Cyber Week Breaks: Day 11 - Knockout Steps in Again, and Hulkamania Runs Wild

Once again, I have a break that needs a little something extra to make it worth posting about. I guess if I were a better writer, I could make a good post out of anything, but that's just not going to happen today. The packs that were scheduled for today were 8 packs of Topps Star Wars: Jedi Legacy and a box of 2016 Topps UFC High Impact. I am adding a pack of 2017 Topps UFC Knockout to the post, too, as well as a surprise item that appeared on my doorstep this morning.

Not much came out of the Jedi Legacy packs. I guess the highlights were these die-cut inserts that fit together to make a circle. I think there was a promotion when this product was released that allowed collectors to obtain a disc card that fit in the middle when the puzzle was complete.

These Magenta parallels aren't that rare, but there wasn't much else to go with. I think you get four of these per box.

The High Impact box had a Felice Herrig Blue parallel in it, a Julianna Pena Femme Fighters insert that I already have at least one copy of, and an autograph of Al Iaquinta that I also pulled a copy of on Day 7 of Cyber Week Breaks.

With those breaks out of the way, here are the hits from the pack of Knockout that I opened. First up is a Fight Mat Relic of Ronda Rousey. Her last couple of fights didn't end well, but she is still pretty much responsible for the rise of women's MMA into the limelight. I am not certain, but this might be the first Rousey hit I've ever pulled. This is the base version, and it is numbered # 16 / 99. The mat relic piece is supposedly from UFC 157, where the first UFC Women's bout was held. That fight involved Rousey and Liz Carmouche, with Rousey coming out on top.

The next hit is a Fearless Fighters Autograph Copper Ink parallel of Matt Hughes. These are pretty tough to come by, as the Copper Ink autographs only fall 1:77 packs, or about 1 in 20 boxes. This one is numbered # 08 / 10. This box of knockout has been pretty amazing so far. It will be fun to see what else comes out of this product for me. And now it's time for the bonus item!

This is a terrible cell phone picture, but I couldn't scan this thing and it came rolled up in a tube and won't lay flat for a photo. Hulk Hogan's official storefront, Hogan's Beach Shop, was clearing out some stuff and I grabbed this poster featuring his signature x2, once as Hulk Hogan and once as Hollywood Hogan. He also added some nice inscriptions to the poster, with my favorite being the '12x Champion Brother!' on the right. It also included a Certificate of Authenticity with a little story about Hulk's rise to fame. I've been thinking about buying an autographed tear-away shirt from the shop for a while now, but I couldn't pass up an opportunity to get two signatures on a poster for the price of one. I'm pretty happy with this piece.

Also, Hulk Hogan retweeted my Tweet about the poster, so that's pretty awesome.

2011 Leaf National Hulk Hogan Promo Card

Apparently there is a big WWE event this weekend. I am a bad wrestling fan, as I don't think I've ever seen a Wrestlemania event. One thing I have gotten into, though, is the WWE SuperCard app on my phone. It's a collectible card game in which you build a deck of wrestlers, train them up, and play your deck against other players' decks in order to gain better wrestlers. There are a couple of events that are open all the time as well as rotating community events with better cards to chase. It's a fun diversion, and the gameplay keeps me more engaged than traditional collecting apps like Bunt, Dunk, and Star Wars Card Trader.

I picked up this Hulk Hogan card from eBay recently. The Hulkster has has a pretty wild run in the media and in life recently, leading to the WWE pretty much writing him out of their history. I can't do that, because to me Hulk Hogan is professional wrestling. He may not be the greatest person outside of the ring, but his in-ring persona was everything that professional wrestling was supposed to be. I think the picture on this 2011 National Convention promo card is perfect, featuring Hogan wearing his 'Hulk Rules' bandanna, his iconic mustache, a dark tan, a gold chain, some Macho Man sunglasses, and a too-small shirt advertising his 24" biceps.

