Sunday, December 31, 2017

REVIEW:2017-2018 Panini Prizm Basketball

So far this basketball collecting season, Panini Prizm is HOT, HOT, HOT!

With a decent rookie class and a product that has very valuable popular rookie cards prices for this years products went nuts and even finding retail is pretty much impossible. Believe me, I have tried. Some are comparing this product now to the Topps Chrome basketball one where rookie base card singles are a bit nuts to try and buy.

What's in a box of this treasure, well, read on and you will see.


In every box of 2017 Panini Prizm basketball there are 12 packs of 12 cards. Each box comes with 2 autographs and multiple prizm parallels. Boxes are running $299 right now. Like I said, high as it's hot.

The Prizm base set is made up of 300 cards. There are mix of veterans


Rookies, these are my key ones. I still don't own a Ball.


Coaches.  I absolutely dig this addition.


As I stated above, there are many, many parallels to find in a box of Prizm.
These are base Prizms. I lucked out with a base parallel of Dennis Smith Jr here.


There are plenty of color ones including, Purple /75,
 

Ruby Wave,


Nice Kuzma here


Blue /199,


Love the look of these. Blue Ice /99,
 
Other parallels include, Green, Hyper, Red/White/Blue, White Sparkle, Orange /49,Pink Pulsar /42, Green Pulsar /25, Mojo /25, Red Pulsar /25, Gold /10, Red Shimmer /8, and Black 1/1.

Along with prizm parallels, you will find yourself also flooded in inserts that have parallels as well.

Here is Fundamentals. These have prizm parallels as well and they are included at the bottom of the picture. Those include, Silver, Fast Break, Green, Hyper, Mojo /25, Gold /10, Red Shimmer /8 and Black 1/1.


Get Hyped. Cool angle of players getting the crowd into the game. These have parallels as well. Those include, Silver, Fast Break, Green, Hyper, Mojo /25, Gold /10, Red Shimmer /8 and Black 1/1.


Emergent. Top rookies featured. These like the rest have parallels. Those include, Silver, Fast Break, Green, Hyper, Mojo /25, Gold /10, Red Shimmer /8 and Black 1/1.


Now onto the hits.

Panini points, 250. Ugh.


Steven Adams auto. Double ugh.
 
Other hits I didn't pull in my box but can be found are, Signatures Set, Sensational Signatures,Luck of the Lottery, Sensational Swatches and Rookie Signatures.
OVERALL: My autographs were a bummer, but the rookies that I pulled and parallels I found of those rookies should help in value of this box. Not sure if it evens out or exceeds it yet, but it could if the top rookies continue to play they way they have and there isn't really a lot of this product to go around.
Would I personally buy a box at this price, no. I would wait and hope the prices drop or buy into a box break or buy singles of players I want. As with any product, there are no guarantees and this one is a bit of a gamble because you are banking on the two autographs and the rookie parallels if you find any.

As a product, I like it. I have always been a fan of Prizm and it's multiple parallels. Sometimes I struggle telling the difference between them, but I usually figure it out. As with past products its based on the outside border color.. This years coaching additions is a welcomed find to the checklist. I wished they would do that with football. I can't remember the last time I saw football coaches in a product and I am not talking about a select few like they were in Contenders.
Please take a moment out to thank Panini America for their generosity in providing this box for me to review and give some of the hits away in my Mystery Panini Contest. Follow them on all social media and visit their site, HERE, as well.

Saturday, December 30, 2017

3 WIN Friday:2017 Trading Card Blog Of The Year, #RAK, And Contest Mail


Friday was a pretty good day for me. I woke up to some pretty cool news I will touch on in a second and got a couple of cards in the mail.

First card I received was a PWE from Hoarding Cardboard blog. It was the one card I won during his Season Of Giving. But, it's a nice card I really wanted so I am very happy about it. Thanks Jason!

Second card was a #RAK I got. I knew a card was coming, just didn't know what card or who bought one for me. Finally, that mystery was revealed yesterday.

A big thanks goes out to @TNJ_G3 for picking up this new Judge for my PC.  I really appreciate your generosity. Thanks to @mattsaltzman for mailing it to me.

And finally, some big time winning news.

If you haven't heard, GoGTSLive and Beckett's #TheFatPacks podcast joined forces to do a 2017 Trading Card Awards show covering everything from Best Memorabilia Product to Best Prospecting Product to Best Collector Blog. I knew I was in the running to win this, but with the already award winning Night Owl Cards and the very popular Dub Mentality and Cheap Wax Wednesday (Project Pedro) blogs on the ballot, I knew I was definitely a big underdog. Especially to Dub Mentality blog that has a good Twitter following and that's where they spread most of the links to vote with. (I also watched the show the next day and all commenters were voting for him to win and one said after the announcement of the winner that he was robbed)

I sadly wasn't there for the live showing of this Thursday Night because I have been dealing with a nasty head cold this week and went to bed early. I woke up the next day to a surprise that I had actually won receiving 40.89% of the votes.


 
 
After almost 6 years of blogging, this is probably my biggest accomplishment. Every time I have been in the running for any of these type of "Blog Of The Year" contests, I have lost and finished second. This time I was the NY Giants in the 2007 playoffs beating some great teams onto a Super Bowl win. I know an award like this may not mean much to some. But, to me, this little screen shot award means a lot. It's a reminder of how my hard work paid off. It's my Super Bowl trophy I will always have even if it happens to only be once.

