Panini Gives Country Music a Chance

When I heard that Panini was putting out a set devoted to country music I was intrigued, hoping for a checklist full of the artists I'd grown up listening to. When the checklist released it kind of fit the bill, but also mixed in an awful lot of newer artists I'd never heard of. It also features a lot of the Hootie and the Blowfish guy. I nearly bought a pack of the stuff when I went into the Local Card Shop to buy some other things but he had only bought a couple of boxes and been surprised by the demand for them, and they had sold out.

In browsing the eBay listings I found one card that interested me, an auto/relic combination featuring Joe Diffie. I decided that instead of trying my luck with unopened product, I would just try to chase that card as a representative of the set for my collection. With the Buy It Now it could be had for about the price of a pack ($28 at the LCS), but I went bargain hunting to see if I could grab one for under $20. I couldn't. In spite of the fact that there are over 200 copies of the base version of this card, copies seem to be pretty scarce. I presume it's because most of the print run is sitting on dealer/distributor shelves.

Like most plans, mine did not survive contact with the enemy. I bid on a handful of base versions and they all went higher than I wanted to pay. Then I saw this card, which is some version of the Silhouette Prime Material Signatures card, maybe the Retail Green parallel. I'm not sure, but that's the only one on the official Excel file with a print run of 5. The Prime cards are similar to the Prime cards you find in sports cards, replacing a plain-colored swatch with one containing a patch or embroidered bit.

As you can probably guess, I emerged from the auction as the winning bidder, paying a bit more for the card than I would have for a base card, but getting a much more limited parallel with a cooler memorabilia piece embedded in exchange. I'll take it. My card is # 4 / 5 in the print run.

Star Wars Masterwork Princess Leia Sketch by Karen Hallion

I like Star Wars a lot, and if I were pressed to choose a favorite character I'd probably go with Princess Leia. C-3PO and R2-D2 would be up there, and Jabba the Hutt is probably the character I quote the most, but Leia is my favorite. The problem with that is that pretty much everything Leia-related carries a premium price tag. I've been watching eBay auctions for Leia sketch cards from the recently-released Star Wars Masterwork set to see if I could land a good deal one that ended at a weird time or got posted with a (relatively) low Buy It Now price.

After a whole pile of misses, I finally landed this piece by artist Karen Hallion. It was a little pricey, but the Buy It Now price was between 50% and 65% of the ending auction prices on her two other Leia sketch cards from the set that have surfaced on eBay so far. I will take that any day of the week.

This is my second Leia sketch card, with the other one by artist Chris Henderson coming from the Star Wars Galaxy set. I haven't shown off all of my cards from the Star Wars Masterwork set yet, but with this sketch card I am probably about done with the product. I considered trying to put together the 25 short-printed base cards, but there just aren't many of them to go around and the prices keep going higher. I put in bids on a bunch of them from the same seller once, but the bids soon went way above my pain threshold and I was tapping out like Cat Zingano against Ronda Rousey the other day.

Pack of the Day 93: One Target Blaster Box of 2015 Heritage

I needed some razor cartridges and shampoo, so I went to Target specifically to get those things, and while I was there I just happened to wander by the card aisle. I knew that for this product I would just be buying a set from an online seller, but I had to get some of the new 2015 Topps Heritage in my hands to see what it looks like. I decided to grab an 8-pack blaster, although the store I went to also had a gravity-feed box and hanger packs. It looked like the local pack searcher had already gone through the loose packs, so I figured my best shot at unmolested cards was something that came in a sealed box. 

 I am not extremely familiar with most vintage Topps designs (my parents were 4 years old in 1966), but I like this design well enough. I really like that cap George Springer is wearing in this photo. I have an Astros cap that I wear sometimes, but it features the 2000-2012 logo that I don't really like all that much.

I was happy to pull a few Astros in this box, although Dexter Fowler was traded to the Cubs in January after playing one year for Houston. Nice to see Pat Neshek in his Houston garb, as he is a card collector himself and thus a bit of a hobbyist fan favorite.

Three short-prints came out of the box, including one Astro in the form of Jose Altuve. Miguel Cabrera and Josh Hamilton are my other SPs. I think I am still missing Cabrera's SP card from my 2014 set. I'll get it eventually. I didn't get any of the parallel inserts like Chrome or Refractors, and I also did not pull any of the rare action photo variations, trade variations, gum-stained back variations, or stuff like that. The odds on most of that stuff are pretty astronomical.

