25 Days Of Cardmas Preview

Christmas is by far my favorite holiday year in and year out.

The joy, the scents and meaning of the holiday (the birth of Jesus) all contribute to my passion for it. My grandmother who has longed passed also had her birthday on Christmas and she meant a lot to me and was the person who made me who I am today. Combine all of that and you have a real life Clark Griswold right here.

With this years holiday expected to look much different for me (and everyone else thanks to Covid), I wanted to add some more cheer to it. For me, it means no Black Friday shopping in stores, no family coming up from other states (which we always had a blast ordering food out, playing board games like Balderdash, experiencing a church led "birth of Jesus" celebration, and watching our annual National Lampoons Christmas Vacation together. Add in the so many laughs that you can't count them on all of our hands combined) and most likely a lot less gifts though that's not what the season is about. I will miss time with the family the most.

With all of that, I know we need some more excitement in our lives to help us celebrate this great holiday. That what led me to hosting a 25 Days Of Cardmas (name pending) in which I will be posting a Christmas related card for 25 days of December. 

This card or cards will be either posted with an item in my house that is Christmas related (I try to deck it all out as much as I can so I have plenty to show off ) or a memory about a Christmas I had or a song ,movie or even food I enjoy during the time. I hope to do a nice mix of everything so you get a look at what Christmas means to me.

If this all turns out successful, you can call this an annual celebration.

This also means no mail day postings that are non Christmas related for those 25 days or anything else non Christmas. Those will resume on December 26th.

All of this kicks off tomorrow, December 1st, along with a very red and green blog update as I change it again for the holiday season. That update will most likely take place later on tonight.

I hope everyone has as much fun with this as I know I will and hope you all will chime in with your thoughts on each post as well.

As Andy Williams says, It's the holiday season, So hoop-de-do and hickory dock.....and don't forget to hang up your sock' ....Cause just exactly at 12 o'clock....He'll be coming down the chimney, down.

Can't Believe I Did That

 

*takes a sip of freshly brewed coffee. Mmmm that first sip tingles the tongue and awakens the body like nothing else can. Today is going to be a good day.*

Back in August, I made a mistake. I did the one thing I told myself I wouldn't do, I bought off from a flipper. It goes against everything I believe in, but I was in desperate times of needing something to open. I needed to itch the fix. With no wax retail in months and my father not finding anything to trade to me, this was the last resort. 

I felt like I had sold my soul to the devil.

At that time I really wanted to open some Prestige. Its a favorite of mine and something I had opened every year of since its production in the 90's.

My break today of 2020 Prestige, may my soul burn forever, is a Mega Box. A Mega Box has 40 cards and includes 2 autographs. There are 10 cards per pack and 4 packs per box. 

The base set is a simple design as always. This years edition features 300 base cards with 200 being veterans and 100 being rookies.

You find quite a few rookies in every Mega, at least for mine. Some of the lesser known players are actually Sp's in the base set and are 20x tougher to find than the top rookies. Some names to keep an eye out on are,  Antonio Gandy-Golden, Laviska Shenault Jr and Zack Baun.

Found some Love, but the way is Rodgers is playing it may be some time before he hits the field.

And found Justin Herbert who at the time I didn't think would be playing as well as he is.

*takes a another sip of coffee, not that I haven't been sipping the whole time but didn't want you to wonder. Moving onto the parallels*

There are always a good group of parallels to find in Prestige. For 2020 you can find the following for veterans,

BASE XTRA POINTS PARALLELS: Green, Blue, Red /249, Purple /100, Gold /75, Orange /50, Platinum /25, Black 1/1, and Printing Plates 1/1.

The rookies have different parallels which are,
ROOKIES XTRA POINTS PARALLELS: Green, Red /399, Blue /299, Purple /100, Gold /75, Orange /50, Platinum /25, Black 1/1, and Printing Plates 1/1.

Here is gold as you can see by the gold foil on the base.

Sweet! PC pull of a purple parallel /100 of Saquon

*takes another sip before moving onto inserts*

Power House! Saquon is just that when he is healthy. There are 20 cards in this insert set to collect.

Highlight Reel has 20 cards to collect. I pulled Kupp and Jacobs.

Old School has most of those legendary names you have heard in NFL history with 30 to collect.

Impressions has 20 cards of players who made the most impact for their teams immediately

*my hits are next. Always such a risk buying something like this especially when you pay above retail for it. But, here we go...sips coffee aggressively trying not to slurp it everywhere*

My first autograph was as I expected...

Who in the Sam Hill is Jaylon Johnson...oh look a defensive player as well...ugh.

The next pull though...

Not too shabby at all! Ozzie Newsome autograph /5 with HOF inscription. I won't complain about that one.

*feels good about this break. Smiles behind the mug and notices that the cup is empty. So grabbed another cup to finish up this post*

The break I would give an A+ on. Low numbered HOF autograph, Herbert rookie, two PC hits. Can't argue with this kind of success on a retail box break.

Since this one time purchase in August, I haven't ever bought from a flipper again. I simply can't support those who clean off shelves and mark it up. The more any of us buy from them, the more they will continue to do that. So let's take a stand.

