FANdom Card Of The Day: 2012 Topps Strata Rookie Jerseys Green Patch Ronnie Hillman

2012 Topps Strata Rookie Jerseys Green Patch #RRRH Ronnie Hillman 58/65

Thanks to Jammin JDcards for providing us with the FANdom Card Of The Day for your viewing pleasure!

Upper Deck Super Bowl Contest

About a week before the Super Bowl Upper Deck had announced they were having a Super contest and boy did they not disappoint. With Sp Authentic coming out and the Super Bowl upon us and Valentines Day, they put the combination of the three and came up with the following contest.

You must show your LOVE for Sp Authentic and football in two sentences or less in order to win an Sp Authentic autograph patch rookie card of both Joe Flacco and Colin Kaepernick. Upon hearing this news, we knew we had to show our love for the product since it is a favorite year in and year out. And the fact that both of these QB's were in the Super Bowl and had hot hands who would not want to own these terrific red hot cards??!!

Well, We took some time, actually a few hours, and got all of my Sp Authentic cards out and put together a contest piece hoping we would win these really top notch auto patch rookies. After a few days of nervously counting down and waiting and wondering... BOOM! We won! We couldn't believe it! We are still in disbelief!

The contest was fun and definitely was worth it. Thanks again must go out to Upper Deck and Chris Carlin for putting on a great contest and giving collectors a chance to win great prizes like these.

Let us know your thoughts in comments!

Reuben Randle PC pickups

I don't usually put a focus on a certain player because usually what I have is called an open PC. Meaning I don't collect one thing or another. I just collect whatever falls into my hands. But after getting a small eBay gift card for Christmas I thought to myself...is it time to dig back into collecting a player like I used to in my earlier collecting years? If you don't know by now, I hugely collected Ken Griffey Jr and even made it into Super Collectors portion of Beckett Baseball a few years ago. But I gave up on Griffey after he got injured and I lost out on values and have just collected everything. My fear would be investing into a player and losing out in the long run. Thats why I like an open PC, you always have everything. So some will jump, some will fall but you will always win when it comes to values.

However, I did sit down thinking to myself, boy I really think it would be fun to maybe find a player to collect and maybe give my collection another project (not that it needs one). And since I collect mainly football and my love of Giants I put the best of two together. However my rules were, only a young rookie offensive player this year or last and they had to be reasonably priced because I didn't know how long I would do this for and didn't want to invest into a guy too much.

Than I thought of one. I at first wanted to do David Wilson who I think will be the Giants starting running back next season, but prices are way too high. Then I thought to myself...what about the other young talented Giants rookie...yes! Thats it. I will start to collect Reuben Randle!

Here is my $20...thats right...$20 pickup from eBay to start off my collection:

Hard to see but the Chrome is an auto. The Strata is numbered to 99

I would say for $20 I got a great deal. The card below this I got for $7 alone!

As I continue to pick up more Randles I will do more updates right here on the blog. That way you guys can keep track of me to make sure I am adding to it and this wasn't just it. Like I said, I don't know how long my Randle PC will run for, but for now I can say I am collecting him. However, I am keeping my main emphasis on my open PC. This will just be a side burner project for now. But you never know.

Thanks for viewing and your thoughts are always welcomed! And if you have a PC you would like to share with us, please email us to sportcardcollectors@hotmail.com and give us a small writeup and pictures with it. You yourself can also pose with it.

FANdom Card Of The Day: Torrey Smith Timeless Treasures Recruits Patch

This guy has been in beast mode since the Ravens played my Giants. He is Torring up the field. Watch for him to attempt to do that in the Super Bowl.


This card was sent in by a reader of the blog.

REVIEW: 2012 Panini Gridiron Football

First off, I would like to say thanks to the WONDERFUL people at Panini America for providing us with this box to review. Here are many places you can find Panini America: official site, blog, Twitter, and Facebook.

We are going to start a new review process starting with this product. Just the wanting to showcase the cards more in-depth is the aim here. Let us know your thoughts on our new set up for reviews.

Box Design

Box Break Down:

• 18 Packs Per Box, 8 Cards Per Pack
• (4) Autograph or Memorabilia Cards Per Box!
• Boxes Run around $110

Find one of these per pack with codes you enter for a shot to win a trip to the Pro Football Hall Of Fame!!

Base Card Front

Base Card Back

More very photographic base cards

Base Rookie Card

Back of a Base Rookie Card

BASE CARDS: The base cards in Gridiron are spectacular. The photos are stunning and make you feel like you are apart of the action. Some even make you remember that play or special moment. With little border (border consists of a players name in silver and with a team colored background) these base cards really are all about telling a story. The rookie cards are found one per pack. The one thing I have against the base cards is the black on the back. It leads to easy noticed dings. And in our box anyways, we couldn't get a base set put together.

