I made a trip to Target the other day to pick up some padded mailers for a couple of packages I've been meaning to send out. Since I was already there, I had to check out the card aisle to see what there was to see. The shelves were pretty well cleared out of any baseball that interested me, so I had a look at the other options available.
I finally settled on a 10-pack basketball repack box, largely because of the Excalibur pack that was visible in the window. I figured the upside of a basketball repack was that they couldn't spring any Triple Play on me, but I forgot about Panini Complete, the low-budget set that Panini makes to appeal to set collectors. I got four packs of the 2016-17 version in this repack.
It's still a better product than Triple Play, though. It's got a large base set, which means that you get cards of many NBA players that don't appear in the standard 100-card stars and rookies checklists that dominate the landscape. There are a couple of insert and parallel sets to chase, including a Silver and Gold parallel system that brings to mind the old Collector's Choice formula. The best base card I pulled was probably that Kevin Durant card in the upper left. I got a No Back parallel of Meyers Leonard, a couple of inserts, and four Silver parallels. I guess the Vince Carter is my favorite of the Silver cards I pulled.
The 2016-17 Donruss packs held the hit of the break, with that Holo Laser Orange parallel of Frank Kaminsky. The card is numbered # 11 / 25 and the shiny rays of foil look pretty neat. I'm not a Jazz fan, but I can appreciate how good Karl Malone and the Jazz were for such a long time. I'm still salty at them for beating the Rockets in 1997 and 1998.
The 2015-16 Donruss pack had an Anthony Davis insert and a Rudy Gobert base card. I know I just got done talking about how much I dislike the Jazz, but I like Gobert.
The most notable cards in the 2012-13 Panini NBA Hoops pack were coaches, with Gregg Popovich and a Glossy parallel of Scott Skiles. Vince Carter makes another appearance in the break, this time in a Mavericks uniform.
I am not a fan of Prizm, as it tends to be a wall of dull silver, but I got a couple of nice cards in the 2015-16 Panini Prizm pack, an All-Star card of current Rocket Chris Paul and a Point Men insert of Allen Iverson.
The 2015-16 Panini Excalibur pack wasn't all that exciting, but it had some good veteran cards, a Lakers rookie, and a Camo Crusade insert of Michael Carter-Williams. I especially like the picture of LaMarcus Aldridge in the camo Spurs uniform.
All told, this was a decent repack box. I could have done much worse for the money, and even the filler Panini Complete packs turned out okay.
Do autos ever come out of repacks? Congrats on some of the parallel cards.
ReplyDeleteMost repacks are just made up of old retail product, so you get an autograph about as often as you would from any other retail purchase. These just run a little cheaper per pack than the newer stuff.
DeleteIf you're ever interested in trading that Frank Kaminsky Holo Laser, I'd very much like to have the first crack at it.
ReplyDeleteI kind of like Kaminsky, so I'll probably be holding on to that one for a while. I did finally get a mailer sent your way today with some other stuff in it, so you should see it late this week or early next week.
DeletePanini Complete is pretty bland - but I like those Home/Away inserts. The Kaminsky shiny is about as good as it gets in a repack (unless you're incredibly lucky) and you pulled a Pop! Nice break overall.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like they improved Complete quite a bit over the first year. I actually kind of liked the packs I busted from this repack.
DeleteI really like Complete & would probably have picked up a lot more of it if it ever came to my local retail outlets after the first year. Also, sweet AI insert.
ReplyDeleteI can't recall seeing much Complete on the shelves locally, but I wasn't really looking for it, either. That Iverson card was pretty cool. Panini likes to put cards of retired players in just about every product. It's cool, but as Billy from Cardboard History frequently mentions, it comes at the expense of current players.
DeleteI forgot about complete as well. Was an ok product. I do like the look of the crusades Panini put out. They should honestly do a set of those.
ReplyDeleteI need to go grab some bubbles as well for shipping . Maybe I will do that tomorrow lol
Oh and I will need your address again so I can pass a few hinge along to ya!
DeleteI finally sent a reply to your e-mail. Sorry for the delay.
DeleteI like the look of 2016-17 Donruss basketball. From what I've seen it has some well-cropped action shots like that Harden and that Lakers guy.
ReplyDeleteI like Donruss. I just don't like it much for baseball, because the logos are missing.
Delete