2020 Historic Autographs POTUS The First 36

Greetings!

Hope everyone is doing well.  I'm doing great with the timing of posts, doing a baseball pack around the Super Bowl and now this around the NBA All-Star Game.  Yes, my plan was to post this on President's Day (and it would have had extra emphasis since it was reported that Jimmy Carter entered hospice care the day before), but life happens.

I heard about this set but never thought I'd get to sample it.  Modern card collecting consists of sports cards at retail and then basically hoping the LCS has it.  I'm not the type to go online looking for packs to buy.  Anyway, when I went to my LCS back in 2021, I grabbed the last 2 packs they had.  I think they charged 4 bucks per pack...yep, kinda pricey. 

8 cards per pack, and you all get to see both packs!  My gift to you all.

#50 - Adams Onis Treaty

There are 110 cards in the base set.  If you assumed that the first 36 cards in the set are reserved for the Presidents, then you are correct!  The rest of the set are reserved for events, accomplishments, and oddities that occurred during each President's term.

Pack 1 starts with the Adams Onis Treaty.  It was signed in 1819, and in the Treaty, Spain ceded Florida to the United States.  I have never seen the eagle (?) drawing over the then-new boundary of the U.S.

#59 - Annexation of Texas

#73 - Purchase of Alaska

Two more examples of American expansion.

The cardstock and size is like any standard baseball card.  The company that produced the set has been around for a while, but I never heard of it.

#20 - James Garfield

#110 - Almost Shot by Secret Service

I finally get a President, and here's the last card of the set, matching up to the last President profiled in the release, Lyndon Johnson (the 36th President).

#70 - Patent #6469

If you can't tell from the picture, this is the patent from Abraham Lincoln regarding a system to basically lift boats over rocks in a river.

#25 - William McKinley

#89 - Nobel Peace Prize

We get one more President (smile, William!) and card commemorating the first Nobel Peace Prize given to a Commander-in-Chief, Teddy Roosevelt.

Here are the backs for Pack 1:

The fonts used are a little strange, but it's large enough to read.  They could have put more info about the President on their backs, but not too bad overall.

Ready for Pack 2?

#13 - Millard Fillmore

#42 - Uncivil Presidential Race

Leading off the pack with the 13th President, and a card detailing the race between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

#97 - Nan Britton

#33 - Harry Truman

Finally got an actual big name President, as well as a card summarizing Warren Harding's love child.  It appears the set covers more than just treaties and accomplishments.

#8 - Martin Van Buren

#39 - Washington's Political Party

Make sure you know the sign to flash if you ever run into the Van Buren Boys!

#78 - First Civil Rights President

#92 - Removal of the White House Stables

The last two cards detail the activities of Presidents Garfield and Taft.

Don't believe me?  Here are the backs of Pack 2:

There are inserts for the set, but I didn't get any.  Fortunately they avoided the Panini route and refrained from making a thousand parallels.  How about a Millard Fillmore Blue Velocity #'ed out of 30!

Anyway, those were the packs.  These are pretty cool; my only issue is the set is too small.  This could easily be a 200+ card set.  I haven't seen a release date for a follow up, but if they do, I hope to pick up a pack or two of that as well.

Have a great weekend, and thanks for reading!

2022 Topps Heritage High Number Blaster Pack

Greetings!

Hope everyone is doing well.  Yes, it's Super Bowl time, but I'm behind and meant to post this a while back.

Santa gifted a blaster box of Heritage High Number to my eldest and I, each of us getting 4 packs.  

As an aside, I didn't realize my kids telling me of their doubts in the existence of the Man With The Bag would affect me the way it did.  For all I know this was years in the making and they just didn't say anything until this past year.  I told them it's their loss and made them promise that even if they are no longer believers they had better not mess it up for their younger cousins.  At least I no longer have to deal with those Elves on the Shelves, (in their case) Bingie and Bongo.

Anyway, my kid gave me the best pack of his share:

There's 4 pack designs.  Let's see what he got:

#629 - Jeremy Pena (RC)

#668 - Bryan Lavastida (RC)

Hey, it's World Series MVP Jeremy Pena!  The kid enjoyed pulling this card.  

