2018 Donruss Optic Football Hobby

I stopped into one of my LCS's, Don's Sportcards, this afternoon to say hi, peruse the dropzone and  singles and end up picking up a couple packs of 2018 Optic Football.  Don's grandson was in the shop helping out and I had him pick me out two packs.  He's been a great pack picker for me in the past. Unfortunately, I didn't pull anything that great, but here is the better of the two packs.

 I'm not sure if rookies fall one per pack, but my other pack had a high number Rated Rookie in it.

 My other pack didn't have an insert but did have a base Dak Prescott, and this pack had his Elite insert.

1992 All World (Indycar) Racing

Indycar started their preseason testing this week. They just announced a new title sponsor as NTT Data replaces Verizon. Let's go back to 1992 with this pack. There are 9 cards per pack in this 100 card set. This is 2nd and final year of AW producing Indycar cards. The final set to feature an entire season while next few years Hi-Tech and Skybox featured only Indy 500. Another note there be two cards stuck together.

55 - Rodger Ward - two time Indy 500 winner

26 - Dale Coyne - this card showed his results of the season. He would become full time card owner. This year he got Sebastian Bourdais and Santino Ferrucci driving for him.

78 - Danny Sullivan - 1985 Indy 500 winner and 1988 Indycar champion. Back of this card featured his career stats up to end of 1991 season. This was Danny's only season with Pat Patrick Racing as they had unreliable Alfa Romeo engine. AR pulled out after the season and Chevrolet wouldn't supply engine to the team. Pat sold to the team to driver Bobby Rahal who won the championship in 92 with Chevy power.  Danny would drive for Rick Galles in 1992 and 1993.

49 - Andretti Family - the only season four Andrettis raced the entire season. Mario with his sons Michael and Jeff and nephew John (twin brother Aldo's son).

42 - Pancho Carter - one of two cards stuck together. His only career win was 1981 Michigan 500. He drove three races in 91 all on ovals.

95 - Randy Lewis - the other card stuck together. This was his final year of driving in Indycar. In 81 races his best career finish is 7th.

33 - Gordon Johncock - two time Indy 500 winner (1973 and 1982) he only drove in Indy coming from last position (33rd) to finish 6th in the race

25 - Mario Andretti - legendary driver won everything except LeMans. He drives the two-seater with a lucky fan onboard before the race starts.

86 - Eddie Cheever - 1998 Indy 500 winner. This was his second season at Chip Ganassi Racing and first year the car featured the infamous red Target paint scheme.

I'm ready for Indycar season to start. Off to St. Petersburg.

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.