently not everyone (EA) recycles an image from everything else they've done previously (Panini).

Upon opening the case, I finally discover my prize (besides a game disc, a DLC code sheet, and a legal disclaimer sheet); I received one of the "common" auto Marshall Faulk cards (#1 of 4).

It's also nice to see that the card is hard-signed. I was impressed with that, actually. I started thinking about it: EA usually sells 2 million-ish copies of Madden annually. Even accounting for some smaller fraction of that to be the HOF Edition, that still had to be a serious boatload of cards.

So, I did some searching, and it appears that there are 125,000 or 150,000 of these HOF Editions of Madden. However, there's no particular way of knowing if the split is 50/50 between PS3 and 360 versions of the edition. Upon checking Marshall Faulk's Twitter feed, he made a couple of posts in late August that are pretty funny:

Wow. Really, wow. Even in the deepest Days of Junk Wax, most of the biggest autograph quantities were on the order of 10,000; not at least 12 times that.

Now, taking a quick look around eBay, there are plenty of Box Art cards (like mine) and Rams photo cards available for sale. Here and there, there are one or two Colts photo cards at any time. It appears that there are rarer versions of the four cards in the set than others; especially since I haven't yet seen a listing for the sketch version of the Rams photo card at all.

All I can say is that if anyone pays over ten bucks for the box art or Rams photo cards on eBay, you are seriously overpaying for what is a fantastically overabundant autograph, overnight.

Here's the back of my auto card for the curious:

Incidentally, these cards are quite large. Their rough dimensions are 5½" by 7 11/16". It's almost sized like a postcard; it's not that much smaller than the game case. Below is a photo of the two together for scale:

One thing that is disappointing is that the card just rattles around loose inside the package. No pouch, no inner sarcophagus pack, no wrapper. Naturally, I wasn't particularly rough with my copy bringing it home, but that probably didn't matter. My card got some minor dings on the corners. I imagine that there could be a premium someday on gem mint copies of the card, given how many are going to get banged up before anybody even sees them. Of course, that premium is predicated on enough people caring to move the market needle upward.

According to GameSpot, somewhere out there are two 18 karat "solid" gold versions of this card, autographed by Faulk. Makes me wonder how well a Sharpie inscription holds up on a gold surface. Of course, there's one each for Xbox 360 or for PS3.

I'm not going to show the game disc, the DLC code sheet (duh), or the legal sheet. A notable missing item is the presence of any manual. Aha! A closer look at the legal sheet offers this:

How nice. EA is thanking their customers for ~~not complaining about~~ supporting their efforts to significantly reduce ~~costs~~ paper in their products.

Giant Creepy Madden Face Says: "You will buy special game of me, today!"

1987 Topps Garbage Pail Kids Series 8

2011-09-15T16:23:00.000-05:00

If you grew up as a kid in the 80's you had to have a few Garbage Pail Kids stickers. While doing some cleaning I ran across a whole box of series 3 and inside the box were a few packs of series 8. I didn't even know I had these random packs! Let's open one up and see whats inside.

I loved the themed backs of GPKs. While some of the cards featured a simple puzzle piece others had comic strips such as this. The fake ads were just as entertaining.

How you can you not like these?! I hope to share more once I get the time to open the series 3 box so stay tuned!

2011 Bowman Platinum Retail

2011-09-10T09:13:00.000-05:00

Overall, I'm a fan of Bowman Platinum because it gives you the chance to get some shiny chrome-like cards that aren't just reprints of the basic Topps flag ship set.

Matt Cain has had another solid season with a 2.84 ERA...although his 11-10 record might now show it.

#54 Matt Cain

Jose Bautista was a Kansas City Royal for 13 games in 2004 before being traded to the Mets...yet another star that you can file into the "This One Time, I Was A Royal" file.

#51 Jose Bautista

Dummy Card

Domingo Santana was recently traded to the Astros as part of the deal that sent Hunter Pence to the Phillies...this means that the Astros were able to get the Phillies best pitching, position, and outfield prospects in exchange for Pence.

#BPP31 Domingo Santana Green #581/599

Kyle Russell is in AAA and awaiting his call-up to the Dodgers...he's not the most anticipated prospect but he's not the lowest...

#BPP76 Kyle Russell

2010 Bowman Chrome Retail

2011-09-09T13:20:00.001-05:00

Last year I never actually found Bowman Chrome in the stores and so I was surprised to find this pack at a steep discount...

