New Addition:2021 Donruss Optic Preview Holiday Parallel

Today's card I didn't pick up from Burbank Sportcards or even eBay, today's card I acquired from a trade from my father.

We don't meet up too often, but when we do, we make a card trade and it's usually in an odd spot of doing so. This time we met up in a hospital parking lot right before my urology appointment. Why do we trade in such odd spots? We both are busy and just take advantage of the time we do find.

In our latest trade, I knew he needed a Matthew Stafford rookie so I dangled one out there in exchange for some Donruss Holiday cards including today's Donruss Holiday Optic Preview Holiday parallel.

Ojulari is having a great rookie season with the Giants so I was really pumped to see this one included in our trade.

 

Card Back is the same as his Donruss other than the word Prizm in the corner.

The lightbox really captured how great these cards look in person.

I didn't post the other cards I acquired, but there were two other holiday Optic previews and three of the Rookie Sweater cards. I thought we both won in that trade and that's what matters.

The New Mentality

*brews his cup of coffee, pours the last little bit of Peppermint Mocha creamer that's in the bottle and decides that's probably it for the Christmas season on that.*

  

The New Mentality in the hobby is spreading and spreading fast.

When I got my father back into the hobby three years ago, he was all about adding cards to his collection and opening packs for the thrill of the chase. 

Then 2020 hit and he caught The New Mentality.

He started to see how others were making big time money off from retail flips and decided to dip his feet in. That's the starting point of The New Mentality. First it was a fat pack. Then a blaster. Then a blaster and a hanger. And then he started to do the thing I hate most, clearing off most of the shelves of products and even attempting to flip the unflippable products like Score. It had gotten so bad where he wouldn't even tell me what products were on the shelves when I texted for him to pick me up something. He preferred to flip it for more than have me be able to open some. 

That was a painful realization.

The New Mentality is an ugly disease in the hobby. It's when greed and money means more than card collecting. It's all about the money and not about the fun. I believe the only cure for people who have caught The New Mentality is to show them how to have fun collecting again.

I am currently working on that with my father. It's a slow, slow cure especially if someone has had that mentality for awhile.

*takes a sip of coffee while game planning the next part of my cure*

Before The New Mentality fully hit him, I was able to land myself one more blaster box from him in trade. It wasn't the hottest product on the shelf but it was better than nothing at the time.

*takes a sip, begins to rip*

In every blaster box of 2020 Panini Optic baseball, there are 27 cards. There are 6 packs of 4 cards of Optic then an extra 3 card pack of Pink parallels. Each blaster is $20 unless you are buying from a flipper.

There wasn't much in terms of names of note for base, so I will skip to the rookies which I was impressed with. There was almost two in every pack which seems odd to me. Feels like the last time I ripped Optic on here there was maybe a couple total. 

Even found a Gavin Lux Rated Rookie. He's no Luis Robert in terms of value, but maybe down the road he will be.

*takes a sip happy at what I have seen already*

 

Now onto the shiny stuff and inserts

Nelson Cruz Silver

Inserts of Illusions with Trevor Story, The Rookies AJ Puk and Stained Glass with Ketel Marte

This Lindor was my favorite designed insert of the group, Mythical.

*takes another sip before another rip*

Now onto the bonus Pink Pack Parallels.

Each of these have three cards. Could be insert parallels, subsets or base. It's all a surprise.

Andres Munoz. Not sure who this is.

Acuna! 

Hiura

Not too bad at all!

*finishes up cup of coffee with the remaining Peppermint Mocha creamer, now back to Hazelnut for the next cup and to finish up this post*

Remember above where I mentioned the spread of The New Mentality is fast, since my father started doing that, others around the area caught it. They have the disease much more than my father does as they follow the vendor store to store to store taking all they can and leaving the scraps. Scraps are known as Hockey cards. This has helped me out some in trying to fix my father's catch of The New Mentality. He isn't getting the opportunities as much to flip anymore and I have been trying to take advantage of that and remind him how great the hobby is just collecting again.

And believe me, collecting is great. So isn't coffee.

Before I close, I wanted to give you some insight on what to look for when you or someone else you know has caught The New Mentality.

Here are the signs to look for to know if you or someone you know has caught it, it's as simple as one, two, three.

1. Buys a pack, blaster, hanger or mega box of a popular product when its able to be found
2. Looks up value online to see what it goes for.
3. Flips it.