Junior Junkie's Best Page Challenge

 

The Junior Junkie recently posted a challenge to create the best binder page possible from your collection and share it with the world (or at least the sports card blog-reading world). Coming up with my page was pretty easy to come up with, but it was a little bit harder than I thought it would be to fill out all nine slots. I started thinking that I could probably do a complete page for many of my mini-collections, like sketch cards, Star Wars, wrestling, baseball, basketball, maybe football, and some of my player collections. There are some notable (to me) cards that didn't make the cut. Some of the cards that did make the cut aren't 100% secure in their spots. But if I tried to make a definitive best page it would get posted 15 years from now and no one would know what I was talking about when I linked back to The Junior Junkie's post from 2015. This is the best page from my collection that I could come up with after a couple days of thinking about it and about 35 minutes sorting through boxes to find cards. I also didn't scan them into a binder page because the relic cards wouldn't fit and I was nervous in general about putting these cards in and out of pages, sleeves, and top loaders. These are the best 9 cards in my collection, after all.

• I considered putting Hakeem Olajuwon's rookie card on the page, but I think his second-year 1987-88 Fleer card is probably more important to me. When I was a teenager and heavily into basketball card collecting, his 1986-87 Fleer Rookie card booked for between $100 and $200. It was unattainable. The local shop had his 1987-88 card in the display case for $30 + tax, and I eventually saved up enough money to buy it. After bringing it home I realized that it had soft corners and a light crease and probably wasn't worth a quarter of what I paid for it, but it was still a second-year Hakeem Olajuwon card and the centerpiece of my collection. Now you can get them for a buck or two all day long, and you can even get a PSA 9 copy for less than $20 shipped. But this card will always be special just because I saved up for so long and felt so much excitement leading up to the purchase of the card. I may or may not track down a 'better' copy some day.
• This Hakeem Olajuwon relic / auto comes from a set so high-end it gets delivered in a briefcase instead of a cardboard box, 2012-13 Panini Flawless. It is easily the most valuable Olajuwon card in my collection and also my only Olajuwon autograph. He actually signed these cards twice, once on the card and once on the relic swatch. I doubt this will be surpassed in the near future as the centerpiece of my Olajuwon collection.
• Card # 3 in my binder page is the only Superfractor in my collection. More importantly, it is the jewel in my Josh Reddick 2013 Topps Super Rainbow. The same photo was used for his cards across several different products in 2013, so I decided to build a multi-product rainbow of parallels. You can see the current rainbow in it's entirety here. I am still missing some cards, but I've got 38 different variations so far. Most of what I'm missing is 1 / 1 's, printing plates, and a few # / 5 and maybe some # / 10 cards. I overpaid for this card, but I 'needed' it.

• This was my first Carrie Fisher autograph, and it is still the best one I've got. It's a sticker autograph from the 2013 Topps Star Wars: Jedi Legacy set. I would love to get one of the on-card ones like the ones she signed for Masterwork or Chrome, but I don't have $250-350 just sitting around right now for that. If I were to add one of those to my collection they would bump this one from the page.
• The infamous C-3PO # 207 error card from 1977 Topps Star Wars was one of the borderline cards for this page, but I needed something with a bit of a laugh factor on my page. These aren't particularly rare, but they sell pretty consistently at a premium. If you haven't noticed it yet, the error is that C-3PO happens to be sporting an extra-long golden probe at his waistline. There are various stories that attempt to explain the origins of the error. Some say that a piece fell off the costume just as the photographer took the picture. Some assert that it was a trick of the light. Some even think a mischievous or vindictive Topps employee painted the wang onto the photo prior to sending the set to print. C-3PO's golden member caused an uproar and the error was corrected in later print runs. No matter how the error was caused, this card makes me laugh every time I see it and that propels it to a spot on the page. Other candidates for this spot were a 2013 Topps Star Wars: Jedi Legacy relic piece from Jabba the Hutt's Sail Barge and a Shield Bunker relic from 2015 Star Wars Masterwork.
• The final card on this row is a card that I sought out for a very long time before Zippy Zappy found a copy and directed me to the seller who had it. It's a Foil Rare card of R.A. Dickey from 2013 SEGA Card-Gen, a card set dispensed in Japan by an arcade game that used the cards as playing pieces. I had obtained quite a few SEGA Card-Gen cards, but this one was a bear to track down. For that reason it is probably my most-loved R.A. Dickey card and my most favorite SEGA Card-Gen card. That's good enough to put it on this page as a representative of both collections.

