2016 Elite Extra Edition Winner+Prize Shipping Update!

Another contest down and time for another winner.

Not many entered in on this contest either with only 20 participants looking to add this card to their collection.

So let's see which of the 20 will. I asked for you to see the numbering on this card....

 

Well here it is...

 

And here is our winner 

J-Mac January 26, 2017 at 11:59 AM

Thanks Tracy Hackler, and Panini.
Pro, I also like this set for price point, pulled a Swanson on card die cut /5 last year which was awesome.

Con: sticker autos sometimes, and also no liscense.

I would guess #14/100
Twitter- @jimmymak22

Our winner was only 2 off! Congrats to @jimmymak22. Please email sportcardcollectors@hotmail.com with the subject line EEE and your address within the next 48 hours to claim. If not, the card will be re-given away in a future contest. Please give a shout out when the card arrives.

Thanks to everyone who entered. Look for more contests coming up soon!

SHIPPING UPDATE: I HOPE TO HAVE ALL PRIZES OUT THIS WEEKEND!

Why I don't Watch Basketball, But Collect The Cards

In this new segment, I take a look at sports I don't watch anymore or maybe haven't at all. As the title states, I give you reasons why I don't watch it, but still collect cards from it.

The NBA in the 90's growing up was awesome. I spent countless hours watching every game the Knicks were broadcasted on NBC. My family couldn't afford cable, so we could only watch what the "make shift" satellite signal would give us.

Names like Starks, Ewing, Houston, Johnson and Oakley were my type of Knicks to watch The words STARKS FOR THREE made me stand on my feet in excitement and every year the Knicks were in the running to try and give Patrick Ewing that ring he so desperately deserved.

 

The competition was also so fierce when they played their biggest rivals, Bulls with MJ, Pacers with Miller and especially the Miami Heat with Alonzo that led to many bench clearings. It was the kinda stuff that kept your attention all throughout the season and playoffs.

The game in the 90's was the best it ever was in my opinion and had the best player to ever take the court playing in Jordan. I will say this again, there will never be another MJ.

Fast forward to today, the Knicks are a joke and have been since the early 2000's with signing overpriced free agents that don't pan out and simply not looking like a team. The game has changed drastically that even teams that are 10 games under .500 can make the playoffs. There are no big rivalry games anymore, only a few teams load up on good players and make championship runs leading to no parity. The bad teams are always expected to be the bad teams and the good the good.

Pretty lame.

I have tried to watch a game but just couldn't handle it. The players efforts seem to be lacking as well. Nobody wants to chase down an offensive rebound it seems because they pull up and take a shot then go back to play defense. How about aggressively going after your missed shot?????? Believe me, there were many in a few games I tried to watch.

But enough with my complaints about the game. I could go on for awhile.

The cards are still worth collecting to me. I still try to chase down the top rookies of today at least to have one of each. Unique memorabilia cards are nice additions as well. Of course anything in redractor/shiny form too. I mainly chase down the cards from the late 90's with the cool inserts of players I liked to watch and of course MJ. He was a player I couldn't stand back then being a Knicks fan after seeing many defeats, but appreciate now because of what he had brought to the game.

I have also targeted my favorite Knicks of the 90's in today's products with memorabilia cards and autographs. So far I only have an auto of Houston, but still want an autograph of Ewing and especially Starks. Maybe even an Oakley at some point. I do have a few memorabilia cards of Ewing as well.

So what do you think? Do you watch basketball and collect the cards? Do you not watch it like me but still collect? Do you watch and don't collect? Or do you not even look at either? Let me know in comments!

REVIEW:2016-2017 Donruss Basketball

Donruss has been a brand name staple in my collection for years and Panini's revival of the product brought much excitement with many fun parallels.

However, this years basketball was a bit different than past releases.

Read my thoughts on this product below.

In every box of 2016-2017 Donruss basketball, you will find 24 packs of 12 cards. There will be one autograph and one memorabilia card per box along with a decent handful of inserts. Boxes run around $60.

The base card set pictures I had got deleted by mistake. But, you will see them in a second when I break down the parallels. But anyways, the base card set is 200 cards deep. 150 of those are stars of today and the last 50 cards are rookies including Ben Simmons which I found two of in my box.

As you can see, the base card design is pretty similar to past designs. The parallels this year break down as follows,
Holo Laser Parallels: Green & Yellow, Green #/99, Red #/99, Blue #/49, Yellow #/25, Red & Blue #/15, and Purple #/15.

Press Proof Parallels: Silver #/299, Purple #/199, Red #/75, Blue #/25, Gold #/10, Black 1/1.

 

In my opinion, the parallels lacked this year. In past years, they were bright colorful and shiny. This years, simply lacked.

Same goes for the inserts in this years product. Donruss baseball and football this year stuck with the colorful, bold creative inserts and basketball seemed to had fallen short of that. 

