The Grady Boxes: Box 5

A few times a year, blog reader and good friend Grady M (@gradyfishinsea), sends me a box full of goodies. He has been doing this for many years since we met on my Facebook page.

These boxes usually consist of my four New York teams, some player collections and so much shiny that I have no other choice but to smile.

I never know what is arriving and what surprises hide within until it arrives. But I do know that it will be fun.

So, when Grady sent me a Christmas box round of cards, I had a hard time waiting until Christmas to open it, but I did.

Inside of the big box it came in, were multiple empty blaster boxes full of treasure.

I thought to myself, how does one post so many cards on a blog without spamming it completely. After much thought, I sat down and decided I would show off some, yes some, of my favorites from each blaster box.

Let's take a peek of what was inside of this 2023 Topps Allen And Ginter blaster

I kept asking and begging people to trade me the Halloween parallels from this year's Topps Update, but nobody would.  Fortunately, I found some in my Grady box.

(looks like Rod Beck to me)

These are cool, but my favorite ones are the pumpkins, ghosts, cats, etc. If you have any of those from any player, I am interested in trading for them!!

More playing cards! Think I have five of them now for my set chase.

 

And two new Lamar Jacksons for that side PC. Always excited to add shiny ones.

Well, that does it for the final box in this series.

A big thanks goes out to Grady for his continued generosity to my collection.

The Grady Boxes: Box 3

A few times a year, blog reader and good friend Grady M (@gradyfishinsea), sends me a box full of goodies. He has been doing this for many years since we met on my Facebook page.

These boxes usually consist of my four New York teams, some player collections and so much shiny that I have no other choice but to smile.

I never know what is arriving and what surprises hide within until it arrives. But I do know that it will be fun.

So, when Grady sent me a Christmas box round of cards, I had a hard time waiting until Christmas to open it, but I did.

Inside of the big box it came in, were multiple empty blaster boxes full of treasure.

I thought to myself, how does one post so many cards on a blog without spamming it completely. After much thought, I sat down and decided I would show off some, yes some, of my favorites from each blaster box.

Let's take a peek of what was inside of this 2023 Topps Heritage blaster.

I don't know who Hernandez is or what this parallel is called, but it's super cool.

Well designed soccer card, I don't know the player, but like the look.

This year's MVP in my opinion, he is also a side PC. I like players who are fun to watch.

Two new Juniors!

 

I don't know what these are called, but I want to chase the set!! Definetely at the very least want the Griffey one! Have any? Drop me an email at sportcardcollectors@hotmail.com or comment below!

 

Donruss Elite had some beautiful parallels this year, but none more stunning than this blue one.

I didn't open any Big League, but it looks like it was a cool product. These Judges may be my favorite ones now.

Well, that does it for Box #3. This series is coming to an end soon, stay tuned for the next box!

Single Card Mail Day:2021 Prestige Heroes Lamar Jackson

A new segment I am kicking off on here is Single Card Mail Day. It's a pretty simple segment at that as the title states the obvious, it's one of those mail days that only has one card in it.

I am kicking off this segment with a beauty I received from Kerry from Cards On Cards blog as a part of his Free Stuff Friday giveaway.

I was late to the party on claiming any of the cards, but I did spy one I was surprised hadn't been claimed.

I really like these Heroes inserts from Prestige. It's got a comic book feel to them and this one featured one of my side PC guys.

 

For once, the back of the card looks almost as good as the front.

Thanks again to Kerry for this card and if you haven't checked out Cards On Cards yet, do so. Especially if you are a St.Louis Cardinals fan.

Thoughts on today's card welcomed in comments.

PACK WARS:EPISODE ONE

Welcome to the very first pack wars! This is a retail battle that can be between two of the same products or two different products. It will involve hanger packs, hanger boxes, blaster boxes and maybe even a mega box.

I will do my best to matchup the products evenly so it can make it a more fair battle. This will also involve battles between sports as well. Sports featured will be baseball, basketball and football.

Today is a battle of two products that usually come out early in the football card season.

So let's see what happens when we have them battle it out.

 VS 

In the battle today is a 2021 Chronicles Hanger Pack vs a 2020 Score Football Hanger Pack.

First up, let's bust open that Score.

 

Score comes with a lot of cards and splits up into four sections with base, parallels, inserts and rookies.

Base cards, I won't show them off unless there was a key player to be seen, but I did want to point out that Boyd photo.

For inserts, we have a Mahomes, Lamar Jackson and Josh Jacobs.

Then we top it off with a Waller and Barrett.

And finish it up with some 3D defenses.

The red parallels brought out a solid hit with a Burrow rookie red.

And finally the rookies bring us another Burrow but not much else.

Now onto the Chronicles pack,

Chronicles is literally just a stack of cards that had no parallels or inserts so it will be judged more by the players.

Parsons, Chase and Hubbard.

The next Tom Brady in Mac Jones?

Another Chubba

Devonta Smith leading this charge

And a nice way to end the pack in #1 pick Trevor Lawrence

There you have it.

Is the Red Burrow and Burrow variation rookie along with the big names in the inserts strong enough to take down Mac Jones and Trevor Lawrence?

Who wins this pack battle? Let me know in comments!

Gallery Of Players

Not only did Wes send all of those amazing cards you saw in the Summer Of Wes countdown, but there was tons of others that didn't even make the cut.

Some of those better ones are today in what I am calling my Gallery Of Players.

The players below are side PC guys I collect. My main guys are NY Giants obviously but these are some of the names you can find in my side PC's and Wes knew exactly what I would be looking for. Here is the full on gallery grouped by those players,

Keep in mind this was only the top or favorite ones from each group. There was other cards in each of these guys piles especially Favre.

Thoughts on any of the cards and players above appreciated in comments!