1993-94 SkyBox Premium Basketball

I hear there's some important basketball going on right now. Let's look at some important basketball cards!

110 - Frank Brickowski - I wonder if anyone called him Brickout.

64 - Bryant Stith - No, that's not supposed to be Smith. I didn't make a typo.

35 - Robert Parish - I have to say, this is one of the nicest looking NBA sets I've seen. SkyBox was in peak form, even though they insisted on hanging on to the glowing basketball trail effect a little too long.

35 - Robert Parish - Here's what the backs look like. Great, right? A large and distinct photo is on the back to accompany some stats and a little write-up. But... I also got the same card twice in a row.

174 - Ricky Pierce - Before there was Paul Pierce, there was Ricky.

130 - Charles Smith

88 - Malik Sealy - A talented player who died about a million years too young.

53 - Gerald Wilkins - 'Nique's brother! Yes!

163 - Lloyd Daniels

76 - Chris Mullin - You could use his head to hang a picture in your home.

188 - Shawn Bradley - His bio starts with "Surprising agility for a 7'6" player..."

17 - Shawn Kemp NBA on NBC - Just go ahead and listen to this.

2015 Panini Diamond Kings

Without a doubt probably one of the best baseball products Panini has produced to date. Resurrecting the old Donruss we get a great art card set with some pretty nice inserts and hits.  I recently picked up a couple packs from the LCS and this was by far the best one.  Seriously everything featured was in one pack.

The checklist has HOFers, current players and a nice selection of rookies.

I ended up getting a Lou Gehrig Iron Horse insert.

Also in the pack was this red framed Dave Bancroft.  Dave entered the HOF by veterans committee in 1971.  He was a player back in the 1910's and also was a player manager in the late 20's.

I knew the back was going to be good when I saw how thick the middle is.  While mini relics aren't new, having them stand alone is.  I guess Ultra Pro is going to have to make a thicker tobacco card top loader now.

Overall a pretty great pack with 2 inserts and a hit, plus 2 rookies.

2015 Topps Stickers

Topps MLB Stickers are back, and in a very familiar way. After four years of study sticker-cards, Topps has gone full Panini with this one as they rolled out the classic thin stickers in the thin packet form. In fact, you can even see that it says "Printed in Italy" all over this product, a telltale sign. It's interesting that Topps jumped in bed with their most closest competitor these days, but I'm sure this arrangement was somehow beneficial to both parties. Word on the streetz of the internets is that Sooz from A Cardboard Problem, once a simple Blogger blogger but now a Topps employee, picked out the photos for this product. Cool stuff.

56 - Carlos Santana - I can't ever hear about this guy without hearing "Carlos Santanaaaa" in my head from that awful "Maria Maria" song.

36 - Wade Boggs - I guess Tampa Bay deserves throwback legends like everyone else, but this is kind of goofy.

263 - Wade Miley

87 - Brian Dozier - See?! Printed in Italy!

120 - Robinson Cano - Cano has been off to a pretty lousy start this season, but I think Seattle's offense is going to be better than it has showed so far and it all starts with him.

99 - Mike Trout - Trout was probably doing something pretty hilarious if you are one of those people that like him.

46 - Toronto Blue Jays Mascot - Not pictured: The opposing team's mascot that this Blue Jay brutally beat.

39 - Edwin Encarnacion - Oh, the costumed humanity!

2015 Topps WWE

**This review was originally published on Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius back on April 25th**

Long before Miss Congeniality reminded the world that April 25th is the "perfect day"  I knew the day was special seeing as it is my birthday.

A birthday means guilt free card purchases so I picked up a couple of 2015 Topps WWE packs. The cardboard gods must have been shining down on me today because I received just about the perfect pack.

First up as base cards go we've got the upcoming WWE Championship match at the Extreme Rules Pay-per-View. Orton won't be able to use the RKO move and Rollins won't be able to get any help from The Authority as it will be a steel cage match. It should be an intriguing 20 minutes.

#70 Seth Rollins

#59 Randy Orton

Then the pack gave me possibly the most interesting female wrestler the WWE has had in quite a while..especially since A.J. Lee has retired.

#56 Paige

I also pulled a couple of Ric Flair inserts and a Santino Marella base card...nice but not exactly perfect...so what the heck was I talking about with this "perfect" stuff?

 #68 Santino Marella

Crowd Chants "Woooooo" #8

Crowd Chants "Woooooo" #4

But now let's get to what really made this pack amazing. A 1:187 packs pull of a George "The Animal" Steele autograph! I've been looking for an Animal autograph for a long time as he was one of my favorite wrestlers as a kid but he was also a part of one of my favorite movies Ed Wood.