Lavastida gets the RC treatment as well, but he appeared in only 6 games.  Former Cub outfielder Michael Hermosillo played in 31 games last year...no card issued for him in 2022.

#561 - J.J. Matijevic (RC)

#501 - CJ Abrams (RC)

The kid was also happy to get Abrams.  I wonder why J.J. uses dots and CJ doesn't.

#RP-13 - Seiya Suzuki (Rooke Performers) 

There's 15 cards in the Rookie Performers set, and he was pumped to pull Seiya, just like Seiya was to get pulled.

#559 - Joey Bart

#515 - Royce Lewis (RC)

There's 225 cards in the checklist, with the last 25 being short-printed.  Several players even have 1 to 5 variations to chase.  Both Bart and Lewis have 1 variation, while CJ Abrams has 5 to look for.

#606 - Jack Lopez (RC)

#575 - Whit Merrifield

Lopez gets a RC for playing in 6 games with Boston in 2021.  He signed with Detroit for the 2022 season but didn't play in a game.  He's a Free Agent again.  Meanwhile, Cubs pitcher Mark Leiter Jr. appeared in 35 games last year...yup, no card issued for him in 2022.

Here are some backs because The Big Game:

Anyway, that's the pack.  7 out of 9 are Rookie Cards and most are not even Hott Rookiez, so take that as you will.  I'd rather see more journeymen and veterans in my sets.  Enjoy the Super Bowl, and thanks for reading!

2022 NFL P.A. Sport Stamps Collection Book Starter Pack

Super Bowl is coming this Sunday. How about waiting for the big game with a starter pack of this. It's not really stamps. It's more of peel and stick them on the pages of the booklet. A mini-size Panini sticker book is best to call it. Here's the book.

Here's the checklist. Not shown is the back.

These stamps you can use and stick anywhere you like.

Then to the stickers

351 - Welcome to Seattle; 64 - Devin White; 144 - Cowboys; 17 - Joe Burrow jersey

39 - Broncos; 11 - Staley da Bear; 324 - Mark Andrew - it even got team mascots

389 - Vikings; 89 - Khalil Mack jersey; 272 - Jeremy Chinn

297 - Davante Adams jersey; 354 - Devin Bush; 375 - Welcome to Houston; 210 - Andrew Thomas

208 - George Kittle. Got 1:24 sticker.

159 - Eagles; 35 - Billy Buffalo; 309 - Cooper Kupp - got Eagles logo. Must be a sign. They are winning it this year.

Enjoy Super Bowl Sunday along with festivities days before. Who you got winning?

1986 Fleer Grossville High

Today, for what appears to be the first time ever on APTBNL, we're going to open an odd wax pack from 1986:

Grossville High!

 

Fleer released this set in a fairly obvious attempt to ride the coattails of the Topps Garbage Pail Kids craze that began the previous year. I wonder how upset Topps was at Fleer for doing this. I can't find any information online that documents a court battle or anything of that nature, so maybe Topps wasn't that worried. (Once we look through the pack, I think you'll understand why.)

 

As you can see from the image above, each wax pack contained 5 stickers and 1 stick of bubble gum. Fittingly, the stick of gum in this particular pack was pretty gross with some mold issues. I decided to not take a photo of it.

 

Another point of interest is that each pack wrapper featured one of three members of Grossville High. This pack was the Norman Nerdwood variation. There was also Judy Cooty (misspelled "Cudy" on the wrapper) and Prof. Bob Beaker.

Also note the "1st Series" designation on the left-hand side of the wrapper. This inaugural series consisted of 66 cards, and it seems like Fleer had big plans to expand the Grossville franchise. Unfortunately, this first series was also the last series. The stickers never caught on.

Now let's get to the five stickers inside my pack.

Keep searching, Debbie. You'll find someone.

 

 

After just the first two stickers, you can see how Fleer even copy-catted the Garbage Pail Kid names by using rhyming or alliterative techniques. (Topps even had a GPK girl named "Dana Druff" in their 4th series that same year of 1986. I wonder which card was released first.)

 

 

Here's Fanny Form, who appears to be a school secretary. It's nice that Fleer gave a nod to some of the administrative staff at Grossville High.