Considering most of my 2020 has been spent not opening that much, especially the last few months, I finally realized I can survive without ripping that much anymore. Until at least this hobby comes back down to earth again.

However, if they start clearing off shelves of coffee, then we will have a problem.

Giants Cardboard: Back In Action

 

Rise and shine Giants fans! Or readers that follow me that know I am a Giants fan. It's game day! Today we are back after the bye week and hopefully ready to take on a ferocious Bengals team led by rookie QB Joe Burrow who has played up to his potential so far.

I don't know what to expect today, but hoping the team that has won two games in a row before the bye is the one that shows up in Cincy today. This is a must win game with the schedule getting tougher down the stretch with teams like Seahawks, Cardinals and Ravens on the final run.

I pulled off a couple of quick PWE trades before the bye and am ready to show these off.

First up. along with the Daniel Jones above, I traded with @Raidernation500 and hauled in these two as well,

A new Cruz

And finally a Sterling Shepard Contenders rookie auto. I have been wanting one of these.

Thanks to @Raidernation500 again for this trade.

Up next, Dion and I pulled off a smaller trades PWE style that still packed a fun punch.

Thanks to Dion my vintage Giants collection is starting to fill in nicely.

Whether I have them or not, I will always add Giants Super Bowl cards to the PC. Especially from the very memorable Super Bowl 42.

What's not to like about this Ron Dayne? Rainbow foil and a cool black and white throwback photo. Great card all around.

 

And finally, a Masterpiece. Not just an Upper Deck Masterpiece card but a masterpiece of a play. I get shivers down my spine every time I hear Joe Buck and Troy Aikman make the call for this game. I will never get over that game, the way it ended and especially who we beat.

Thanks to Dion for another fun trade.

I will be doing my usual regimen on game day of making pizza, wearing my jersey and hopefully being able to watch the Gmen on TV. It appears though that the Patriots are also playing at the same time on Fox and they always override the Giants in my viewing area. It stinks as I am not able to watch the game otherwise. Internet is too dead to stream it and I can never find a good streaming site to begin with. 

Regardless, Go Giants!

Let's Talk About Sets Volume 48:Power Surge!

Set's talk Volume 48 is here folks! And just before I started typing this up, I learned a new position on today's sets. 

That there is more than just one way to have this sets.

1995 Stadium Club Power Surge was inserted in Series 1 packs falling 1:18 packs but I also found out that they were in Series 2 as well falling 1:36 packs making this once thought 12 card set into a 24 card set chase.

And this is why I do my research.

I just recently started to decide to chase this set when I opened a box of 1995 Stadium Club series 1 and saw how invigorating the design was.

  

The foil doesn't only shine with rainbow,but the lightning strike in the background does as well with a streak that offsets the rest of the card. Not sure how they did that but its very appealing.

 

And a couple more. These are a little bit up close so you can see the full angle.

With these 6 new adds from Burbank Sportscards Beckett Marketplace (also saved 10% by using code 15Burbank), I am only 3 away from having the Series 1 set. Now I gotta figure out how far from Series 2 I am.

Another fun chase in the works among my many others. I will further update this chase down the line with more sets talk.

For now, have a good day and remember to have protection for when you are doing sets.

The Chronicles Of NASCAH

 

I am not much of a NASCAR fan anymore, I used to be up until 2005ish, but that doesn't mean I don't collect the cards still. 

I am that way with many of the sports.

In my box of goodies from Sport Card Reader Grady M, there were a ton of NASCAR cards from the new Chronicles release. Of course the product isn't new anymore and I have seen mixed reviews on it. For me, for what I got out of this box I was pretty happy with it.

For today's post I will be sharing what some of those cards look like. Keep in mind this isn't all of the ones he passed along as I am only posting the best of the best but believe me, there was plenty more.

Let's take a look at some of these so you get the idea of the product,

You can't include Donruss and not have Rated Rookies. Whether they are new rookies or retro ones.

Prizm. Gotta love some Prizm. It's slowly been growing on me for years and now with the rookie cards being the most popular out there, it's moved ahead of Topps Chrome for me.

When will it be Select or

Optics time to shine in the sport as standalone product? I bet not too far down the road.

I remember having this much hair Bill. But getting older and 2020 has diminished it

This Dale Jr is spectacular. The Mountain Dew design, the fact I picture him being a redneck and the parallel screams perfect harmony.

I sure could go for a Big Mac right now. And no, not the racer. Couldn't be a Panini product that included Donruss without some kind of nicknames in it.

 

Lots of red wave shiny Optic

And now onto my Top 3 Favorite designs of the product. At least the ones that were included in the box,

  

3) This card is so 90's that the 90's feel like they are back. Everyone knows my passion of the 90's and this card is all about that.

 

2) I liked this design for football and I like it for NASCAR. I think this should be a standalone product design. Looks great even more so in person. There are other products I would sacrifice to get this as a product line. Lot's of possibilities for inserts, autographs and relics for this one.

