Thursday, April 30, 2020

1984 Topps Football

Here is a wax pack from 1984 Topps Football each pack contains 15 cards.  This set is huge on Rookie HOFers including Marino, Elway, Dickerson, Long, Jackson, Green & Tippett.  This pack contained none of those but did have 3 other future HOFers Tony Dorsett, Fred Dean & Jan Stenerud.
See below for pack and pictures of the fronts and backs of the cards.




Wednesday, April 29, 2020

1995-96 Upper Deck Series 1 Basketball

Each pack contains 10 cards 8 regular and then 2 Electric Court parallels. Series 1 has 180 cards and a number of insert sets including the Electric Court 2:1, Gold Versions 1:35, All-Star Class 1:17, Jordan Collection 1:29 & Retail Predictor 1:30. My pack was pretty basic having the 2 Electric courts Doug West & Donald Hodge and the best cards were the 2 different Dennis Rodman cards.  See the pack and fronts and backs of cards below.




2020 Topps Opening Day


Topps has been putting out their budget priced Opening Day set for decades now, aside from 2009 when the set failed to make an appearance. Here's a pack from this year's bunch.


35 - Trea Turner - First up is a card of a newly crowned champion.


142 - Carlos Santana - This one is begging for a caption contest.


34 - Jeff McNeil - McNeil had an exceptional rookie season that was overshadowed by his own teammate.


39 - Carter Kieboom - Kieboom didn't appear enough with the Nationals last season to burn his rookie status, so he's still considered a rookie even though this card lacks the RC logo.


146 - George Springer - Thumbs up!


57 - Dustin May - I am speechless.


TTC-1 - Judge's Court Team Traditions and Celebrations - There's usually some sort of insert in each Opening Day pack, which is pretty solid for such a budget priced product.

Tuesday, April 28, 2020

1994-95 SkyBox E-Motion Basketball

I don't know much about this pack and it is short on information but I did find on TCDB that there is a 121 cards in the set.  This pack had 6 cards and doesn't say anything on the pack about additional subsets, inserts, autographs or relic. TCDB has 10 N-Tense & 20 X-Cited cards but didn't see the odds listed.
Here are the six cards Fronts & Backs I received not bad pack as it included 2 HOFers Wilkins & Mullins.



2020 Topps Stickers


For the second consecutive year, Topps went with a full-sized sticker-card combination for their annual MLB sticker album. I picked up a blaster online for fun, which are again available for an SRP of $9.99. I'll show each sticker and card back individually here. Unlike the 2019 set (which has yet to turn up here, it seems), both the fronts and backs are individually numbered. Last year, the card number(s) represented both the front and back. Confusing.


158 - Rosie Red / 167 - Dinger / 177 - Billy the Marlin - First up, we have some mascot stickers, which are individually divvied up into 3 smaller stickers, plus a Topps logo sticker for fun. I've seen other mascot sticker panels where all 4 sections had mascots on them. I suppose there aren't enough mascots available to be divisible by 4. (Topps doesn't seem to have a license to print certain mascot names, incidentally, which has always been a little strange.)


122 - David Price - On the back of the mascots thing is this card back of David Price. The backs all seem to use the same design with a lot of triangular shapes. It sort of reminds me of the ToppsTown contest or maybe a rejected design for the short-lived Topps Attax.


47 - Max Scherzer Flame Throwers - Along with the mascots, there seem to be a lot of subsets in the sticker album. We haven't actually seen the base sticker design yet, although if you've opened a decent amount of 2020 Topps Opening Day, you already know what it is.


129 - Wil Myers - On the back of the Scherzer is Wil (the Thril?) Myers.


72 - Jose Berrios - Here is the actual base sticker design. It's simple. It's okay.


32 - Carlos Correa - On the flip side of the Berrios sticker is Mr. Carlos Correa.


45 - Niko Goodrum - Rounding out the 4 card/sticker pack is Niko Goodrum.


21 - Justin Verlander - And JV is on the reverse of Goodrum's sticker-card.

