Father's Day, Pt. 2: Meh Springs Eternal

I ranted in a post the day before Father's Day about my failed bid to get some packs of Panini's 2016 Father's Day promotional set. For anyone who doesn't want to go back and read it (I honestly wouldn't recommend that you do), I made some assumptions and my LCS owner made some rather vague posts about his Father's Day event, and in the end I wound up not getting any 2016 Panini Father's Day packs. So I began to plot and scheme a way to get some of them online. My first plan was to buy a product from Panini's e-store, as they had an offer running where you could get a number of packs for buying certain products. Unfortunately, going that way meant I would probably need to buy a box of basketball product I didn't really want in order to get six Father's Day packs.

Then someone on the Blowout forums posted that eBay had a coupon up for $15 off a purchase of a little more than I would have to spend to get that box of cards with the six packs of Father's Day cards. Well, heck, I decided to buy a lot of six Father's Day packs from eBay and then pick up some other stuff I'd been looking at to make up the difference. I guess you could call it a reverse box, of sorts. In spite of my plan I kind of had that sinking feeling that this mania I've had about the Father's Day packs was destined to end in more disappointment. That's how these things usually go for me, but once I am committed to an action it is hard to dissuade me, no matter how dumb my plan may seem. The lot I got was six packs strong, with 5 thin packs and 1 thick pack. I'll just go through them pack by pack, with the thick pack going last. My hopes are that I will pull 1) some NASCAR content and hopefully 2) some decent numbered rookies, parallels, relics, or autographs.

That Andrew Wiggins card is from the base set, and the Dez Bryant card is from the Panini Collection insert. I don't know much about Wiggins and I hate the Dallas Cowboys in general and I think Dez Bryant is kind of a jerk.

Again, Russell Westbrook is a base card and J.J. Watt is from the Panini Collection set. The Dunk! code card was in there, too. I tried the Dunk! app for a while, but digital trading cards just don't hold my interest for long. This is a slightly better pack, but these are still cards I wouldn't seek out on my own. Russell Westbrook is an electric player and J.J. Watt is a pretty big star in his own right, both on and off the field. 

Same format with this pack, with a base card and a Panini Collection card. This time I got two of my least favorite players in the league. There is no denying their talent, but I just don't like these guys. They play for teams that give my Broncos a hard time, and their personalities rub me the wrong way. 

My fourth pack breaks the mold with two inserts, an Elements card of Zach LaVine and a Panini Collection insert of Cristiano Ronaldo. B-O-R-I-N-G. So far this break is crushing my spirits. I am feeling like I should have made the smart move and just bought the singles I wanted from this set on the secondary market. 

Pack five again features two inserts, a Panini Collection card of LeBron James and an Elements card of Teddy Bridgewater. LeBron is a pretty good pull, so I guess at the moment this it is the card of the break for me. That in itself is a pretty big indicator that this is not going well for me. I've still got the thick pack to go, and I have yet to pull any NASCAR, baseball, or parallel/hit cards.

I didn't get any NASCAR cards from my packs, but at least Paul Goldschmidt's base card showed up to keep this from being an all basketball and football break. The thick card in the pack was probably a little better than a Father's Day manu-patch, as it's a game-used towel relic card of Tyrod Taylor, featuring a piece of cloth towel used in Buffalo's Week 1 home matchup against the Colts in 2015. The Bills won that game 27 - 14 behind a decent effort by Taylor. He went 14 / 19 with 195 yards through the air, 1 touchdown pass, and 41 yards rushing. He's still locked in as the starter for this season, so at least this card features an NFL starting QB, and I didn't have a towel relic in my collection yet.

Overall, though, this was a pretty disappointing break for me. I had that gut feeling that this was a bad move all around, but I had to chase it to the inevitable ending. I'll probably do this whole thing again next year. I suppose now I need to go out and track down the NASCAR cards I want from this set. I probably won't chase the NASCAR parallels or manu-patches, but I will chase down the base cards.