1)Look at this. #USA #America this is a stunning card. I would actually like to see this one used as well for a base card set. Would be a lot of fun. Maybe Panini's way of bringing back Collectors Edge Presidents Reserve.

We are heading towards the end of this mail day from Grady M. I haven't even shown all of it or this would be going on for months.

Thanks for reading and let me know in comments where you would rank the Top 3 I chose or if you would pick another one from above to replace what I chose. Curious what your responses are.

Thanksgiving 2020

It's 2020 folks, will Thanksgiving be more like Halloween and should we be aware of a zombie turkey that will attack us in our sleep, stuffing that will explode when your pour gravy over it or potatoes that won't mash, a pumpkin pie that is actually mincemeat pie or will there be any form of normal for this holiday?

I would say with this year, you just never know.

I know for myself, the holiday won't be the same. The usual family gathering thanks to good ole foe Covid won't be happening with family afar in Boston and Nashville. I am also this years Thanksgiving host for the first time in over 10 years and just doing an inner family celebration.

Just because things have been rough, it doesn't mean there isn't plenty to be thankful for.

First off, I want to thank you today for coming to read today's post. I am thankful to have readers such as you to take time out to read my ramblings.

Secondly, I have all of this to be thankful for,

• I am thankful first of all for a loving and caring God.
• I am also thankful for my wife and family
• I am thankful for having food on the table and a roof over my head.
• I am thankful this year for my health which up to this point has stayed par.
• I am thankful for this blog that gives me an outlet to share my hobby since I don't have collectors nearby.
• I am definitely thankful I haven't caught Covid.
• I am thankful for the great people over at Burbank Sportscards. Which by the way you can save 10% on your orders at their Beckett Marketplace store by using code 15Burbank.
• I am thankful for great hobby friends both in the blogging world and on Twitter. I am thankful for you all, don't take it the wrong way that I am about to point some out, as I am thankful for you all once again. But, I am extra thankful for great friends like Wes, Grady M, Stephen Furlong, @90sNicheFBCard, @CardpocalypseNC, and @ShaneSalmonson who have helped me in many ways and hopefully know I got their back as well.
• I am just thankful for life and waking up each day is a blessing in itself. I love life.

Third, I am thankful for like Julie who lets me pick their pockets. Hope that didn't come out wrong.

In my latest claims from Julies pockets that are always full of variety I hit up a bunch of different collections,

90's inserts

Kellogs 3D cards that I just can't say no to now

90's parallels

90's die cuts

Great looking cards

Non Sport

"Rookie Cards"

If there had been some NY Giants cards there I would have tackled almost everything I collect. So thanks again Julie for allowing me to pick your pockets. If you haven't checked out Julie's blog, A Cracked Bat: Baseball Cards and a Hot Dog I suggest you do so! Fun name and blog.

I hope everyone is thankful for that last part even in the lesser than great days. Everyday is a blessing to be alive and it's best to be a blessing to someone else today. They will be thankful for it, I promise. Even if it's simply just saying hi or a simple smile. We can use even the simplest of blessings in a year like this.

Sending my wishes that everyone who reads this has a Happy Thanksgiving, eat food til you can't move, watch football, and make moments happen. Enjoy your day and if you are thankful for something, let me know in the comments. I look forward to reading them.

Let's Talk About Sets Volume 47: Man 2 Man

Let's have a talk about sets, Man 2 Man.

Back in 1995 Sportflix released an insert set called Man 2 Man that fell roughly 1:8 packs. At the time, I pulled the Dan Marino/Troy Aikman version which had a book value of $25 and was one of the biggest cards in my collection.

Since then, we know the story of how values fell, and I am simply looking just to chase the set down and every year find myself inching ever so closely to doing so.

With these 2 new adds from Burbank Sportscards Beckett Marketplace (also saved 10% by using code 15Burbank), I am only 4 away from having the set.

The lentincular appeal is what catches my eye. It has a 3D look to it as opposed to other Sportflix cards that move when you flip them, these do not. Which makes them stand out.

I hope to complete this set by years end but have a lot of set updating on here before doing so. 

There will be other posts coming up soon in this series as I can't get enough sets.

As I always say, the more sets, the better.

Mosiackkk

I feel like I was the only one in the card community who didn't have a chance to open a single pack of Panini Mosaic football or basketball. There was never any available retail and I outright refuse to pay the outrageous prices that flippers charge.

Or my own father actually who found a few hanger boxes. He knew he could make money off from them and wouldn't trade them to me this time. However, I crack up on the inside when he calls me and discusses cards and tells me about Mosiack. 

He's older, so I don't correct him that its Mosaic.

In my box of goodies from Grady M, I was finally able to get a taste of Mosiack, I mean Mosaic basketball.

With cards that look this cool, I can see why collectors are drawn to this.

More green including Jimmy Butler who turned his career back around in Miami.

 

I was honestly really drawn in by this Old School Moses Malone. The stained glass in the background is really outstanding against the silver blocks.

There is still more to come from this outstanding box of goodies. 

What are your thoughts on Mosiackk, Mosaic? Did you open any?