The inserts have the following parallels, Press Proof, Press Proof Blue #/99, and Press Proof Black 1/1.

Elite Series was lacking it's usually crackle of colors. This years, was just basic.

The Champ Is Here breaks down past champions with current and legends involved.

There are 3 versions of Court Kings this year with Court Kings, Hall Kings and Rookie Kings. All have a canvas texture to them.

Other insert not found

The Rookies Set and the really rare Optic Preview Se.

Now onto the hits.

I pulled a Jersey Kings of Jimmy Butler. Design I will say is pretty solid.

And my Next Day autograph pull. Not a bad one with it being on-card and of the 6th overall pick.

 

Other hits not found in my box are,

Newly Crowned Rookie Jerseys, Back to the Future Materials Set, Dominator Signatures Set, Elite Signatures Set, Jersey Series Set, Rookie Materials Signatures Set, Swatch Kings Jumbo Set, and Timeless Treasures Materials Signatures Set.

Overall, I was a bit disappointed in the parallels and inserts as they felt like fillers as opposed to past releases. But, price isn't too bad here and Donruss is deep with hits that can be found. The on-card autograph cards are a nice find even though not all are like that. 

I hope next years release goes back to the former inserts of releases past. I think my favorite this year was the Court Kings with the canvas feel. 

What I like about Donruss also is the price for the younger collectors. I think this product is simple enough for them to be engaged and possibly led into the hobby world with. I felt this way for baseball and football as well.

Sunday's With Rodney:1995 Topps Finest Refractor Uncut Proof With Junior Seau

Like I stated last Sunday, I recently picked up some new Rodney Hamptons at some great prices with a eBay Gift Card I had gotten for Christmas. A few of them are unique one of one finds that didn't even appear on my checklist of wants for him including today's dual uncut refractor card.

As soon as I saw this, I knew I couldn't live without it so I made an offer in which I wasn't sure would be accepted or not, but it was and I was happy to add this. You all know by now how much of a refractor freak I am.

Here is the front side, completely intact with the protective plastic

 

The backside has the official card back even with the R for refractor. The card is a bit of a miscut but that was expected as it's an uncut proof.

 

 

This marks Rodney Hampton 439 and adds a new unique addition to that PC.

 

Thoughts on today's card are welcomed and let me know if you have anything like this in your PC>

Mail Day Saturday:Surprise From Up North

Not sure how many of you remember The Pack Gambler blog that was retired about a couple years ago, but him and I have been good buddies for awhile now and stay in contact via Twitter when we can.

A few days after Christmas, he surprised me with a mail day that may have been intended to arrive before Christmas, but got held up by the post office due to my address change. It still arrived and arrived safely none-the-less, I was expecting packages from others but not from him and it was a pleasant surprise. I wished I could had posted this sooner, but I have been far behind on my mail day postings.

Up first, some Swell Yankee cards. No, literally, they are Swell. Swell was a company that produced cards of retired players from 89-91. These are the 1991 design featuring some Yankee greats.

 

Next, a Didi base from the Topps holiday product I didn't have. I think this was actually a good fun idea.The snowflakes look pretty cool.

 

Then finally, a boom. An Upper Deck Solid Contact bat swatch of my main man Griffey Jr. Pretty nice bat swatch too.

 

 

A big thanks goes out to my buddy The Pack Gambler for this mail day. I appreciate it buddy and all of the other stuff over the years you have sent my way. I hope we can continue to keep in touch and as always, I hope to someday see the return of The Pack Gambler blog.

Thoughts on my mail day are welcomed below.

2016 Donruss Optic Card Lot Winner!

Another contest is over.

This one wasn't big on entries by any means as only 14 had a shot at the prize lot, but, I guess that's the way some of these go.

So let's announce a winner. I asked for the numbering on the back of this card.

 

Here is the back....

 

 

Here is person who was closest and our winner...

 

Kyle Herring January 21, 2017 at 11:02 AM

Pro: Love all of the different colors and parallels you get in a box. Also like that the rated rookies are on card autos.

Con: Price. With only 1 hit, $125 is steep.

Flacco: 43/50

Thanks for the chance and thanks Panini!! 

 

And here is what Kyle Herring has won:

 

 

Kyle Herring, please email me at sportcardcollectors@hotmail.com with your address and hopefully I can get this out to you by weeks end. You will have 48 hours from today to claim or it will be re-given away in a future contest. Please give a shout out when you get your prize.

Thanks to everyone who entered and go enter the EEE contest going on now!

Mail Day Saturday: Reader Mail Day II

Today's mail day Saturday is Part 2 of a long mini series of mail days I received from my buddy and Sport Card Collector's reader Grady M.

