1996 Collect-A-Card The Adventures of Ronald McDonald: The McDonaldland 500

Greetings!

Hope everyone's doing well.  Yesterday was the 14th anniversary of my first post here on APTBNL and as per tradition, I go with a non-sports pack.  During a visit a while back to the Localish Card Shop, I came across something sport-like in the big green tub, and after a site check to confirm it hasn't been posted yet, I added it to the stack:

The interwebs surprisingly doesn't have a whole lot of information on this set.  The pack itself doesn't mention that Collect-A-Card produced it, and apparently buying a pack back in 1996 set you back $0.79.

Here's the back of the pack since I was sorta impressed by it.  Usually it's legalese, but here they set up the premise of the card set!  I also like how they present the pack odds...it's certainly better than Panini!

You get 7 cards and puzzle card in a pack.  Let's see what I got:

#32 - Raising the Odds

#41 - Warning Signal

So it appears Ronald and the gang are getting ready for The McDonaldland 500.  I didn't think there were enough characters in the McDonald roster for a competitive race, but sure why not.  Hey, Hamburglar's cheating!

No # - McDonaldland Racing Team Sticker

#6 - Unexpected Invitation

I lucked out getting one of the inserts; it's not Bill Elliott but a sticker that comes 1 in 5 packs is alright.  There's 3 stickers to look out for.

I'm not sure if that shadowy figures is supposed to be Bill Elliott, but he certainly has Ronald's and Hamburglar's attention.

Also, would The McDonaldland 500 be open for anyone to join, or just the residents of McDonaldland? 

No # - Puzzle Piece

#19 - Good Advice

You get a puzzle piece in every back.  Here's what the completed puzzle looks like, including what the 3 stickers look like:

Wait, Grimace isn't a driver?  Bummer.

There's only 50 cards in the set.  If you're curious what the checklist looks like, here you go.

#22 - Wobble - Wobble

#30 - Smoke Signals

It's unfortunate that 3 cards in the pack look essentially the same.  There's only 50 cards in the set, so having at least 3 of the 50 look almost identical is a little disappointing.

Here's some backs because anniversary:

Dad jokes for the win!

Anyway, that's the pack.  I personally don't think this was worth the eighty cents back in 1996, but I'm sure there was a market for these cards.  Happy blogiversary to Ol' Jafronius, and thanks for reading for 14 years!

1992 Score NFL Football

Greetings!

Hope everyone is doing well.  It's the start of the Divisional Series in MLB this weekend, but we're well into football season so we need a NFL pack up here.  Ol' Jafronius has been posting nothing but recent packs for a while, so off I went to find the stash of packs I've picked up from the local(ish) card store over the years.

For the longest time they've had older packs in a big green tub towards the front of the store.  The tub has since been replaced with several of those multirow boxes sitting across several of their counters.  Much easier to go through those than be bent over digging through a plastic tub.

Sometimes they have discounts so I don't know if I really paid 2 bucks for this pack of Score, but let's see what I got:

#386 - Jeff Jaeger 

#394 - Rickey Dixon 

#406 - Jim Jeffcoat 

#414 - Donald Evans

There's 550 cards in the 1992 Score set.  Here's the checklist for those who are curious.

#251 - Eugene Daniel 

#249 - Jesse Solomon 

#231 - Terry Allen 

Terry Allen was really good.

This design seems to be based on Score's baseball debut set from 1988; one solid block of color, with the different colors grouped together.

#166 - Barry Foster 

#174 - Eugene Lockhart 

#186 - Harold Green 

Those nameplates scream 90's graphics.

#45 - Don Majkowski 

#60 - Mel Gray 

#65 - Emmitt Smith 

Are there Kick Returners in today's sets?  And an Emmitt Smith in his prime is a nice pickup indeed!

#540 - Alexander Wright (90 Plus Club)

#461 - Vance Johnson 

#501 - Robert Stewart (RC)

The 90 Plus Club is a subset, showcasing players who pulled off a run of more than 90 yards.

Robert Stewart was drafted by the Saints but never played a snap in the NFL.  He did have a long career in the Arena Football League, playing for 11 seasons.  He passed away in 2022.

