Rockets from Sport Card Collectors

A while ago, Sport Card Collectors asked about a card I posted on my blog. I don't really like to trade, but I sent him some cards and he sent me some cards.

Most of the package centered around my favorite basketball team, the Houston Rockets. First up are some shiny parallels and inserts of Houston players, including three of my all-time favorite player, Hakeem Olajuwon. I don't collect basketball cards as much as I used to, so there are a lot of card designs here that are new to me.

There were a couple of UFC cards in the package, both from the 2017 Topps UFC Museum Collection product. On the left is a Copper parallel of Germaine de Randamie, and on the right is a Blue Sapphire parallel of Jose Aldo.

Last up are the hits. Shane Battier was one of my favorite Rockets while he was on the team. He was kind of the figurehead of Daryl Morey's analysis-heavy approach to team-building. Battier didn't put up huge conventional stats, but his positioning, shot selection, and cerebral approach to the game increased the team's win probability while he was on the floor. The Prestigious Pros relic from 2010-11 Panini Prestige is numbered # 121 / 499.

The Jason Terry die-cut autograph comes from 2014-15 Panini Donruss is numbered # 12 / 99. I don't know a lot about Terry, but he's been in the NBA for a long time and spent a couple years on the Rockets. He's also 3rd in all-time 3-pointers made, behind Ray Allen and Reggie Miller. I think maybe Steph Curry, Kyle Korver, and Klay Thompson have a chance at passing him if they play long enough, though.

The highlight of the package was this Apprentice Signatures autograph of Patrick Beverley from 2013-14 Panini Crusade. It is numbered # 05 / 10. I liked Beverley as a Rocket, although I thought at times he showboated a little too much. It wouldn't be a problem, but it felt like every so often he would have an unnecessary turnover or miss a shot because he was showing off. He's a good defender, though, and was overall a solid player for the team.

This was a pretty cool package from Sport Card Collectors. It was especially nice to add so many cards to my oft-neglected basketball collection. Thank you!

Basketball 10-Pack

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.

Seeking Redemption 22: A Long-Awaited Panini Mailday

Way back in December of 2014, I pulled a redemption card for a Rookie Signatures autograph of Kawhi Leonard from a box of 2012-13 Panini Basketball. I waited, and waited, and waited. Sometimes I tried to contact someone at Panini about it, but never heard anything back. Some time ago, the card popped up on Panini's list of cards that had been produced, and I saw some of them on eBay, but I never got mine.

Finally, I saw that some people were having success in reaching out to a Twitter account, @PaniniCSM, so I gave that a shot. Nothing. I sent another Tweet. Nothing. Finally, I sent a third Tweet, asking why I saw other people getting responses but no movement on my request. That time they got back to me, and within an hour I'd let them know that I would love to have the Leonard autograph, but if it needed replacement I would like to have something from the Houston Rockets. Pretty soon after that, I got a shipping notification. The package arrived after I left for Utah, so I asked my wife to take a picture of what they sent me.

That there is my first autograph from Houston superstar James Harden. It's a Game Changers autograph from 2013-14 Panini National Treasures Basketball. That's a pretty fancy card, and I am happy with the replacement.

My wife also took a picture of the serial number on the back. This is the base version of the card, numbered # 59 / 60. It took a little bit of doing, but eventually I got in touch with someone from Panini and wound up with a card I am satisfied with.

Kaboom!

It's pretty rare for an insert to command much attention these days, especially one without a serial number. It seems like you've got to have a relic swatch, an autograph, and a serial number before anyone will really get excited. There are some inserts that buck that trend, however, and command prices straight out of the insert-crazed 90's.

One that I've had my eye on for a while is the Kaboom! insert from Panini's basketball products. These have been released in a number of products over the years, and are nearly always a case hit or tougher to pull. The cartoonish illustrations and wild backgrounds seem to set something off in collectors, and the bidding on them is usually pretty heavy. My main goal was to get one of these inserts featuring a Houston Rockets player, which left me hunting for a copy featuring Dwight Howard or James Harden.

I eventually landed a James Harden Kaboom! from 2013-14 Panini Innovation. I didn't get a great deal on it, but I also didn't overpay, so I am pretty happy overall. This card features everything that makes the Kaboom inserts appealing to collectors. It was hard to pull, it's got a crazy colorful foil explosion in the background, there is the big KABOOM! banner, and Harden is displayed in all of his high-flying glory. It was really nice to be able to get one of these for my collection, after coveting one for so long.