 

Dale Fail has not so cleverly hidden a "Ratman" comic inside a copy of War and Peace. Classic move. I love the look on that teacher's face in the background.

Finally, we've got Guy Fly checking the contents of a cafeteria trash can. I think it's interesting that Fleer went so far as to trademark the names of every character. It's another example of how they might have been hoping the cards would really take off and generate a bunch of merchandise. Not to be.

 

Next up are a couple of card backs.

Here's a list of announcements from Miss Fanny Form. She's thorough, if nothing else.

 

This "yearbook" design was the more standard version of a card back, with quite a number of characters in the set receiving the treatment.

Note that there might be an error on the back of this one. Dale Fail's class award is listed as "most likely to succeed". With a name like Dale Fail, I wonder if they meant to say "most likely NOT to succeed".

Also note the "Canew Ideas" company name at the bottom. I couldn't find much information on this Pennsylvania entity, but they did release a couple of comic books in 1991 under the title "Revenge of the Oil Slick Ducks".

So that's that. Grossville High, for the first time on the blog. These five cards were indeed pretty gross, but after looking through the 66-card checklist and some of the associated images, I think we were pretty fortunate here with the gross factor.

What do you think of this odd, one-off set? Leave your thoughts in the comment section, and thanks for reading!

2021 Panini Select Football Value Pack

Greetings!

Hope everyone had a fun New Year's celebration.  

I ended 2022 with a colonoscopy and then began 2023 with my second bout with The Virus (I first had it back in early June).  Symptoms weren't so bad, just like last time (headache, fever, sore throat at first, but then just a cough).  I spent the first week of the year quarantined in my basement, working from home, and spent the second week back in the office all masked up.  I did notice this go-around that I've been pretty wiped out when I got home from work, so maybe fatigue is a symptom for this strain (either that, or it's still the whole 3rd shift thing).

Panini released 2021 Select in August 2022.  Yet another set from last year released this year.  Seriously, there's has to be some catching up to do this year.

I picked up a pack last month after the vendor restocked the Target card aisle.  It was $15 bucks for the Value Pack, so a buck a card.  Probably not worth it, but here's what I got:

#40 - Charles Woodson

#97 - Jalen Camp (RC)

There are 400 cards in the set, divided into 4 "levels" (rarity).  There are apparently 25 additional XRC Prism cards tacked onto the end of the set.  Woodson and Camp belong to the Concourse Level (the first 100 cards).

#55 - Rashod Bateman

#13 - Jared Goff 

Quite a turnaround for the Lions this year.  Goff also led one of my Yahoo Fantasy Teams to a Public League title (he led my main Yahoo Fantasy Team to a 5th place finish after Kyler Murray got hurt).  

#70 - Anthony Schwartz

#27 - Quinnen Williams

Schwartz had an injury filled rookie season and his sophomore season wasn't much better.  Hopefully the third time's the charm for the guy.

#51 - Mac Jones (RC)

#264 - Kellen Mond (RC)

A lot of the same players pop up in the different "levels," like Kellen.  The different border means a different rarity, in this case the Club Level.

#1 - Tom Brady

Each pack comes with a "Silver Prizm Die Cut".  Not a bad pick up at all!

#SN-25 - A.J. Brown (Select Numbers)

#SCR-6 - Kellen Mond (RC) (Select Certified Rookies)

We've hit the inserts portion of the pack.  As we all know Panini never gives us the odds, so who knows how rare these are.  Also, Kellen Mond hot pack!

#TUR-13 - Stefon Diggs (Turbocharged)

#HT-19 - Warren Moon (Hidden Talents)

The Turbocharged insert is pretty nice looking.  The Bengals play the Bills this weekend; should be pretty emotional...maybe Damar Hamlin will make an appearance to pump up the crowd and his teammates.

#103 - J.J. Watt

#161 - Tutu Atwell (RC)

These two are part of the Premier Level.  J.J. Watt announced his retirement; he'll probably wind up in the Hall of Fame.

Here are the backs because football:

Anyway, that's the pack.  I don't think it was worth a dollar a card, but shiny cards are cool, so this was a one and done for me.  Enjoy the weekend, and thanks for reading!