Here are some backs because hut hut hut:

Kicker stats!  Defensive stats!  Emmitt stats!  You only get last year's totals though, to make room for the giant head and write up.

Anyway, that's the pack.  There's plenty of packs I've picked up from the big green tub so I'll have to make it a point to post more of those and not be all new stuff all the time.  Enjoy the playoffs (Go Cubs!) and thanks for reading!

2025 Topps Series 2 Rack Pack

Greetings!

Hope everyone is doing well.  We're 2 weeks into the football season, so why is Ol' Jafronius posting another baseball pack?  Well, this has been sitting is draft for almost a month; just been too busy with life to get it done sooner.

Not only have we moved into football season, but Thursday was my eldest son's 18th birthday!  Time flies and "Cat's in the Cradle" guys and gals.

Anyway, I posted a retail pack a couple of months ago so this should be pretty familiar to you all.  My boys gave me this pack for my birthday; let's see what I got:

#645 - Triston McKenzie

#381 - David Bednar

#548 - Porter Hodge

#544 - Framber Valdez 

No rookies in the first group of cards.  Triston's wearing Cleveland's 2024 City Connect jerseys.  The font that's used for "CLE" are said to resemble the pylons that support the Guardians of Traffic on the Hope Memorial Bridge.

The article also says that "Clevelanders wear the pride of their city like a badge of honor, which is why “CLE” is written across the chest."  Um, OK.

#358 - Bryce Miller

#605 - DaShawn Keirsey

#366 - Josh Bell

As previously mentioned, there's 350 cards in Series 2.

#616 - Kiké Hernández

#579 - Spencer Strider

#620 - Brandon Woodruff

#552 - José Tena

#553 - New York Mets Team Card

MLB says Tena is the nephew of Juan Uribe and a cousin of Franmil Reyes.

#499 - Blaze Alexander

#500 - Mookie Betts

#402 - Yandy Díaz

#573 - Hyeseong Kim (RC)

Mookie gets the Hero Number.  

Yandy's wearing Tampa's City Connect uniforms, inspired by the city's skateboard culture.  I hope at some point they release stats on how many of these City Connect uniforms have been purchased, because many of these inspirations are kind of a stretch (can you tell I'm not a big fan of City Connect uniforms?). 

#489 - Edmundo Sosa

#699 - Hayden Birdsong (RC)

#682 - Steven Kwan

#625 - J.T. Realmuto

#635 - Bryce Teodosio (RC)

#440 - Brendan Rodgers

#456 - Randy Vásquez

#372 - Yosver Zulueta (RC)

Time for the inserts!

#90B2-2 - Mike Yastrzemski (1990 Topps)

#DD-7 - Seiya Suzuki / Shota Imanaga (Dynamic Duos)

The 1990 Topps insert came 1 in 3 packs, while the Dynamic Duos insert set came 1 in 6 packs.  The boys were pleased I got a Cubs insert. 

I'm surprised Yaz was traded to KC.

#SMLB-53 - Roki Sasaki (RC)

#SMLB-31 - Jacob Wilson (RC)

As usual, there's 2 Stars of MLB in every rack pack.  I didn't know Jacob was the son of Jack Wilson till just before the All Star Break.

#417 - Tomoyuki Sugano (RC)

#663 - Lenyn Sosa

#506 - Luke Weaver

#490 - Jackson Jobe (RC)

It's a Sosa hot pack!

#667 - Austin Hedges

#427 - Nick Castellanos

#387 - Gustavo Campero (RC)

#567 - Pavin Smith

Not as many rookie cards as I thought I would get.  Here are the backs:

Anyway, that's the pack.  Enjoy the last week of the baseball season, and thanks for reading!

2023 SAGE Artistry

It's football season, so let's check out another (college) football pack! This one came to me in another repack thing, probably one of those ones where you get a couple of unopened packs and a few random cards in a blister pack for $7.99 at your local corporate drug store chain.

89 - Myles Murphy - Artistry is, at least on the surface, a combination of SAGE's usual offering and something along the lines of Topps Gallery.

18 - Chase Brown (Red) - The back displays a portion of the same front photo/picture along with some selected facts about the player.

133 - Joe Milton III (Red) - I wonder if anyone calls him "Uncle Milty". Probably not today, because he's young, but maybe someday...