• Putting two NASCAR cards on this page seems a little like overkill, especially since I don't have any football cards on here and the other sports are a bit short, too. In the end I couldn't decide on a football or baseball card that would definitively bump either of these cards off the list, so I kept them both here. The first one is an auto / relic of Danica patrick from 2014 Press Pass Five Star. It's got a nice clean autograph and a big piece of firesuit with part of the GoDaddy logo on it. I'm thinking the relic could be part of the collar of the firesuit, but it may come from the sleeve or the chest or really just about anywhere, as there seem to be 7 or 8 different GoDaddy patches on her firesuits. That will change soon as GoDaddy dropped from her list of primary sponsors and got replaced by Nature's Bakery. I'll miss the bright green color scheme but it will at least be something different to collect as soon as someone picks up the NASCAR trading card license.
• The second card is nearly a Holy Grail of NASCAR for me. It's got sheet metal relic pieces from the cars arguably my four favorite drivers embedded in it. The reason I call it nearly a Holy Grail card is that there is an autograph version featuring signatures from all these drivers. That card would be an awesome addition to my collection, but I think the cheapest I've ever seen it on the market was over $800. The card has Dale Earnhardt Jr., Danica Patrick, Jeff Gordon, and Tony Stewart on it. That's some pretty good star power. This memorabilia version is a very good place holder against the day when I get that other card. This card comes from the 2010 Press Pass Showcase set. I actually have another version of this card, but this one made the cut because it's a parallel with a lower print run.
• The last card on the page is a nod to an iconic wrestling figure on an iconic card design, Hulk Hogan on a Precious Metal Gems card. This card was only issued to Upper Deck employees as a special incentive card and was limited to a print run of 125 copies. There were some other sports figures in the set, like Tiger Woods, Mike Tyson, and Michael Phelps, but the Hulkster was the one I wanted. I actually wound up buying a lot of four of these because it was much cheaper per unit than singles were at the time. I have since sold two of them, but haven't got around to selling the third one. I think I made my money back on the two sales, so there isn't a lot of pressure to get that one out the door. Recently one of the ones I'd sold popped up on eBay with a BGS 9.0 slab on it. I don't think the guy made any money off of it after accounting for grading fees, eBay fees, and shipping. The Hulkster's star has lost some shine over the last year or two, but he is the one guy who really represents the totality of professional wrestling during my youth. This Precious Metal Gems card is one of my favorite cards and is easily the centerpiece of my WWF/WWE collection. I thought about putting a Japanese wrestling card in this spot, but I don't have one single card that represents my collection as an extension of myself as well as this one does.

And that's it for my own best 9-card page of cards in my collection. There were a couple of notable snubs, a couple of gut calls, and plenty of nostalgia and fun as I sorted through my cards trying to pick the 'best' ones from my collection. In the end I think I am pretty comfortable with my choice. One big category of card that I left out was sketches. I have quite a few sketches and I have favorites among them, but I would have difficulty putting one of them above the others. I thought it would be better just to leave them out. I felt bad that some of my favorite players got excluded, like Gheorghe Muresan, Munenori Kawasaki, Jon Singleton, and Manute Bol, but I didn't have cards from them that could bump these other cards from the list. That was in large part due to some of the cards on my page filling roles in several categories, like R.A. Dickey's card being a key card in that player collection as well as representing SEGA Card-Gen on the page.

