2019 Wizards of the Coast Transformers - War for Cybertron: Siege II TCG Booster Pack

Greetings!

Hope everyone is doing well.  While I was putting together my last post, the 40th anniversary of the Transformers animated series was celebrated by fans everywhere:

On September 17. 1984, the first episode of the 3-parter "More Than Meets The Eye" began airing on US TV.  I don't think kids back then could have conceived that 40 years later, Transformers would be as prevalent in pop culture as it is currently.  Belated happy birthday, Transformers!

I posted the booster pack for War for Cybertron: Siege I a while back, and since today is the 13th anniversary of my first post here on APTBNL, it's time to post Siege II:

War for Cybertron: Siege II was released back in November of 2019.  Continuing from Siege I, the gimmick they had for this release was the inclusion of mini-Transformers called Micro Masters and Battle Masters.  

Each pack contains 8 cards.  You get 2 Transformers in a pack, the regular large character card and the "small" character card, and 6 battle cards.  The battle cards are the size of regular baseball cards and are wrapped in clear plastic.  The 2 character cards are not in plastic and are protected by 2 pieces of cardboard; this time both pieces have ads on them:

This time, there are 52 Characters and 64 battle cards in the release.  Here's the battle cards:

#55/64 - Stable Cover

#53/64 - Soldier's Blaster

As usual, the Commons start the pack.  You can see this is Wave 4 on the bottom left.  Again, those colored pips in the upper right affect the Transformer's attack or defense.  

#54/64 - Special Delivery

#6/64 - Battlefield Incursion

Interested in seeing the card list?  Click here to see the Battle cards.  There's there link on the page where you can see the Character cards.

#20/64 - Erratic Cannon

#13/64 - Crude Club

Hey cool, my Rare card is a club!  Let's see what mini-Transformer I got:

#22/52 - Private Seawatch

Seawatch is a Common card, and just like in Siege I, the characters are assigned military rankings.  I don't think I had this little guy when it was released back in the late 80's.

How about the main Transformer, you say?

#47/52 - Sergeant Thundercracker

Woo, got a Rare one!  Thundercracker's plane mode matches his pre-Earth form.

The robot side for both cards are all foiled up and looks nice.  

Anyway, that's the pack.  The artwork for these character cards are still great, even though I'm still not a big fan of the military ranks.  And yes, I still haven't played the game; I pick these up because I'm a fan of the Franchise.  

Happy birthday to the Transformers, happy 13th blogiversary to Ol' Jafronius, and as always, thanks for reading!

1993 Topps Football Series 2

Greetings!

Hope everyone is doing well.  Today is my eldest son's 17th birthday.  Nothing big planned for today since school's in session.  The Wifey talked about taking him out to breakfast when I get home from work, assuming he gets up in time.  He's a good kid; a little too messy for my tastes. but he's a teenager, so that makes it OK, I guess?

NFL season is upon us again, and with Week 2 in the books, it's time for a football pack.  The local-ish LCS recently switched from the big green tub of loose packs to monster boxes full of them; I picked up this one on a trip there to pick up some card auction winnings.

Professional...as opposed to Amateur Football cards

In my post from (holy crap) over 12 years ago, I noted that I paid a buck for Series 1.  Don't know if it's inflation or if the local-ish LCS always had Series 2 for 2 bucks, but here we are.  15 cards per pack, just like Series 1.  Here's what I got:

#600 - Rick Mirer (Draft Pick)

#605 - Ronnie Lott

Mirer was the 2nd overall pick in the draft and started off strong for Seattle.  Per TCDB, there was a Rick Mirer card in Series 1, so this is not his Rookie card.  OK then.

I don't know if I ever knew that Ronnie Lott was a Jet.

#649 - Steve Everitt (Draft Pick / RC)

#637 - Dan Williams (Draft Pick / RC)

There are 330 cards in Series 2.

Everitt played for 4 teams between 1993 and 2000.  Williams started with Denver and ended with Kansas City in 2001.

#551 - Roosevelt Potts (Draft Pick / RC)

#519 - Robert Delpino

Where did the Bronco go on Delpino's helmet?

#480 - Andre Rison

#506 - Chuck Cecil

Andre Rison was a stud back then, nice looking card.

#499 - Michael Brooks

#591 - Marco Coleman

Brooks gets the one per pack Topps Gold treatment (GOLD!), which isn't a bad parallel but makes for a bad picture.  

#601 - Richard Dent

#595 - William Fuller

Great shot of the Hall of Famer.  Dent's taunting Fuller (Houston Oilers!) and he's having none of it.

#615 - Merril Hoge

#564 - Sean Landeta

It's been 7 years since Hoge was analyzing games for ESPN; he joined the Mothership back in 1996 and didn't make it past the layoffs in 2017.

And...Punter cards!

#500 - Jerry Rice

Last card in the pack is a guaranteed winner.

Here's some backs because football:

Look at them stats!  USFL stats!  College stats!  Punter stats!

Anyway, that's the post.  Hope you all enjoyed this retro pack.  Good luck in your Fantasy leagues, and thanks for reading!

2021-22 Wild Card Alumination Basketball

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

Pack

Base Card Design

Base Back Design

Starbright Insert Front design

Starbright Insert Back design

Light Show Insert Front design

Light Show Insert Back design

2024 ABD Yuto Horigome Quickstrike

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Card #1:

English Hollywood 16 Non-Foil

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

However each card has four different versions:

#1:  English Non-Foil

#2:  English Foil

#3:  Japanese Non-Foil

#4:  Japanese Foil

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

Card #2:

English Hollywood 16 Foil

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

Card #3:

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

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

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

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

Happy Friday and sayonara!

2024 Topps National Trading Card Day Baseball

 

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

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

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

This is followed by Mike Trout:

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

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

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

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

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

2023 Panini Donruss Optic Football

Here's another new-ish quick one. Similar to yesterday's pack design, we have the football counterpart of Panini's Donruss Optic product. Once again, it's four cards for slightly over a dollar per card. Yikes!

31 - Brian Urlacher - Right off the bat, we start with a HOFer.

292 - Devon Witherspoon - Unlike the NBA pack, I didn't luck out with any inserts. I did end up with a Rated Rookie card, however. These have a slightly darker tint to them, apparently.

143 - Dexter Lawrence - A big dude in Giants blue (and red.)

101 - Austin Ekeler - I'm not much of a fantasy football player, but I did play last year and Ekeler was my top draft pick. He was frustratingly inconsistent. (I autodrafted, so I guess I deserved it.)