Lance played in 20 games in 2010 but he spent the season in AAA, not making it back in 2011.

#220 Lance Zawadzki

Rawley is still with the Tigers and has progressed to AA ball.

#BCP167 Rawley Bishop

And my last card is a Justin Verlander refractor. Over the past three seasons Justin is 59-23. "Wild Thing" Mitch Williams thinks Justin will win the Cy Young but not the MVP...good call Mitch since only two pitchers have won the MVP award since 1986.

#87 Justin Verlander Refractor

1990 Pro Set Hockey

2011-09-03T00:02:00.001-05:00

It was a little more than two weeks ago that some hockey was opened up, so here's a look at Pro Set's 1990 NHL offering. The design echos the football offerings from Pro Set, only with a curved border at the bottom of the card, likely to represent the puck.

I've read elsewhere that 7-8% of the cards contain an error. Actually, most player cards contain a language error, that other figure represents an additional error in either fact or spelling.

If there is one nice thing to be said about Pro Set 90, it's that the card on top of the pack is identifiable. I just grabbed one but it turns out this pack has a Wayne Gretzky.

Card 118 - Wayne Gretzky. This card has some damage from sitting in a wrapper for 21 years. I estimate this downgrades its value from "fire starter" to "blemished fire starter".

Card 113 - Jon Casey. Wikipedia says he is most remembered for giving up a couple of game-winning goals in the playoffs. I like the art on his mask.

Card 382 - The William M. Jennings Trophy. I had no idea this award even existed until seeing this card. Pro Set included a lot of filler cards like this but since it taught me something I can't hate on this particular card too much. The award is given to the goalies on the team which allows the fewest goals.

Card 64 - Trent Yawney. Apparently he played portions of 12 seasons in the NHL and the Canadian national team at the '88 Olympics. Now he coaches with the Sharks.

Card 246 - Paul Gillis. There's nothing all that interesting to say about Gillis except for what's on the back of his card, so this is as good a time as any to show it off.

It might be a bit hard to make out, but if you can read the name, birth date, height and weight in the bottom left hand corner, they are listed in French. The entire rest of the card is English, but each and every card has the player's vitals in French.

Card 398 - Mike Richter, Rookie Goals Against Average Leader. Richter was a top goalie of his time and now he runs marathons and triathlons. This card has a printing error on the back where the word "plays" is missing its "p".

Card 272 - Rich Sutter. One of the many Sutters to play hockey, but the only one of his generation never to cash a cheque from the Calgary Flames. Note the bored looking people in the crowd.

Card 173 - Janne Ojanen. He played 98 games in the NHL, all for New Jersey. He had more success in his native Finland.

Card 305 - Jim Sandlak. The back of Sandlak's card says he hoped to become a fireman once his hockey career was complete. Plans apparently changed because now he has a landscaping firm in London, Ontario.

Card 143 - Larry Murphy. He's the fifth highest scoring defence man in the history of the NHL. and was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2004.

Card 119 - Kelly Hrudey. In 1990 Hrudey's nickname was apparently "Mattress" so I guess it was sometime thereafter he was dubbed "Hollywood." Now he's a commentator for Hockey Night in Canada.

Card 236 - Mario Lemieux. Anyone buying this pack in 1990 would have been stoked to get Gretzky and Lemieux. This card also has an error as it lists Mario as missing 11 games when it was in fact 21.

Card 345 - Steve Larmer. He was a good luck charm for the teams he was on - any time he played a full season his team went to the play offs.

Card 211 - Mike Bullard. He played professional hockey from 1980 through 2003 including 11 years in the NHL. He was the first round draft pick of the Penguins the year before Rich Sutter was the Penguins first round draft pick.

Card 21 - Phil Housley. Housley is one ahead of Larry Murphy in all-time blue-liner scoring and was the top U.S. born scorer until Mike Modano came along and broke that record.

Every pack of Pro Set also came with this 10 cent off coupon. I'd love to know why Kansas, Washington and Wyoming didn't qualify for the offer though.

All in all, a pretty good pack from a pretty dreary set. Nobody in the pack was completely terrible, and most had distinguished careers. Plus a few of the all-time greats.