Click Here to View Cart 9: Hulk's Big Boot Drops on My Dave & Adam's Order

I didn't just buy unopened product in my recent Dave & Adam's order. I also bought one single card. Usually their single-card offerings don't appeal all that much to me, but this Hulk Hogan card popped up while I was filling my cart and I decided that I ought to have it in my collection. It's not the best Hulkster card in my collection, but it is pretty cool. It's just unfortunate that Upper Deck decided to reuse the same image on both cards.

I have to admit that I don't follow Upper Deck's products much anymore, so I didn't know what kind of product 2012 Upper Deck All-Time Greats Sports was or how it was distributed until I looked it up on Cardboard Connection. It looks like the card I have is a Silver Spectrum parallel of the base set. The print run is fairly limited, and my card is copy # 20 / 35.

Hulk Hogan is kind of a relic now, but he was a huge part of the pop culture background that I grew up in and there are more and more wrestlers from his days in the ring that aren't around anymore. It will be a shame when they are all gone, so I am going to keep appreciating guys like Hogan while they're still around. He has many flaws, but I think at heart he is a good guy and tries to make up for the dumb stuff he's done. In my opinion he truly loves all his fans and goes out of his way to do the right thing, even if it comes off as ham-fisted and contrived at times.

What eBay Hath Wrought 123: Hulk Hogan Peck & Snyder Throwback

I don't know much about Peck & Snyder, but the internet tells me they were an early sporting goods company that is credited with creating the first recognized set of baseball cards in the wayback times. So naturally someone decided to bring them back. I guess a full-on Peck & Snyder product will be released soon, but Leaf Trading Cards sent out a promotional set to dealers as a preview. There are 45 cards in the set, featuring stars from various areas of sport. They all appear to be unlicensed, so you're not going to see a lot of logos or actual team/organization names. So in this case Hulk Hogan's affiliation is merely the Wrestling Club of Georgia rather than the WWF/WWE or WCW or something. The rumor is that about 250 sets were produced.

I waffled back and forth on whether to order a set or just to cherry-pick the Hulk Hogan card. In the end I just decided to grab the Hulkster for my collection. The cards are a little bit longer lengthwise and a little bit thinner widthwise than a standard trading card. This supposedly mirrors the dimensions of the originals. The photos have a sepia filter applied to them, which I think is okay, but they have also been chipped and weathered to artificially age the photos. It's an okay idea, but in the execution of it I just find it a little annoying. I would rather have the clear photos with the sepia filter applied.

The back of the card is pretty plain, featuring some more made-up stuff about the Peck & Snyder Company, a mention of Leaf, and a logo dude in a tall hat. I imagine that when the actual set comes around there might be a little bio on the back or maybe variations of color or design as is the norm with the various tobacco throwbacks out there. As a promotional item this is a pretty cool set, but I don't know if I would go out and buy packs of the stuff unless there was something beyond the base set compelling enough to reel me in.

What eBay Hath Wrought 47: Hulkamania Runs Wild on Me

In 2013 Upper Deck made an employee-exclusive set of purple Precious Metal Gems cards featuring some stars from non-mainstream sports. The checklist includes Michael Phelps, Mike Tyson, Oscar de la Hoya, Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods, and Hulk Hogan. The one card I really wanted was the Hulk Hogan card, but especially when they first released the price was sky-high. They're numbered out of # / 125.

Well, the number of single copies on eBay pretty much dried up, but there was this lot of four copies on there for quite a while. I finally decided to go ahead and get it, with the plan to sell off three copies individually to make some of the money back. I haven't yet got around to that part of it yet, but I'll probably do it soon. In-hand they are very shiny and beautiful. I love this card. This lot is made up of copies # 043 / 125. # 084 / 125, # 102 / 125, and # 103 / 125. I need to find more Metal Universe cards. Something about the finish on the Metal sets just has that 'it' factor for me.