2018-19 Panini Prizm NBA

Panini's Chrome'd up NBA product really caught fire last year, and it took me awhile to talk myself into buying a blaster from this year's set considering the prices it fetches. Here's the first pack that I pulled.

223 - John Wall - The Washington Wizards are certainly quite a disaster, which is too bad considering they sport some excellent uniforms. I can't say that about most of the league. Also, John Wall probably needs to stop getting injured if he wants to continue to be relevant.

182 - Andre Drummond - Absolute rebounding machine. 16 per game last year! That'll win you a few fantasy points. He's down to 15 per game this year, but his scoring is up.

9 - Kevin Knox Emergent - Promising young rookie. It has to be weird to be a Knicks fan. There's reason to be excited about the future (as long as you're not thinking about the immediate future), but they could always screw it up, couldn't they?

4 - De'Anthony Melton - Melton is doing the Media Day rookie pose thing here. You'd think they'd come up with some new poses.

Here's a look at the back. Not shocking, I know. Melton was traded to the Suns at the end of August, so he's actually getting some solid playing time because one out of three people reading this could probably actually suit up for the Suns right now.

1997-98 Upper Deck Collector's Choice Hockey

Upper Deck with their cheap Collector's Choice set. Usually Wayne Gretzky grace the packs of Upper Deck, but that year it was Patrick Roy. This was their final year of CC til it got resurrected dozen years later for 09-10 and 10-11 season before going dormant again. There are 5 cards in a pack.

199 - Cliff Ronning - he's wearing a black sweater but its a Coyotes sweater instead the Canucks

190 - Dale Hawerchuk - Hall of Famer and he's celebrating a goal against Lighnting (11/23/96). He retired after the season.

49 - Bob Probert - racking up those PIM for fighting. He passed away in 2010 of a heart attack.

166 - Russ Courtnall - spent 2/3 of the season with Canucks before getting traded to Rangers for remaining 1/3 of the season. He signed with the Kings for final two years of his career.

SQ33 - Vladimir Konstantinov - insert card of the Impaler. A favorite of mines, 97-98 was final year of his cards and career.  A limousine crash ended his career.

With 4 base cards and one insert this 320 card set will take more than two boxes to finish

1995-96 Upper Deck Collector's Choice Basketball German Series 1

In the '90s, Upper Deck released a number of their NBA sets in different languages. I'm not sure what the distribution of these different international sets were like, but clearly some of this stuff either stayed in or made it over to the States. I've seen quite a few cards from other Upper Deck international sets show up in basketball repacks lately. Check those bios on the back for non-English words! Here's a German pack I picked up at a card show.

33 - Popeye Jones - As you can see, there's little to distinguish these from their American counterparts when you look at the front of the card. (Side note: a rather terrifying video game representation of Popeye Jones is the first image that comes up on a Google search for his name.)

78 - Harold Miner - Here's a look at the bilingual text. Miner never lived up to that "Baby Jordan" nickname, but he's still being compared to MJ anyway, three years in.

73 - Antonio Harvey - It's barely legible, but the front of the card subtly denotes Harvey's move to the Vancouver Grizzlies via the expansion draft.

33 - Popeye Jones - Again? Wow.

51 - Carlos Rogers

180 - Glenn Robinson Fun Facts - The facts about Big Dog are on the back, unfortunately.

133 - Clifford Robinson - The long time Trail Blazer was in the league for about a million years and was very good for a long time.

100 - Benoit Benjamin - Another Grizzlies expansion selection.

204 - David Benoit Professor Dunk - Benoit was in the 1993 dunk contest, but the weird Professor Dunk cartoon is a little distracting.

176 - Reggie Miller Fun Facts - We end it with a HOFer. Fun fact about Reggie Miller: he is absolutely excruciating to listen to as a broadcaster.

1994 Upper Deck Collector's Choice Series 1

Not sure exactly how many different wrappers there were for this set, but I chose the Deion wrapper when I purchased it because I didn't recall it right away. Seems I mostly find either Kirby Puckett, Mike Piazza, or Barry Bonds wrappers.

The checklist cards have the same type graphic as the wrappers for the most part, although there is no checklist card with Deion on it, so again I'm not sure exactly how they match up. I have the checklist set for series 1 and 2 (all of which are found in series 1 packs), and those cards are of Bonds, Griffey, Piazza, Puckett, Ryan, Alomar, Clemens, Gonzalez, Griffey (again), Justice, Kruk, and Thomas.

Each pack comes with a silver or gold signature parallel.

1986 Topps Quaker Oats

This 33-card set was distributed in 3-card packs found in boxes of Chewy Granola Bars.

The players featured were current All-Stars.

You could see the top card in the pack, so I wonder how many boxes were found opened in the store with the pack missing. The top players would have been Nolan Ryan and Cal Ripken.

There was also an offer card to use in sending away for a complete set, or for ordering Topps Baseball Stickers and Yearbook.

1991 Upper Deck Denny's Grand Slam

One pack from the inaugural 26-card set by Upper Deck, featuring one player from each team. One pack was distributed with each Grand Slam meal purchased at Denny's restaurants.

Each pack included a scratcher for a chance to win prizes:

Grand Prize - Trip for 4 to the 1991 World Series

First Prizes - Team Jacket

Second Prizes - Team cap

Third Prizes - Any Denny's desert

Fourth Prizes - 16 oz Coke

Bonus - Grand Slam meal

 

I pulled #14 Andre Dawson of the Cubs. 

This is the backer card, it's a blank back.

1992 ProCards Tomorrow's Heroes

This is different. ProCards was printing out minor league baseball cards in the late 80s to mid 90s in team sets. In 1992 they decide to put this set in packs featuring top prospects. There are 360 cards in the set. What should be consider hit or miss in this pack? Those who made it and those who didn't. Let's find out.

49 - Mark Lewis - a hit. He made it with 11 year journeyman career. It's also action shot consider 99% of minor league cards are posed.

50 - Jim Thome - a big time hit as Thunder Thome became Hall of Fame player

217 - Dan Wilson - a hit as he spent almost all of his 14 year career with Mariners. Charleston Wheelers are now known as West Virginia Power

111 - Dave Silvestri - a minor hit. Spent 8 seasons in the majors but only two of them were full seasons.

13 - Rick Krivda - a minor hit. Four season in the majors only one was a full season

158 - Derek Bell - a hit. Became All-Star and part of Killer B's with Astros.

344 - Paul McClellan - borderline hit. Got in total of 17 games in two seasons.

207 - Jerrone Williams - bust. Didn't make it.

119 - Rich Batchelor - borderline hit. Got in 43 games in 3 seasons.

316 - Omar Olivares - a hit. A 12-year journeyman career

310 - Joe Sondrini - a bust. Didn't make it

35 - Darryl Scott - borderline hit. A 16 game stint in his only season in the majors. Spent remainder of his career in the minors to 2000.

Ten players in this pack made it to the majors. Six of them had a long career including one inducted to the Hall of Fame.