George played B-movie star Tor Johnson who was a leading actor in Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space. Tor, like George, was a professional wrestler before taking his turn in such classics as Bride of the Monster, The Unearthly, and The Beast of Yucca Flats.

2014 SAGE HIT Football Low Series

Today we have some dollar store fodder that I won off Listia for a few credits. This is probably the best way to buy packs you don't ultimately care about.

12 - David Fales - His name does not exude success. Just say it out loud and smile a little bit. It looks like he's wearing some knockoff Denvor Broncos jersey from the '80s, but it appears it's from some sort of Senior Bowl. Fales was drafted by the Bears last year but has failed to make an impact on the field so far.

65 - Ka'Deem Carey Next Level - Carey is better known (to me, anyway) as a former Pac-12 standout from Arizona. These "Next Level" cards are really something... workout photos, I guess? There's even a Twitter logo on the back and the player's Twitter name to boot.

57 - Stephen Morris Next Level - Old dead-eyed Morris went undrafted but spent last season on the Jacksonville Jaguars practice squad, which is basically the NFL version of purgatory. Sorry, Mr. Morris, I'm sure you're a lovely guy and all. Maybe this is just a horrible photo?

28 - Jet Jones - He looks terrified.

2015 Topps MLS Soccer

Here's the latest installment of MLS trading cards, to which Topps has held the license for the past few years. This set debuts the new MLS logo and a design that's fairly busy, though nothing like any of the big 4 North American pro sports.

44 - Javier Morales - With the dissolution of Chivas USA, the MLS was left with one less terribly-named team in an attempt to identify with more globally popular soccer clubs. Unfortunately, the Real Salt Lake name still exists.

32 - Vincent Nogueira - Soccer doesn't exactly foster a ton of statkeeping, but here's an area where Topps just doesn't look like Topps. These could easily pass for boring lifeless Panini card backs. (Not blaming Topps here, but there has to be a better abbreviation than "SHT" for shots!) Also, the font Topps chose makes the 'R' in Nogueira's name virtually indistinguishable from the 'A'.

38 - Ignacio Piatti

25 - Zach Loyd - People like to complain about soccer. Specifically, people like to complain about the lack of action in the game, when they really mean scoring. I don't think Topps does a great job of depicting action in the game when they crop all of these photos so closely, keeping nothing in the frame but the player and whatever awkward face they are making at the time.

16 - Nick DeLeon

111 - Clint Irwin - Even though I watch a fair amount of MLS (okay, Timbers) games, it's funny that a keeper is the only player whose name I recognize in this pack.

As with pretty much everything I post here, these are all up for grabs if anyone is interested.

Topps Star Wars Illustrated The Empire Strikes Back

It's Star Wars Day!!! Is there a better day on the calender? I think not. I just realized the New Hope pack of this set has never been posted, so I will work on finding a pack somewhere. But The Empire Strikes Back set was just released this week. I picked up a few packs from my LCS the other day, and I can either post one now, or wait until December.

For those unaware, these cards are based on the NPR radio drama, not the movie (per se) or the comics. So there are scenes on cardboard that never made it to the screen. All the artwork is new and not reused from anything previous. Six cards in a pack, and you can find hits of sketch cards, autographs and film cells.

The artists take great liberty in the images in color and sometimes design. That is a very good thing. The layout focuses on the image. Very little to block the picture. Wish Topps avoided the foil, but there are purple and gold foil variations in the set. Anything for parallels, eh Topps?

I am not sure the number of artists that created the images for the cards. I am sure a Google search would give that answer. You can see, however, the artist creating this image of Luke landing in the swamp on Dagobah is not the artist from above that created the image of R2 setting the hyperspace coordinates.

No - not a bad scan. This is a purple foil variation. You really need one of these in hand to see the wording. It's just that hard to read. "No disintegrations!"

Besides the hits, there are three insert sets in the 100 card base set. One Sheet Reimagined takes the movie poster and has artists redesign it. One Year Earlier looks at 10 characters and where they were the previous year before the events of ESB. The Mission: Capture Skywalker is a 10 card set different that the Mission set in ANH  - Destroy the Death Star. In the 2013 release, there were codes you would enter from the 12 card insert set. Complete the set and you would earn a bonus Death Start card. Doesn't look like they are carrying that idea in the ESB release.

That is a killer card of a great scene.

Final card of the pack. One of the characters drawn is about the have a very bad day. The other gets a promotion.

Well, no hit, but I love this set. Still a few short of the ANH set, but I just got a line on someone from my LCS that may have dupes. And I plan to buy a box of these, so I should have dupes of my own.