This is how the base set breaks down:

200 Commons
100 Rookies
And if you want to put together a master set you will also need the 35 Gridiron Gems Autographs.

Rookie X parallel

Back of the parallel numbered to 100

X parallel numbered to 250

Gold X parallel numbered to 100

4 other insert sets. The bottom Air Command is the Gold Parallel numbered to 100.

INSERTS: The designs for the inserts are not bad and most seem to have numbered parallels of. The one complaint would be the X parallels. You get three per box on average, {(3) Silver X's, (2) Crash Course, (2) Arms Race, (2) Aerial Assault, and (2) Monday Night Heroes per Box} but you can't honestly tell the difference between them and a base card without feeling the card. Yes..there is a indented X in the card. I could only tell when going through the cards to sort them something felt different about one of them and at first I thought it was a printer error. But I turned the card over to find out it was numbered and after further investigation finding it was a silver X parallel. Just look at the Ray Lewis and Troy P and tell me if you can tell?

 

AUTOGRAPHS:With at least 2 per box on average, you get a nice variety. I seem to be stalked by Bengals DT Devon Still as that is my third auto of his this year. The autograph design is the rookie one but with a red color X in the back behind the player. However..I really loved the Gridiron Gems rookie autos. Though my player may never step foot on the playing field, any card that has an oversized jersey swatch that is signed and that you can pull in and out (indent to pull it out at the top of card) is alright with me.

 

JERSEY/PATCH CARDS: This box landed this sick, sick patch.These prime pieces are numbered to 49.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: This product provides 1. great base cards to collect, 2. at least two autographs but you would have to assume most have 3 which gives you less of the game jersey and player worn jersey experience and 3. a deep checklist of auto's. Other than the X parallel there wasn't too many negatives about this product. The box seemed well worth the price. And you never know what kind of Gridiron Gem you could find.

RATINGS:  Bloggers Note: Our ratings are based specifically on the blaster, box or packs we opened and do not express what the overall product could bring. Ratings based on a 1-5. 1 Being the lowest and 5 being the highest.
                Packaging: 5
                Base Design: 5
                Insert Design: 3
                Memorablila/Autographs: 4
                Blaster, Hobby Box, or Pack Value: 4

REVIEW: PANINI CERTIFIED FOOTBALL 2012

First off, I would like to say thanks to the WONDERFUL people at Panini America for providing us with this box to review. Here are many places you can find Panini America: official site, blog, Twitter, and Facebook.

We are going to start a new review process starting with this product. Just wanting to showcase the cards more in-depth is the aim here. Let us know your thoughts on our new set up for reviews.

Box Break Down:

• 10 Packs Per Box, 5 Cards Per Pack
• (4) Autographs or Memorabilia Cards Per Box
• Boxes Run around $100 

Boxes should also come with three Mirror parallels, one Immortal, one New Generation Rookie Card and one additional insert or parallel. The 350-card Certified base set includes 150 current stars, 50 Immortals, 50 Immortals Materials, 65 New Generation RCs and 35 Freshman Fabric autograph memorabilia RCs numbered to 499 or less.

Base Cards

Base Card

Back of base card

Rookies (New Generation) and Legends (Immortals) both are numbered

BASE CARDS: The base cards make sure that I will no longer need a mirror to do my hair in front of. They are as silver as can be. And very reflective. The team names have a unique cursive writing to them. You will be unable though to put together a base set. With only 50 cards in a box. However, it would be fun to and with the Rookies and Legends being numbered it would also make for a fun chase.

Mirror Reds

Back of Mirror reds numbered to 250

Mirror Blue

Back of Mirror Blue

INSERTS: If you haven't been reading this blog...that means you don't know my love for shiny things. I have always been a huge fan of the Mirror parallels and now they improved upon them from previous years going back to the rainbow look roots. Great job Panini.

AUTOGRAPHS: The autographs found in our box were both mirror autographs. The blue Hilton is numbered to 49. Most boxes we believe will land you at least one Freshman Fabric auto/jersey rookie card. But we can't say that for certain. But we love the design and reflectiveness that stand the autographs out.

JERSEY/PATCH CARDS: Once again the base of certified is to make everything silver and reflective which is always been its roots and it works very well with this product. We got two nice rookie jersey cards including a incredible prime patch of Jeffery that is numbered to 49.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: For around $100 I would be foolish not to tell you to give this product a try. 4 hits, 2 at least autos, a base card set like no other, plus like we noted you won't need a mirror anymore, Mirror parallels that glisten in your eyes,  and some chances to land some prime materials like we did we would kick ourselves not to recommend this product. Year in and year out Certified continues to be a rookie laden beautiful product.

RATINGS:  Bloggers Note: Our ratings are based specifically on the blaster, box or packs we opened and do not express what the overall product could bring. Ratings based on a 1-5. 1 Being the lowest and 5 being the highest.
                Packaging: 4
                Base Design: 4
                Insert Design: 4
                Memorablila/Autographs: 4
                Blaster, Hobby Box, or Pack Value: 4