Monday, April 27, 2020

1995 Leaf Series 1 Baseball Retail

Here is a small pack from Donruss 1995 Leaf Series 1 Baseball Retail only has 5 cards and was a $1 and unlike the current Dollar tree that have no inserts or autos these packs are labeled that inserts, subsets and retail exclusives were in these packs.  The following is what was possible.
204 Regular series 1 base cards.
Gold Leaf Rookies 1:6 Packs.
Cornerstones 1:42 Packs.
Slideshow 1:84 Packs.
Gold Leaf Stars 1:270 Packs.
Retail only 300 Club 1:30 Packs.

Here is my pack 5 base cards I do like that there is a total of 4 pictures of each player (2 on Front & Back) and there all different pictures.





Sunday, April 26, 2020

1994 Star Trek The Next Generation Season Seven

Here is a 9-card pack of 1994 Star Trek The Next Generation Season Seven Episode Collection.
These packs contain the following
103 Base Cards including 18 Character cards.
3 Klingon Cards 1-12 Packs.
3 Character Cards 1-12 Packs.
19 Autographed cards 1-36 Packs.
2 Hologram Cards 1-90 Packs.
1 Captain's card #'d to 1,200.

Here is the packaging:
 The Fronts of the whole 9 Card pack:
 The Backs of the whole 9 Card pack:
Picard Character card W/Gold embossed Star Trek logo that is not on the regular episode cards and is a nice touch.
 Data Character card

I didn't get any of the insert cards, numbered or autographsin this pack.  IMO the actual episode cards are nothing to write home about. I like the Data & Picard cards from this pack.  Please leave any thoughts in the comments and if you collected this set.

Tuesday, April 21, 2020

1993 Upper Deck Baseball Fun Pack

First year offering for this stroke-inducing set, but I like it.
There are six cards per pack.

#184 Wally Joyner
A bizarre design with mismatched color combinations are the key, and a nice cartoon with player facts on the back.
The 1994 set was a little more pleasing to the eye, but these still rock.

#4 Mascot Madness 1:8 Insert
Fun mascot, but that name has got to go.
Five different mascots in this set.

#3 Benji Gil
The first nine cards in the set are up-and-coming rookies, Piazza being the biggest pull.

AS2 All-Star Scratch Off 1:5 Insert
Nine cards in this fold-out insert set.

Rules: "To begin, split the card into two sections..."
NO! NEVER tear a baseball card kiddies!

#111 Glow Stars 1:3
Though numbered as part of the set, these are also considered insert cards.

#47 Steve Finley
Many of the cards in the set feature the players in a fun pose, a nice change from the standard action shots.

Monday, April 20, 2020

Sunday, April 19, 2020

1988 Donruss Major League All-Stars Pop-Up


For possibly the first time since I've been posting here, I couldn't really decide what to call this set. I've always called it "Donruss All-Stars", but the pack always suggests something else. For what it's worth, someone posted a pack here at one time under "1988 Donruss Pop-Up" but that was actually the set released in 1989 that commemorated the 1988 All-Star Game.


61 - Steve Bedrosian - First up is the guy they called Bedrock. As you can see, the design follows the regular '88 Donruss set closely, but the border is simplified a bit.


29 - Dave Righetti - Another top reliever of the day. Most of his talents were wasted, however, on some pretty unremarkable Yankees teams.


52 - Rick Reuschel - Our third straight pitcher is the ace of the Giants. Well... future ace. Where you might assume that these are photos from the '87 All-Star Game, this shows Reuschel at some other point as he was still with the Pirates at the time. The back of this card has the Pirates team name and logo and makes no mention of his late season trade to San Francisco.


18 - Dan Plesac - Yet another ace reliever.


7 - Wade Boggs - Lastly, here's Wade Boggs, a bona fide hitter (and future Hall of Famer) for a change.


- Cal Ripken Pop-Up - Oh yes, there's more! Remember the whole "Pop-Up" thing on the wrapper? I have one of these propped up on my desk at work, but it's of Whitey Herzog from the next year's set if I recall.


52/53/54 - Stan Musial Puzzle - Less exciting is the requisite puzzle pieces that Donruss throws in to every pack. Nothing against the Musial puzzle (it's great!), but it would be nice if they chose a different subject for a different set instead of recycling the regular Donruss puzzle.