Today, Grady used the force on me and sent me some spiffy Star Wars cards for my PC. I haven't busted and Star Wars in years but these chrome cards are pretty slick. If I was to bust any, this is definitely where I would start.

Inserts here including Han Solo and R2D2.

 

Parallels! These refractors look so cool! Just wished they had shown more on my post. The Finn one with the lightsaber looks wicked in the refractor form.

 

Much much more to come from this mail day and many others I have gotten in the last month. I am really far behind but that's okay, who knows how many mail days down the road I will get for this series??

 

Thoughts on today's mail day are welcomed!

Wrappers Of Collecting Past:1994-1995 Topps Series 2 Basketball

1994-1995 Topps Series 2 basketball for me meant a Grant Hill chase. Each series came with 198 cards and Grant Hill to me was the most important rookie of that class so Series 2 was the way I went.

I also was fond of the Spectra Light parallels. Those looked pretty sharp. The base set in general, wasn't great, but the parallels definitely improved it.

 

How about you, got an fond memories of this product? What were you chasing?

Random Card On My Desk:2010 Upper Deck Shoeless Joe Jackson Sp

SI For Kids Cards January 2017

Here is my third installment of this series.

I have been collecting SI For Kids cards for year and thought I would share them with you and help you decide if you should pick up the latest issue of SI For Kids for yourself.

This months issue comes with a very important and my first Auston Matthews rookie as the headliner. There are other pro athletes as well and other ones you gotta keep an eye out on in the future.

 

Thoughts on this months cards are welcomed below. 

2016-2017 Totally Certified Basketball Jersey Card Winners!

First I must apologize on the delay in the winner announcement. I feel like a freight truck ran me over with this sinus and ear infections.

But, with so many giveaways going on at once, I just wanted to get caught up so here I am.

And here was the numbering on the Stauskas card.....22/25 so let's see which two were closest to take home the cards.

 

 

defgav was closest with 21/25 so he is the first winner. The Second winner was hudsonfan15 who had 19. You can look HERE for yourself. 

Congrats to defgav and hudsonfan15!! Please email me at sportcardcollectors@hotmail.com with your addresses. The cards will be randomly mailed out from these two.

 

  

 

You both have 48 hours to claim your prizes or they will be re-given away in a future contest.

Thanks to all that entered and plenty more contests going on right now!

Hobby Topic:2017 Topps Baseball Base Card Design

Here is how Hobby Topic works if you don't remember (you gotta keep this in mind as the return of Hobby Topic makes it way back)

Leave a comment or thought below on the following.

Today's Topic is
Thoughts on 2017 Topps Base Card Design?

Do you like this years design? Are they becoming a little too much offbeat? What would you fix about it?

Please make sure it's clean for our younger audience.

REVIEW:2016 Elite Extra Edition Baseball+GIVEAWAY!

A lot of collectors like to use Bowman as their main prospecting product, myself, I like to use Bowman, but like Elite Extra Edition a bit more. Why? Because it is LOADED.

How did my latest break of this highly touted prospect product go, well, read on!

 

In every box of 2016 Elite Extra Edition baseball, you will find 5 packs of 5 cards. Yes, they remodeled EEE some. You will find Six to Eight Autographs Per Box along with Two to Four Memorabilia Cards Per Box and boxes run at a fairly cheap $85. 

The Elite Extra Edition base cards are a bit more challenging to collect a set of with them being limited to 999 and being limited per box. There are also 180 cards in the base set so it's a deep one. But, you can findTop Prospects and Young Stars including Yoan Moncada, Andrew Benintendi, Orlando Arcia, Jorge Mateo, Clint Frazier, Alex Reyes,  and A.J. Puk

 

The parallels in in EEE are wack. So colorful. You can find Purple #/200, Blue #/75, Tie-Dye #/25, and Gold 1/1.

 

There are Status die-cut parallels as well. Black #/99, Red #/99, Emerald #/49, Tie-Dye #/10, and Gold 1/1. I put these against a red background so you can see the die-cut better.

 

Now onto the hits. And there are plenty. All memorabilia hits have parallels of Silver #/149 or less, Holo Gold #/99 or less, Purple #/25, Emerald #/10, Blue #/5, and Gold 1/1.

My first hit is a Future Threads. It's a nice size swatch and has a stripe. Well designed too.

 

My second pull was a quad jersey card of Matt Olson.

 

A USA Quad. These are pretty cool.

 

A Future Threads Auto Silhouette. Who doesn't like a auto silhouette card???? There are no parallels for these. However, swatches may vary such as patch and non patch, etc.

 

Don't you feel like you already had lots of value...but yet....I am still just getting to the autographs!!!

The base autographs are not numbered, but the parallels certainly are. I will list those after the autograph bump.

 

Purple. I cut the number off /100 on this one on purpose :)

And green status die cut /25

Parallels for the above autograph cards also include....