I got a little more sorting done while I watched the UFC fights tonight. I am now approaching 3,000 cards sorted and entered into the Trading Card Database. So far things have been pretty easy, as I've had large blocks of cards from different sets to sort. Things will slow down as I get into bunches of unsorted cards from a variety of brands and sports.

Contested Shots 24: Bowl Game Pick'Em Winnings from Cards on Cards

I love participating in fantasy sports leagues and pick'em contests. I've nearly always in some kind of league. Right now I've got 4 fantasy baseball teams and I'm involved in 2 NASCAR leagues. It's just part of the fun of watching sports for me. The Cards on Cards blog runs quite a few contests each year for a variety of sports, including a college football bowl game pick 'em contest that draws quite a few entries each year. I enter most of the contests. Sometimes I do well, and sometimes I 'win' the last-place prize. This year I wound up winning a prize in the Cards on Cards Bowl Pick'em contest. I missed first place on points, but I got the most correct picks and that was enough for me to be announced as a winner. The Cards on Cards contests also tend to be pretty generous with the number of winners. You should probably give the blog a follow and enter some of them.

The first card out was this giant Nolan Ryan card from the 1980 Topps Superstar 5x7. This is a set I wasn't familiar with (it came out the year before I was born), so I had to do some research to figure out where it came from. It's a pretty cool piece of cardboard.

There were plenty of basketball cards among the stacks of team bags in the mailer, with a mix of new and old cards. Mostly I scanned newer cards, though. I like Dwight Howard, but it sure seems like he has a hard time being a team player. James Harden has flourished this year, with a new-look lineup based around his skills. Patrick Beverley has been a big part of the Rockets' success this year, and Sam Dekker has looked pretty good in the limited time he gets on the court. Dekker is a high-energy guy, but sometimes it seems like he is pushing too hard. I guess being a fringe bench guy would push anyone to try really hard, because you only get so many minutes to play your way into another contract.

The bulk of the package was tons and tons and tons of Houston Astros cards, taken from many different eras. I tried to scan at least one card from every set represented in the package, but I might have failed. At the very least, I tried to make sure most of the notable players got into a scan. 

That Carlos Correa in the upper right corner is a Heritage Chrome parallel, numbered # 001 / 999 (the first one in the print run!). I always forget that Miguel Tejada spent time as an Astro. I always think of him as an Oriole, even though he spent more time with the A's than the Orioles. I think it's because many of his better seasons were in Baltimore, and that would have been right when I was drafting him heavily in fantasy baseball leagues.

Some of the current team's core can be found along that top row up there, with some big names from various other eras scattered throughout the scan. A.J. Reed down at the bottom is part of the convoluted mess that the Astros have at first base. He is currently getting some seasoning down at AAA.

A lot of these cards are from the time when I was out of collecting (roughly 2000-2013), so many sets that might be familiar to other collectors are new and wonderful to me. I am always jealous of people who can look at a card design and remember what year it's from. I usually have to do a little work, unless it is a product I've seen a whole lot of cards from.

These cards were in top loaders, and represent the premium cards in the package (along with that serially-numbered Heritage Correa from a few scans ago). The George Springer card is another Heritage Chrome parallel, numbered # 360 / 999. The Hunter Pence comes from the 2007 Fleer Ultra set. It's hard to believe that all the major sports just have one licensed card producer these days. I'd rather have 30 products divided among several manufacturers than 30 products put out by one card maker. But the leagues don't seem to care how I feel. That Tracy McGrady card comes from a Panini Adrenalyn XL game, and it appears to be a fancy foil card of some kind. The Luis Scola card from 2008-09 Bowman Draft Picks & Stars is pretty rare, numbered # 30 / 50. For a while he was one of the Rockets' better players, but he also got a pretty late start in the NBA and was never going to be the guy to bring them to glory. He was a pretty solid contributor, though, based on my unreliable recollection.

This was quite a prize package. I am envious of bloggers who have their lives together enough to run leagues, host contests, make frequent trades, and post excellent content. I am barely able to keep up with my posting, and my trading/sorting/contest efforts could be saddled with labels like 'unfortunate' or 'sadly lacking.' Thanks for the prize package, Kerry, and especially thank you for running so many entertaining contests! I like participating in your leagues even when I don't win.

