The Yanks Cardboard Comes Marching In

Last week I got a message from @batcavelv that a package was heading my way to finish up a trade awhile ago. I never know what to expect when I get a package from him. They come in all shapes and sizes.

So let's check it out!

Whoa. Big packed box that was sent in one of the priority bubblers I have been using for everything I ship. Why ship a box like this for $12 when you can stick the box in a bubbler for $8 and have it tracked and insured. Yeah. Exactly.

 El Duque! Love Ex!!

 Gary Sanchez rookie. I didn't have this one.

 Jorge Mateo. Interesting signature especially the eo that sags at the end.

 Ruben Randle Topps Prime. The Stadium Club of football at one point.

 El Duque again!! And Ex again!

 I assume what is a sample pack of 1997 Leaf. This will look great in my 90's PC. Keeping it sealed.

 Yogi Berra numbered card.

 Aaron Boone parallel

Pinnacle had some of my favorite cards in the 90's, I will take any and all but these oddball Sample cards are always fun addition.

 Late 90's Bowman parallel, sign me up!

Three new Mattinglys for my Yankees PC. Mattingly is the third highest Yankees player cards I have other than Jeter (way in first) and Judge (who is barely ahead of Mattingly after I traded a ton off)

 Pops! If only Jr had worn pinstripes and scored himself a ring

 

Gozilla strikes! I have never seen one of these but totally digging it!

 Chuck Knoblauch shiny

 90's Prism still looks better than todays.

This Ron Guidry caught my eye. Seems like the color scheme is off.

 Luis Severino OD rookie

And two brand spankin new NY Giants cards I haven't seen before or even knew the brand of.

Thanks goes out to Tracy for this mail day which I think you said was only one of two coming. That should be interesting. Lots of new additions to multiple PC's. Much appreciated!

Donruss, Donruss, Donruss

The next part of my Grady M mail day contained some shiny and some fun cards from Donruss.

Let's take a look.

Some shiny goodness from Optic basketball. This group includes Eric Gordon who I had huge hopes for and held onto all of his rookies of. Big mistake. That's one problem with prospecting.

More shiny cards. This time from Donruss and Donruss Threads.

More Optic shiny. This time some purple. This group includes Kemba Walker who I remember watching play in college on TV. I always thought he would be bigger than he is.

Sweet Wes Unseld pink. Gotta love the Bullets throwback uni

These blue parallels look awesome. Probably the most impressive parallel in the product from what I have seen. There are some great players in this group as well with Vince Carter, Trevor Ariza, Dwayne Wade (who I will always forget that he left Miami), and Ricky Rubio.

I have always liked Panini's Crusade product or even the inserts they used in Rookies and Stars. I always said it should be an individual product for football.

I also got my first look at Donruss baseball. At least some of the inserts. This is the way inserts should be. Numbered, colorful and collectible and not every pack. This is why I would want Panini to get part of the MLB license. They did a great job with Donruss at least with the inserts. We will dig deeper soon with that product.

 

And I love The San Diego Chicken add to the product.

 

Then came these nickname variations. This is what we will dig deeper into at some point.

 

Lots of Stanton. Parallels and Sp.

Like I said this isn't the end of the Donruss talk. This years product was up and down for me. Some positives and some negatives and I am sure you guys will agree with me when the post goes up.

REVIEW:2018 Finest Baseball

Finest has been one of my favorites since the 90's. Any product from that era that still exists is. Even though Finest has had many changes over the years from when I first started collecting it, I still want to go back and give it a go.

Let's take a look at 2018

In every hobby box of 2018 Topps Finest, there are 2 mini boxes. Each mini box comes with one autograph, 6 packs of cards with 5 cards in each pack. Boxes run around $110.

The base set no longer comes with the protective peel from the 90's I used to see which may lead to surface scratching, but still has the wacky type background designs. I like it.

The base set is 100 cards with veterans and

rookies. This was my top rookie find from the box.

The base set also takes an interesting turn. There are 25 Sp cards in the master set. Cards 101-125 fall 1:28 packs to make your set chase a tad tougher. I like the idea as it reminds me of my chase of 1997 Upper Deck base set with their short prints. At least there aren't any variations to look for. These ones are obvious finds just by their numbering.

With anything chromed, you will always find refractors.And I love me some shiny chrome!

Here were my regular refractor finds. Solid names in the mix.

Purple Refractor of some guy named Mike Trout. Possibly the hit of the box at 1:17 packs.

Other parallels not in my box include,

• Blue /150
• Green /99
• Gold /50
• Orange /25
• Red /5
• SuperFractor 1/1.

The inserts are chromed like the base. Most have refractors parallels of Gold /50, Red /5, and SuperFractor 1/1.

Some of plain designs like this Finest Firsts that fall 1:12 packs. Got a good one of those here,

And some look really cool like these Sitting Red that falls 1:6 packs. Found that Trout guy again.

And some look nice. Like these Corner Stones that fall 1:3 packs and makes it look like a gem in the background.

Each mini box comes with an on-card autograph. Both of my finds were rookies and Finest autographs.

Jack Flaherty

Greg Allen

 

Other hits that you can find but not in my box include,

• Finest Mystery Redemption (I think these should be done like the ones in the 90's where you peel back the black film to reveal player and card. Imagine having four players on the back of the card and having to peel back to reveal which autograph you got. Epic.)
• Finest Careers Die-Cut
• Finest Careers Die-Cut Autographs
• Finest Cornerstones Autographs
• Finest Firsts Autographs
• Finest Hour Autographs
• Sitting Red Autographs
• Finest Originals Buyback Autographs 

OVERALL: I have always been a fan of Finest. I like the designs, especially on those couple inserts, and the autographs being on card. The tough part is like it is with any products, every box you buy is a gamble. This one wouldn't have paid off for it's cost either.

Other than that, there are some incredible hits and big names to find in Finest including a Finest Careers set that focuses on Cal Ripken jr and has autographs.

Please 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 Fantasy Baseball contest! Follow Topps on all social media sites and check out their website HERE for cards and more!  

Season CARDings Part 2

Like I said yesterday, we will pick up where I left off. I will also start out with some more pictures from the storm.

It's a beautiful site from a distance but you step out and well, you freeze to death.

So let's warm up with something and kick this post back off with some Topps Chrome.

Regular refractors including Trea Turner and a Gary Sanchez for my Yanks PC.

Prism refractors with Bruce and Kershaw. I love the flow on these.

Pink Refractors. Betances for my Yankes PC, along with Rizzo, Puig and Abreu.

 

And to finish up the chrome, some of these throwback refractors. Really like how sharp these came out.

I think after this mail day and other 2017 chrome mail days I need to see what sets I may have or working towards. Even if I don't have any, I just need to gather the chrome together so I have it in place just in case.

Up next, Prizm, Prizms, this time for baseball.

 

And even More Prizm baseball. This time with some color.I really like the color ball parallel or whatever Panini may call it.

Topps Heritage refractors including 2 different Langorias.

Donruss inserts from The Elite Series to Ground Force to The Legends Series. I still think it's so weird not to see Adrian Peterson in a Vikes uniform. I find it's weird that they used the same design for all three sets. they should have done something different with these.

Some hockey inserts/parallels

I hadn't seen these 2017 Topps Fire parallels before but I totally dig em. Of course I do bleed blue for my sports teams so these ones attracted me first,

Then I saw these. The gold is so MIND BLOWING cool. Collecting both blue and gold as separates sets would look impressive in a binder.

 

Well, that's it for today. Still another round for tomorrow which includes the trade portion of the mail day. Stay tuned!