 PARALLEL CARDS: Black #/10 or #/5, Charcoal #/25 or #/10, and Printing Plates 1/1.

ASPIRATIONS PARALLEL CARDS: Purple #/100 or less, Blue #/50 or less, Tie-Dye #/10 or #/5, and Gold 1/1.
STATUS DIE-CUT PARALLEL CARDS: Red #/75 or less, Emerald #/25 or less, Tie-Dye #/5 or less, and Gold 1/1

If those are not enough for you, there are USA Season Ticket autographs you would find in Contenders., but are now in here too. They feature the first autographs of all 64 members of the Collegiate, 18U and 15U National Teams. Find 7 parallels including Cracked Ice and printing plate parallels numbered to 24 or less.

 

 

OVERALL, it would be foolish not to gamble on a box for the price and the amount of hits it provides. This isn't even all of the stuff you can find in a box of EEE. This is also the easiest way to collect your favorite prospects and have a better shot at landing an auto or memorabilia card of them. It's better to pay this price now for a box of this instead of paying that price for one card later on. 

Now time for that giveaway and how you can win this ↓↓↓

 

 

Just tell me the numbering /100 on this and follow other instructions after that follow...

 

AND follow these rules

1. Make sure you thank Panini America for this review box and check out their site for products like this one and others. Also thank Tracy Hackler and give him a Twitter follow too!
2. ***VERY IMPORTANT***MUST BE A U.S. RESIDENT to enter or have a shipping address in the U.S. Shipping costs have gone haywire and I can't afford to ship everywhere.This is always hard to do as I appreciate all readers but I hope you all understand non-U.S. readers.
3. Card may be shipped PWE. I like to forewarn on this.
4. LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW telling me ONE PRO AND ONE CON OF THE PRODUCT for both or either box. PLEASE ALSO KEEP IN MIND I AM HOPING FOR GOOD PRO/CON FEEDBACK.
5. Also leave me a comment telling me the card numbering /100 for the Ben Rortvedt above
6. Must do BOTH 5 and 6 to be entered or entry will be null.
7. The ones who guess the right number or are closest without going over will be entered in the giveaways.
8. Sport Card Collectors or it's owner (person who runs the blog), WILL NOT be held responsible for lost, stolen or damaged mail. Sorry had to add this in since someone tried to scam me once about this.
9. Contest starts today, ends on January 30th 2017. Winner will be announced in a separate post on January 31st 2017.
10. Don't forget to thank the above sponsor of this contest and I won't mind a thank you as well :) 

Good luck to those that enter!! 

Sunday's With Rodney:1995 Mystery Finest Iridescent Laminate Proof

Like I said a week or two ago, I got an eBay gift card for Christmas and wanted to put it to good use. One of those uses was to pad my Rodney Hampton Collection more. But, not just pad it with base even though there are still plenty of needs, but pad it with unique one of a kind cards which this is exactly what today's card is.

It not only doesn't appear on my checklist, but it's something I hadn't even heard of before. I found a unique seller on eBay who had a bunch of cool cards like this. I picked this one up along with a few other unique ones.

Here in his words is what this card is..

" This is an extremely rare proof card. It is from the 1995 Topps Mystery Finest insert set. But it is just the top plastic (laminate) layer of the card and is see through. I have pics of both the front and back below so you can see.

I used the term "iridescent" as it isn't a regular, clear plastic, but not quite a refractor finish either. Somewhere in between. It's similar in appearance to the Fan Favorites inserts, but with a green hue, not a pink one. But that style is similar to the reflective surface of these proof cards. They are standard card size."

 

 

It came exactly as he described and because I picked up four different ones, I was able to make an offer in which he accepted gladly. 

This card is one of the cooler ones in my Hampton collection now and marks Hampton #437.

So what do you guys think of today's card? Pretty cool?

Mail Day Saturday:Contest Win From Twitter

I am trying to do my best to catch up on these mail days and didn't want to push this thank you off for another week, so you guys will be blessed with a double feature of Mail Day Saturday today.

@JGfan24ever on Twitter was hosting a contest to win this Upper Deck USA Football autograph and I am a biter on contests like that. I have always been a huge fan of USA Football product from Upper Deck and look at it as a prospecting product for future NFL rookies. Stars like Todd Gurley and Jameis Winston have come from it.

So finding out that I was the winner of the card I was pretty excited.

The card is of LB Shyheim Stephens. Last data I could check he is a LB at Syracuse.

 

Being the great guy that @JGfan24ever is, he also tossed a couple of extra freebies.

A new Griffey here,

 

And a pretty sweet numbered Eli here from the Playoff product,

 

 

A big thanks goes out to Michael for the mail day. Great guy and one I suggest you follow if you are on Twitter.

 

Thoughts are welcomed below on the mail day!