1995 Fleer Update

2011-09-01T01:01:00.004-05:00

Here's one more pack from my free group break. This box was the most exciting (to me) thing to be had at the junk wax box card show table and its purchase eventually led me down the dangerous path of buying even more junk... and, hence, the group break ensued. Let's see Night Owl try to "Define the Design" of this one. You can't! There's like... six designs!

4 of 10 - David Cone Diamond Tribute (This is an insert set only featured in "regular packs". I believe "regular packs" in this case means hobby packs.)

U-129 - Tanyon Sturtze (Sturtze pitched for a lot of teams in a rather unsuccessful fashion.)

U-175 - Hideo Nomo (Yes, this is also a base card. Apparently all of the various designs were dependent upon which division the player's team was in. Six designs for six divisions. There's no way baseball card companies ever use focus groups, or else you'd never see anything like this.)

U-125 - Frank Castillo (Fleer stuck to one standard with the card backs.)

U-103 - Shane Andrews

U-178 - Reggie Williams (NL West again. Yuck.)

U-127 - Jaime Navarro

U-79 - Bob Wells (How could this guy not be related to David Wells? Someone please look this up!)

U-107 - Roberto Kelly

U-173 - Dave Hansen

U-77 - Alex Rodriguez (The AL West looks positively normal compared to their NL counterparts, but that's not really saying much.)

U-70 - Jim Corsi

1993 Fleer Ultra Series 2

2011-08-30T09:00:00.004-05:00

Here's another pack from a box in my free Fleer Group Break. I feel like everyone who collected in the early '90s went through an extended love affair with all things Ultra. So much gloss and so many inserts!

308 - Greg McMichael

387 - Walt Weiss (Rockies and Marlins are all over the Series 2 release. The problem with this is that almost every player on these teams was, at best, mediocre. And don't get me started about Nigel Wilson or David Nied, each team's #1 expansion picks. That's right... expansion teams get players no one else wants.)

342 - Willie Blair

555 - Lou Whitaker (Cool card backs, for the most part. I don't like the lack of full career stats, but you get two additional full color pictures of the players.)

8 of 20 - Larry Walker Ultra All-Star (This has to go down as one of the weirder insert set designs. I don't really even know what to say.)

521 - Torey Lovullo

573 - Carlos Maldonado

561 - Phil Hiatt

548 - Cecil Fielder (Cecil "slumped" his way to a .244 season with 35 HR and 124 RBI in 1992. I remember everyone being seriously disappointed in that season, but in retrospect his .783 OPS that season wasn't the worst thing in the world and served as an outlier in a big 7 year run that saw him eventually win a ring with the Yankees when all was said and done.)

532 - Ozzie Guillen (Speaking of OPS, Ozzie Guillen had a career OPS of .626, yet played for 16 seasons all the while appearing on 3 All-Star teams. His best offensive season saw him drive in 50 runs, hit .280 and turn in a .666 OPS. You could knock the bat out of his hands, literally.)

511 - Greg Harris

612 - Kevin Seitzer (I make fun of Kevin Seitzer on an almost regular basis when talking about baseball, but the truth is that he was an above average player who lasted for an above average 12 years in the majors.)

623 - Tino Martinez (Seattle probably should have hung on to this guy.)

638 - Matt Whiteside

1996 Fleer (Hobby)

2011-08-29T21:36:00.000-05:00

Fleer tried something different with their 1996 release...an all matte design. They dropped the UV coating on the fronts and backs. Unfortunately all of the letters on the card's front were still gold foil stamped. Each hobby pack contained 11 cards. There were 10 different insert sets with one card per pack. Glossy Tiffany parallels could also be found one per pack.

#369 David Nied

#14 Joe Carter - Team Leader (Hobby exclusive)

I personally love this set. If I didn't already have so much on my plate I'd attempt to build it. In this day and age of every set having bells and whistles it was refreshing opening something plain and simple again.

2011 Topps MLB Sticker Collection

2011-08-27T17:42:00.011-05:00

It's back! After 21 year hiatus Topps brought back baseball stickers. For a $1 you get 8 stickers while $2 for sticker book. In this pack....

122 - Elvis Andrus

212 - Humberto Quintero - yay! Astros player!

173 - Jimmy Rollins

23 - Derek Jeter - latest member of 3000 hit club

224 - Andrew McCutchen - face of the Pirates

245 - Stephen Drew

20 - Curtis Granderson - hitting those homeruns

243 - Justin Upton

Pretty good pack of stickers.