Becketts, Big And Rich And Cards!

@APetrelak and myself have been making trades for awhile now. Most of the time, well, all of the time it's always football/baseball/basketball/other stuff for hockey. Which is a trade that always works out for me as I have been trying to dwindle down my hockey collection.

This time our trade mainly was football related but I did have a few other items included as well.

Alec had five new Becketts available so I said ,hey, why not and put those in our deal. I haven't had a new issue of any of the individual sports for years. Like years. My father is always calling me for book values so having these on hand will be great for that.

A few odds and ends from Upper Deck products and a Ohtani SCC card.

A few baseball and football cards.

AJ Green Phoenix Adrenaline Rush insert parallel.

Jaleel Scott rookie card. I always will add rookie cards.

Especially of studs like this. Now I need to find myself a Jackson autograph and have been trying already.

Sidney Jones auto.

Big And Rich signed autograph. Like I have said many times before, not a country music fan at all but anytime I can add a new signed piece to the non sport PC I will do so.

and the last card, which is what started this trade up, is this James Washington/Mason Rudolph auto numbered to 50. I am hoping Mason will take over for Ben when he steps away.

Another solid mail day from Alec and it was all wrapped in Christmas paper so it was like the present I never got. Thanks goes out to Alec for another great trade and I look forward to our next! I will be setting aside some hockey for you so hope to see the same with any football.

Nuttin But The Hits:2018 Leaf Draft Football Blaster Box

2017 was probably the least amount of football cards I have ever bought. I have so many rookie card gaps so if any of you have some extras kicking around especially of the top guys, I would be interested.

I didn't even have a single card at draft time!!! For a die hard football card collector, that wasn't easy!

This year will not be that way. At least for the draft. My wife picked me up a 2018 Leaf blaster to celebrate my million view mark.

Normally I am not much of a non licensed football fan, but, for the first products of the year I dig in some or try to.

 

In each box of 2018 Leaf draft blaster there are 20 packs with 5 cards per pack. So you will get a lot of cards for your $20. The problem I always have is them packing the autographs separately in clear plastic just like Sage. It leaves those 20 packs less desirable.

This year was a ton of inserts and parallels in a box. I don't even think I got a base set with so many. However, I didn't get any dupes either in 100 cards. That's something I always got with SAGE.

The base set design isn't actually bad. I kinda liked it with an open field photography look. I found all of the good rookies in my box

Including some gold parallels of some of them like this Baker Mayfield.

The inserts are not badly designed either. All around I was impressed with design. The annoying part was they made a gold parallel for each insert set as well. That's just way too much.

This was probably my favorite design of the inserts.

The autographs came packed in toploaders. I haven't seen that before.

I didn't expect to find a Sam Darnold or Josh Allen autograph and I hope you guys don't either when you bust these Sage or Leaf blasters. They don't put those guys in these boxes. It's usually the very low end guys and ones they have tons of. All  you can hope is that they are surprise stars. 

My first pull was this Fred Warner

Second is Jaleel Scott

 

I didn't know either player or heard of them. But, I am sure some college football fans have. I do like the Scott pull because he is an offensive player and those usually drive the market. Not that I am about selling or money when it comes to collecting but in my mind I have to tell myself it was a worth purchase now.

Overall, I got my very first taste of 2018 football and some rookies of each of the top guys. I also got some other guys mixed in as well. At least this year I should be prepared for the Giants draft and hope that I found one of their future stars in my box. And I will definitely will be watching it tonight. I am hoping they draft Barkley and if they do, that will be another whole big search I may need help from you guys with.