A Clear Case of Black Friday Excess

My big Black Friday purchase was an 8-box case of 2015-16 Panini Clear Vision basketball cards. Blowout had them on sale at a pretty big discount, and I thought it might be worth the gamble. I experienced buyer's remorse pretty much as soon as I completed the purchase, but at that point I was pretty much stuck with it. The price seemed pretty good.

Here are a couple sides of a box. The boxes are made of clear plastic, the kind of packaging material that will slice your finger if you handle it wrong. Each box has 20 cards in it, and you are promised two rookie cards per box, two parallels, and one insert. Outside of that I don't think there were many other guarantees.

Here's what a pack looks like. Pretty standard shiny fare. Each box has five of these, with four cards each. In reality, a few of my packs had an extra card in them, so I wound up with three cards more than expected out of 8 boxes.

The cards are made of acetate and cardboard in layers. The player silhouette and that grey area in the center are a layer of cardboard that's been glued to the acetate background. Quality control was an issue with these cards, as most of the cards had gouges and scrapes on the plastic, and some had glue residue on them. Kind of disappointing, really.

Here are some more of the base cards. In all I got 93/141 (65.96%) of a base set, with 34 doubles, 11 triples, and 4 quadruples. I thought about posting about this break box by box, but I don't think that would have been very interesting.

There are a couple of subsets in the base set. Frank Kaminsky and Kristaps Porzingis are examples from the Rookie Card subset. They are distinguished by the RC logo and a different background. The other subset is called Rookie Revision and takes a look at what some star players' rookie cards might have looked like in this design. In the case of Rookie Revision, the cardboard section runs north-south instead of east-west like on the base cards.

These Blue parallels are the most common parallels. I got eight of them in this break. None of these first four guys are huge names. I saw Kenneth Faried play during the Jazz - Nuggets game I went to earlier this month. He struck me as kind of a cheap player. I saw at least one egregious flop from him. Maybe it was just a one-game sample and my assessment was off, but it seemed like he was pretty well-practiced in taking little cheap shots at guys, tripping people, and flopping when he could get away with it.

This group is better than the first group. The Blue parallels are all numbered # / 149. I guess my favorite card out of my Blue parallels is the Jason Kidd Rookie Revision.

I pulled four Red parallels from the base set. These are numbered out of # / 99, and that Grant Hill is easily my favorite of the bunch. There is plenty of star power here, with Russell Westbrook churning out triple-doubles seemingly at-will this season. I've never liked Pau Gasol.

I also got one Purple parallel, which is a Christmas card with the serial number # 12 / 25. Unfortunately it pictures DeMarcus Cousins, who has been in the news lately mostly for things like a profanity-laced tirade against a reporter and for being involved in a nightclub fight where he and Matt Barnes are accused of doing things like choking a woman and stomping on a guy who was knocked to the ground. Classy stuff. They are innocent until proven guilty, I guess, but this isn't the first time that these players have been involved in this kind of story.

I got two cards from the Standouts insert set, a base insert of LeBron James and a Red parallel of Kevin Garnett. The Garnett is numbered # 30 / 99. These are all right. I guess my one complaint is that the inserts look like just another subset of the base set. There isn't really anything that sets them apart.

I pulled four cards from the Visionaries insert, with a base card of Clyde Drexler, Blue parallels of Gary Payton and Karl Malone, and a Gold parallel of David Robinson. This is probably my favorite group from the break, as it features the players who were stars during the peak of my NBA fandom. The Payton and Malone cards are numbered # / 149, and The Admiral is numbered # 10 /10. The David Robinson is probably my favorite card of the break.

I beat the odds a little bit on the autograph front. I think autographs are supposed to average one per 8-box case, so I got double the expected number. That probably means that someone out there busted 8 boxes and didn't get anything. Both cards are from the Clear Vision Signatures set, and feature (partially-obscured) autographs on a layer of acetate embedded in a thick cardboard sandwich. The D'Angelo Russell card is numbered # 68 /94 and Marcus Smart is numbered # 007 / 117. The Russell card is actually a pretty strong seller, so I should really put it up on eBay real fast and get back half of what I paid for this case.

My impressions from this break were that even at about $21.75 per box, this product feels like a bit of a letdown. I can't even imagine busting this stuff at full MSRP. Panini's online store has this at $75/box, and that's ridiculous for a box that usually turns out to be something like 15 base cards, two rookies, a parallel # / 149, a parallel # / 99, an insert that averages about # / 149, with an outside shot at an autograph replacing your insert card.