It will be pretty obvious when you have or someone you knows does.

How do you know if you are cured or don't have it? Well, that's as simple as one, two, three as well.

1. Buy a pack, blaster, hanger or mega box of a popular product when its able to be found.
2. Barely make it to the car before ripping it. It's okay to rip it just outside the Walmart or Target door. We all have been there.
3. Enjoys the cards that were opened.

I hope this helps. If you or someone you know has caught The New Mentality, remember to remind them why they got into collecting in the first place. It may or may not work but it's worth a try.

NYG PC Spotlight 110:2017 Panini Optic Blue Parallel Eli Manning

 

 

Eli Manning

Parallel

Card number 2

I should also mention that this card and the rest I will be posting this week and last week are brought to by Wes. Wes, the man who sends the big ole heat mail days!

REVIEW:2017-2018 Donruss Optic Basketball+GIVEAWAY!!

Since the beginning of my collecting time, I have always enjoyed shiny things and cards. One of those lines is usually Topps Chrome but another I have come to appreciate the last few years is Donruss Optic.

It takes the Donruss design and chromes it. Simple concept, but looks good.

So let's take a look at this years basketball version and let's giveaway a card while we are at it.

In every hobby box of 2017-2018 Donruss Optic there are 20 packs of 4 cards per pack. Boxes have one autograph per and run around $90.

The base cards as I mentioned above are the base Donruss design chromified. The base set is 200 cards. The first 150 are veterans and the last 50

are Rated Rookies. Which to me is the highlight of the set. I just love my rookies and with the classic Rated Rookie logo it just makes it a tad more fun. Fultz was the best of my box.

Let's take a look at the parallels I found in the box.

I originally thought that the Court Kings, Rookie Kings and Hall Kings were apart of the base set but come to find out they are all separate insert sets. I prefer that they had stayed in the base set instead of being dragged out. So my pictures of the parallels include a couple of these now known insert card parallels.

Up first holo,

Next purple,

 

Checkerboard. Which is actually labeled that on the back.

And what I assume is Purple. I honestly can't tell. I wished these were a bit easier to define.

  

Other parallels to find in the base set include, 

• Flash 
• Blue Velocity
• Checkerboard
• Purple
• White Sparkle
• Orange /199
• Lime Green /175,
• Red /99
• Pink Velocity /79
• Blue /49
• Black Velocity /39
• Aqua /25, 
• Pink /25,
• Purple Stars /13
• Gold /10
• Green /5
• Gold Vinyl 1/1
• Black 1/1.

Now time to take a look at the inserts. 

Up first, the aforementioned Rookie Kings, Hall Kings and Court Kings. Like I said, I think these would have looked better in the base set. Court Kings has 40 cards to chase while Rookie and Hall have 30 each. Most of the inserts you find in this box will be made up of these.

 

As I also mentioned already, these have parallels. Other than the two I pulled above, I also found this blue /85.

 

Other parallels in the Kings series include,

• Holo
• Purple
• Lime Green /149
• Aqua /25
• Pink /25
• Gold /10
• Orange /9
• Green /5
• Black 1/1.

Other inserts not found in my box include,

• All Clear for Takeoff
• All-Stars
• Retro Series
• Swishful Thinking
• The Champ is Here
• The Rookies

Now onto my one hit. It's a sharp looking card, but not particularly the best player I could have found.

 

Most autographs have the following parallels,

• Holo
• Purple
• Blue /49
• Pink /25
• Gold /10
• Green /5
• Black 1/1
• Checkerboard 1/1
• Gold Vinyl 1/1.

Other hits not found in my box but could be in yours include,

• Dominator Signatures
• Hall Dominator Signatures
• Rookie Dominator Signatures
• Rated Rookie Signatures

OVERALL: I like the product but there is some tweaking that can be done. Like adding the Kings inserts as apart of the base set like old Donruss days. I am worried about box value vs what you pay for it. Maybe add an extra autograph or memorabilia card to help there as well or find a more reasonable box price for something like this around $60.

This years edition should be pretty popular with collectors however. It was a solid rookie class this year with many future studs among the group. Recommendation is to buy now whether it's retail, hobby or in a box break. Whatever fits your budget.

YOU CAN VIEW THE WHOLE CHECKLIST HERE.

Now time to win this card along with some bonuses!