76 - Josh Whyle - It looks like Whyle ran through a brick wall... from the inside?

29 - C.J. Stroud - The last card of the pack features the only guy I can recall seeing play, and it's a pretty decent one.

2024-25 Panini NBA Sticker and Card Collection

 

Panini is back with another round of NBA basketball album stickers to collect. I picked up a box of these along with an order of Panini Points redemptions to make myself feel better about having to pay to ship what are intended to be free replacement cards.

367 - Dalton Knecht - Knecht had a few big games early on in his rookie season, enough to make him briefly fantasy-relevant. Panini modifies their completely made up 'RC' shield to read 'RS' on these, as in "Rookie Sticker".

451 - Domantas Sabonis - Sabonis is one of the stars of today's game, especially from a fantasy basketball perspective.

384 - Ja Morant - This year's foil cards are kind of an eyesore. The background kind of looks like a printer that is running low on ink.

159 - Dalen Terry - I don't really know much about Terry, but I haven't watched a lot of Bulls games recently.

226 - Tyler Smith - Another rookie, er, RS!

7 - Fred VanVleet (Card) - As in the past several years, each pack includes one full-sized card. The design is basically the same aside from the addition of the Panini logo in the upper left-hand corner.

2025 Topps Heritage Rack Pack

Greetings!

Hope everyone is doing well.  We're in the unofficial second half of the baseball season, after the interesting ending to the All-Star Game in Atlanta.  

I was fine with the swing-off, but I thought they were going to play a 10th inning.  I also think the fans should be able to vote for at least 1 of the 3 participants for each side.  Sure, every year they'd vote for Ohtani and Judge, so MLB can make a sure that says the fan vote winner cannot be the same player 2 years in a row.  So if Judge is chosen, he can stay loose in case he's needed for the end of the game, knowing he can't be chosen the following year (and Aaron Boone won't get stuck with Jonathan Aranda as his last chance player...nothing against Aranda, but I'm not too sure Boone really wanted to have him be the 3rd player when he submitted his line-up).

Topps Heritage was released back in April.  I figured someone like the legendary Night Owl would have posted a pack celebrating the 1976 set over here, but oh well.  Here's the pack given to me for Father's Day; let's see if the boys chose wisely:

#148 - Shohei Ohtani

#112 - Jung Hoo Lee

Starting off strong with the chubby All-Star icon.  Lee has spent some time on my Fantasy Team (I'm still kinda bummed the blogosphere couldn't get a Fantasy League going).

#205 - Emmanuel Clase / Ryan Helsley – League Leaders

#152 - Marcell Ozuna

Clase is not gonna lead the league in saves this year.  MLB better make some changes.

#57 - David Peterson

#34 - Nathan Eovaldi

#157 - Geraldo Perdomo

#49 - Josh Naylor

There's 500 cards in the set, with cards 401-500 short printed.  Unlike last year, it's better to have the short prints at the end of the checklist, as opposed to the start.

#374 - Pete Alonso

#163 - Keibert Ruiz

#306 - Luis Guerrero (RC)

#109 - Tyler Gentry (RC)

Guerrero has pitched in 13 games so far this year (9 last year), while Gentry has only played a total of 3 games so far, all last year.

#272 - Ha-Seong Kim

#68 - Craig Biggio / Cavan Biggio – Father and Son

There's 5 cards in the Father and Son subset.  Ha-Seong Kim's in Tampa Bay now.

#288 - Michael Kopech (Chrome)

Not every Rack Pack comes with the shiny card, so you'll have to believe me that this is a shiny card.

#291 - Rhys Hoskins (Light Blue Sparkle Chrome)

#259 - Dylan Cease (Color Match)

I'm pretty sure I got the names of these parallels down right, but don't quote me on it!

#351 - Bradley Blalock (RC)

#212 - Giancarlo Stanton

#38 - José Berríos

3 more cards to end the pack.  I thought Bradley would be related to Hank Blalock, but apparently not.

Here's the backs because 1976:

Anyway, that's the pack.  Heritage is usually a solid release so you can't go wrong with trying it out.  Hope everyone has a good week, and thanks for reading!