Clear Vision seems to me like someone took Topps High Tek and removed the variety, parallels, and hits that make that product fun, then tried to sell what was left at the same price. The damaged cards throughout the case made it even worse. It was exciting to have a whole case of cards to bust open, but in the future I would probably choose a different product.

I am glad that I pulled the Gold David Robinson parallel and the D'Angelo Russell autograph, because without those two cards this case would have been miserable. Those two cards really made the break. I think the three extra cards in the case came from the packs with the autographs and the David Robinson pack, so I guess you can determine packs with what you would call hits will have an extra card.

At the Trade Deadline 32: Mystery Solved - The Case of the Unremembered PWE

The Astros couldn't withstand the Royals in Game 5 and they've been eliminated from the 2015 playoffs. They did pretty well for a team that wasn't really expected to arrive for another couple years, and they gained some valuable playoff experience to help them prepare for next time. They even led Game 5 for a couple of innings, but even the 2 runs they managed seemed like a lucky coincidence after Gattis got on base on a lucky single and Valbuena hit Cueto's one mistake over the fence. Especially after the Royals went ahead it seemed like the Houston batters lost their composure and came up hacking. Cueto was dealing, too, but Houston's bats weren't doing anything to help themselves. Hopefully Houston can keep most of the roster together this off-season and add a couple good pieces for next year's run.

Now I have to join fans of the other 25 currently-eliminated teams in either ignoring baseball until Spring or choosing a secondary rooting interest for the LCS round. I am currently leaning toward Toronto. I'd like to see R.A. Dickey win a championship, and I like a lot of the other players on the roster. I even liked Jose Bautista's bat flip. The MLB could use some WWE-style swagger in small doses, and if Sam Dyson doesn't like that kind of emotional display he ought not to throw pitches that get launched into orbit during an emotional elimination game.

I found this scan in my folder, and I couldn't for the life of me remember where it was from. I think I have solved the mystery, though, as digging through the piles on my desk unearthed an empty envelope from Sportscards from the Dollar Store. Putting 2 and 2 together, I believe these cards came from that envelope. The baseball cards are mostly from the Topps Archives set, which is one of my favorite products but has been priced out of my league by various celebrity autographs. I still like the idea of it, though. There were also several Houston Rockets cards, including these shiny Prestige cards of James Harden and Terrence Jones.

That Corey Brewer card is from the 2014-15 Panini Donruss set, which I posted about just a few days ago. I believe Jordie Benn was included in this mailing because of his deluxe-sized beard. Fernando Rodney and Robinson Cano close things out. Cano had kind of a rough year with 'only' 3.4 WAR, which he blamed on adjusting to a stomach ailment. Rodney kind of had a rough year because he's Fernando Rodney. He's on the Cubs' playoff roster, though, so that counts for something. He threw the ball pretty well for them after he wore out his welcome with the Mariners and got traded. I wonder if they'll actually let him pitch during their run? edit: It turns out they did let him pitch, and he even did some Fernando Rodney stuff!

Thanks for the cards, buckstorecards! Sorry your envelope and the related scans got buried for a while!

Pack of the Day 109: 2014-15 Panini Donruss Basketball Box Break

I've finally reached the final post about my Dave & Adam's Card World order, with a box of 2014-15 Donruss Basketball from Panini. This product has a ton of inserts and parallels, so this will be a fairly long post, one of the reasons I've held it for last.

The base cards feature a similar design to the baseball set, with the little baseballs in the colored stripe exchanged for basketballs. I'd rate the photography as pretty good especially as you can actually see some of the action surrounding the players, something you lose out on in the many sets that feature the player cut out and placed on a background. There is a Rated Rookie subset, which I believe is short-printed, although not horribly so.

These parallels are called Swirlorama, apparently. The base set and most of the inserts have Swirlorama parallels. There were a fair number of Houston Rockets in the box, so that was a bonus for me. There are a lot of players who I don't really recognize or whose names are familiar to me but I couldn't tell you much else about them. The NBA is mostly relegated to various cable / satellite channels, so I don't ever watch games. I have to watch the box scores and the occasional highlight video to get my fix.