 

To win this card above with some bonus cards, please read and follow the instructions

1. MUST BE A U.S. RESIDENT OR HAVE SHIPPING IN THE U.S. Sorry, I do appreciate all of my readers but shipping costs are a little haywire and my spending cash is way down to ship. I need to be reasonable where I ship.
2. Tell me how many views this post will get. The person closest wins!!
3. If someone is tied, I will random them on Random.org.
4. Be aware that this prize WILL BE SHIPPED PWE
5. Sport Card Collectors blog, it's blogger Matt, and Panini ARE NOT responsible for lost, stolen, or damaged mail once it's left my hands. I will ship it safely, it's up to USPS to deliver it that way.
6. Time on shipping prizes varies as we all have busy lives and can only get to things when we can. But you will get your prize. 
7. Contest winner will have 72 hours after the winner announcement to claim or it goes back into the prize pot.
8. Make sure to thank Panini and Tracy Hackler for their generosity!
9. Contest starts today and will end on June 28th 2018. Winner will be announced shortly after.
10. Once you enter this contest below, you agree to all terms above.

Good luck to everyone!

Season CARDings Part 1

It's been quite the stretch of weather where I am. Feels like I live in Antarctica with the continuous below freezing temps with an even colder wind chill factor and the non stop snow that falls on a daily basis. We already had a good amount before Snowstorm Grayson left it's fury behind.

With this kind of weather, I was glad to see another mail day from reader Grady M in my mail box. Knowing I wasn't going out too far with these temps and bad roads I was glad I had something to do and I knew his kind of mail day would take a few days.

As with all of my postings from Grady, I don't always post all of it. Why? Well, it will take a good week to post it all. He covers all of my PC's and more. So I usually narrow it down to the bare shiny essentials. That alone is three posts still. So get ready for the next three days of this and battle the storm with me as we go along.

 So I opened up the box he had sent to find this,

Then I removed the top layer leading to a card onslaught. There was so much in here that I couldn't even post it all because we would be here for weeks. So instead, I pulled out some shiny stuff and some key items to post about instead. Even still, this is a three-part series.

Kicking it off are these Prizm Prizms. Odd name for a parallel I think since the product name is that. But, what do I know. We find four solid players as well with Landry, Gurley (who I hope wins NFL MVP despite his teams playoff no-show), Khalil Mack and Von Miller.

Next some wavy shiny things and a cool Illumination despite my no love of him or his team.

Panini parallels. We find Julio and Gurley again.

We dive into a few NBA inserts and a low numbered Thomas Rawls.

These Hoops inserts are pretty cool. I have always been a fan of the product.

Donruss Optic baseball. I didn't get to bust any of this stuff this year, mainly cause of Aaron Judge cleaning off card shelves, but I get my first taste of it. These are purple parallels that includes a good group of players like Correa and Cano,

Some regular parallels with Cano here as well.

Some more purple parallels with Jose Altuve and possible future Yankee Machado, I can dream can't I,

and regular parallels can be found here and includes some big time players like Pujols, Snider, Sale and Langoria.

Future Stars. Love the design of these and they look even cooler side by side.

Some Chrome parallels including an reverse Altuve that will haunt me with his glowing eyes.

And to end today's round, some X-Fractors.

 

There will be more to come tomorrow and I will pick up where this chrome finished off. Much more shiny stuff to come.

Mail Day Saturday:Reader Mail Day Part V

The second part of my mail day, Part V, features some Panini baseball. The shiny goods.

Up first, two big name Prizm parallels in Bonds and Machado.

A groovy looking shiny Chen

And a low numbered Pedroia /65

Next up, some Optic parallels. Let is shine!

 

Diamond Kings shine!

Pretty solid findings in this round. Another coming up soon!

Mail Day Saturday:@JGfan24ever Strikes Again!

One of the nicest and most generous collectors there is, @JGfan24ever on Twitter, struck my mail box again with some PWE awesomeness.

Up first are some Red, White, Blue Prizm basketball parallels including Alonzo Mourning that brings me back to those Heat/Knick rivalry games. There was no rivalry like that in the 90's.

 

Then a nice G-Men surprise was within this Donruss Optic Prototype Eli Manning that is the red parallel numbered to 99 and very shiny. Right up my alley.

 

A big thanks goes out to @JGfan24ever for this sweet surprise mail day. Just make sure you watch your mail box as well, you never know when I may strike back!