Thanks to everyone who voted for me and just to have been in the running alone with the names on the ballot was impressive in itself. Congrats to those that were also in the running and I am glad to be apart of such a tight brotherhood of bloggers community. This community is like no other.

To end today's post, today has started off with a win as well. I woke up to the blog reaching another new milestone as I surpassed 900,000 total views. Onto a million next!

2018 I am planning on a better year of blogging with new creative ideas and not just mail day  Hopefully next year I can take home that title again.

Best Nachos I Ever Had!

There has been a lot of generosity throughout this holiday season and it's been great to view. I have seen other collectors support each other, I have supported some and I have received some. One of those guys was Nachos Grande Blog who took down all commenters want lists and did his best to help.

He took down the fact I collect non sport, don't think there are many bloggers that do, and sent me some goodies. First up, some cool Allen And Ginter I didn't have including Bruce Lee and Tony Hawk base.


 
Then we got political. No we didn't discuss politics, that always goes ugly, but instead he sent me some.

 
And some more...

 
And finally some more. I am a huge fan of these 2008 ones. I believe I am closing in on the set. May be missing only a couple.

 
Bart Giamatti

 
Awesome Celebrity Predictor from 2010 Upper Deck. I have a few of these but not this one of Enrique and Anna. 16 years strong.

 
And to end it, two packs of cards. One was a Tristar TNA and the other is Yo! MTV Raps. both I am saving for my new series in 2018 called Rainy Day Wax.
 
 
A big thanks goes out to Nachos for the mail day and the generosity. I enjoyed every bit of it.

Friday, December 29, 2017

REVIEW:2017 Bowman Chrome Mini Baseball Complete Set

Running with this red hot rookie class, why not release a late season season rookie loaded product? Especially by the Home Of The Rookie Card?

Here comes 2017 Bowman Chrome Mini and a review of it.

 
In every set of 2017 Bowman Chrome Mini, there are 273 cards. This set includes ROY winners Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger along with 1st Bowman cards of Ronald Acuna, and many more.


If you weren't already intrigued enough, there is a bonus with this as well. 3 packs of 10 parallels exclusive to these sets. Sets right now are running pretty high at $199. But, looking at the 2017 class, it may be a good investment.

First let's take a look at the base card minis. Pretty cool. It's broken down in Bowman Rookies, Bowman Chrome Rookies, Bowman Prospects and Bowman Chrome Prospects. I will tell you this ahead of time, the cards are not by number in the box : /. But lots of rookies and chrome so I excused that.

Like I said, there are 30 parallels per box. Let's take a look at them.

Refractor



Bowman 70th Logo Refractor /70,


Green Refractor /99


Blue Shimmer Refractor #/150


Gold Refractor /50


Orange Refractor /25 and probably my best hit of the box, Rhys Hoskins.
 
Other parallels not found in my box include Red Refractor /10, SuperFractor 1/1, and Printing Plates 1/1. 

OVERALL:Love the idea, love Chrome and love refractors. However, I don't love the price even though I bet it's worth it with sets and parallels being limited. This is a fun product for player collectors to chase their favorite rookies and prospects rainbows of.

Take a minute out to thank Topps for providing the box to review. Some of the cards you see above will be included in the #MyToppsMomentOfTheYear promo! Follow Topps on all social media sites and check out their website HERE for cards and more!

I Love The Smell Of A Good Trade

Tim from I Love The Smell of Cardboard In the Morning and I pulled off our first trade in some time but it was a good one. He ended up with a really low numbered autograph card he needed for his PC and I ended up with some pretty sweet PC additions.

I must mention I didn't post pictures of everything. He also sent a good stack of base cards as well. I put the focus of this post into the other items instead but I did appreciate it all.

Surprisingly, I didn't have this Big Tuna card. Parcells was one of the greatest Giants coaches ever. Coughlin is right there with him. If only I could have said that about Ben Mcadoo.

 
Some more Jeets. I must be up over 300 different ones now. I will have to do a tally at some point and put the number on the blog.

 
New #AllRise card I didn't have a sweet Odell Beckham Turkey Red rookie I didn't have either.I like the look of the Turkey Red card.

 
Another new Jeter. If I remember correctly these came off of Skippy Peanut Butter lids.

 
My first Yao Ming rookie card. I can officially take that off the want list. Also another new Odell Beckham Jr rookie. This time it's a Topps Chrome mini. I can't wait to see him back on the field next year. This season has not been the same.

 
Shiny DRC and a numbered Reflections of Odell and Calvin Johnson. Cool card. I really like the Score Parallels.

 
Numbered Princes and a new Engram. Can't believe he didn't make the Pro Bowl still.

 
A pretty sweet Nicks and another new Engram on the top. The photo in this one is pretty similar to the last. Prizm parallel of Odell and a trio of Giants.

 
Another Odell rookie! Orange parallel.

 
1996 Spx baseball help. Still more to go.

 
My first Spx basketball towards getting those. I have a very, very long ways to go to get those sets.

 
Paydirt Sanders to help with that set I am trying to put together.

 
Sick, sick, sick Sterling Shepard card. I think this Certified Cuts product looks intriguing. First I have seen of it.

 
A new Wayne Gallman rookie auto. A great looking one as well. This guy I expect a big year from next year.
 
 
A big thanks goes out to Tim for the mail day. Hoping we can do another trade soon!