Most (all?) of the parallels outside of the Swirlorama cards are serially-numbered. With the amount of stuff in this set, the print run on Donruss must have been about 65 million cases. Up top are a couple of Stat Line parallels, which are numbered based on some statistic the player has put up in their career. The Purple Press Proofs down on the bottom are all numbered out of # / 199, and there are a few other tiers of Press Proof available. Many of the insert sets also have Press Proof parallels.

The Rookies is an insert focused (duh!) on first-year players. I don't think any of these guys are big names. In my limited exposure to basketball I usually pick up on the bigger names, and these guys aren't them.

The Production Line insert set features players who excel at Scoring, Rebounds, and Assists. All of my cards in this box came from the Scoring subset. Up top are the regular inserts and along the bottom are a Swirlorama of Kevin Durant and a Press Proof of DeMarcus Cousins. The Cousins Press Proof is a Blue Press Proof, which is limited to 99 copies.

Court Kings is an insert featuring various star players. It's got a textured face and filters applied to the photos. It seems like James Harden popped up in just about every group of inserts I pulled from this box. He is the #1 player on the Rockets and arguably in the league, but I don't know if he's my favorite Rocket. I think I would be hard-pressed to choose a favorite player on the team right now. It might be Dwight Howard.

Finally we get into some players that I know and like. Clyde Drexler is a favorite. With his receding hairline and mustache he always looked like someone's uncle who just happened to be a ball player on the side. I guess you don't have to look a certain way (or even bathe) to be a ball player, but I always thought Clyde looked a bit older than he should to be flying so high. Kiki Vandeweghe's name always stood out to me when I would see his cards as a kid. And it was nice to snag a Hakeem Olajuwon Blue Press Proof from the box, as I always like to grab cards for my Dream PC when I can.

Elite is by far the biggest insert in the product. I just picked a handful of the many cards from this set that came out of the box. Robinson and Olajuwon will probably always stand out in my mind when I think of the NBA, as they had some titanic matchups while I was at the peak of my fandom. I guess Patrick Ewing was also a rival to Olajuwon and had a more compelling narrative with the NCAA Championship going to Ewing and the NBA Finals going to Olajuwon, but I liked David Robinson more. The Elite Status Die-Cut parallels are have varying print runs, with the Jonas Valanciunas card I pulled being numbered # 48 / 83. 

The Elite Dominators set seems to be numbered awfully high for a rare pull with a big checklist. There are 50 cards in the list and there are 999 copies of each one. I pulled Derrick Rose, who is injured yet again. It's not his leg this time, though, so that's a change. He just seems to be snake-bitten when it comes to injuries.

There are a fair number of hits in the product for the price point, although for the most part they aren't super exciting. I got a couple of PWS (Plain White Swatches) of Derrick Favors and Carl Landry. Carl Landry has had a pretty decent career after breaking out with Houston over his first few years. He hasn't been a superstar or anything, but he has been serviceable. Derrick Favors was the third overall pick in the 2010 draft and has emerged as one of the statistical leaders of the Utah Jazz.

The final hit of the box is a pretty decent one, especially at the price point of this product. It's a Signature Stars autograph card of Elfrid Payton, the 10th overall pick in the 2014 draft. Although his averages from last season weren't outstanding, he did put up some very good games including some triple doubles. This autographed card is numbered # 07 / 40.

Donruss is a fun break because there are so many inserts and parallels that come out of the box. There isn't much in the way of big hit potential, but that keeps the box prices down. I need to collate what I've got so far to find out how close I am to a complete base set. It would be fun to chase a mini-master set with all the base cards and easy inserts, but I don't know if I would want to focus on that at the expense of other collecting goals.

It looks like the Cubs have advanced in the NL Wild Card game with bit of drama and a bench-clearing beaning of their star pitcher after he hit a couple of Pirates. Tensions run high in the playoffs. While I hope they make a deep run and win it all, I figure the Astros will fall sooner rather than later. I'll probably stick to rooting for the AL for a while whenever that happens. I'll probably be pulling for the Blue Jays if / when the Astros are eliminated. If the Astros and Blue Jays get knocked out and the Cubs are still in it I will probably switch sides and pull for the Cubs, since in that scenario the other playoff teams would probably be the Rangers, Royals, and Dodgers. Yuck! I like individual players on each of those teams, but various rules of playoff fandom rule them all out. I don't really have anything against the Cubs, so they win by default. If it becomes a Rangers, Royals, Dodgers, Cardinals playoff then I will just turn the whole thing off and wait for next year.