I guess the Target-exclusive cards for this year are a Nolan Ryan retrospective set of 15 cards. I got one of them. The New Age Performers set returns this year, with Chris Sale being the representative from these packs. It's an okay design, I suppose.

Then & Now also continues the theme of Old Guy / New Guy, with the familiar pairing of Sandy Koufax and Clayton Kershaw that has been featured on 95,000 OG/NG cards over the last couple of years. News Flashbacks was the last insert set that showed up in my 8 packs, with this card highlighting female pilot Sheila Scott, who broke a bunch of records for flying and became the first British woman to fly around the globe.

And that's about it as far as the highlights go. Heritage is a pretty formulaic product and this year's offering doesn't stray from what's gone before. I guess the gum-stained variation is a new thing, but with those only falling a few per case it's not something that most of us are going to run across all that often.

Pack of the Day 92: A Box of Stadium Club

I opened this box of Stadium Club so long ago that I don't even remember what was in it. I'll scroll down as a I type, and it will be like opening the box all over again. I hope I pulled something good!

So far the base cards are looking pretty good, with an Astro, both of last year's top Rookies, Tony Gwynn, an autograph-signing card, and a decent celebration shot.

I got a couple of horizontal Rainbow Foil parallels. One is the David Ortiz selfie shot with the President. The other is another card featuring someone touching Adrian Beltre on the head, which is something he famously does not like at all. That makes it extra funny.

The third Rainbow Foil is Tony Gwynn. Not too shabby. The Gold parallel in the box was Jason Heyward. I don't have much to say about it except that it's a decent photo.

I got a nice Justin Verlander Foilboard parallel, numbered # 04 / 25. These fell about one in four boxes, so they were pretty tough to get.

The Field Access inserts were one per mini-box, but I pulled an extra one because the Clayton Kershaw is a Rainbow Foil parallel. I don't really have a lot of Andrew McCutchen cards, but I consider him to be a borderline PC guy. I like that Nolan Ryan card quite a bit.

The Kershaw is numbered on the back, with this being copy # 62 / 99. These fell about 1 in every 8 boxes, so again this is a pretty tough card to pull.

The rest of the inserts were all base versions. The George Brett was a double for me, as I pulled that card in another box. Actually, going through my scans tells me that this might be the third one I pulled from a box. Those Beam Team inserts are pretty cool. I like the Triumvirate cards, with their little interlocking gimmick. The die-cut on those Future Stars cards makes them really annoying to line up with other cards on the scanner or carry in stacks with other cards. The same thing goes for the Legends and Triumvirate cards. I've pulled the Wil Myers card at least twice so far.

Hollands, Anderson, and Montero were the autographs I pulled in this box. I also pulled these exact autographs in the first box of Stadium Club I opened, along with the previous doubles I mentioned for the George Brett and Wil Myers inserts. Yuck. I guess this box was a bit of a dud outside of the Verlander and Kershaw inserts and a few PC cards.

Breaking it Down 21: Nachos Grande's 2015 Topps Series 1 Group Break

The character who runs the Nachos Grande blog recently held a group break for a case of 2015 Topps Series 1 and I participated in it, snagging a combo spot for the Athletics and Diamondbacks. He is currently trying to fill a group break for a case of 2015 Topps Heritage as well as some extra stuff to add to the potential value, and as of this writing there are still five open spots. Due to the fact that I have blown all of my money on other cards recently I am sitting this next one out, but he usually runs a good break. From a full case of cards I obviously got a ton of base cards, but I am not going to show them here. The first card I received is shown above, a special green ink hand-numbered autograph card from the Munnatawket custom tribute to Allen & Ginter minis. My copy is numbered # 13 / 20. 

My initial batch of inserts contains a nice Randy Johnson Free Agent 40 card, a set highlighting various significant free agents from the 40 years of baseball free agency. I collect Randy Johnson cards as one of my player collections, so this was a welcome addition to my card boxes. Paul Goldschmidt is the Diamondbacks' current big star, and he showed up in my shipment in the Archetypes insert set. The Geneva Conference card is from an insert set that pairs events from world history with events in baseball history. Because the historical moments aren't tied to specific teams, they were randomly assigned to break slots. Biz Markie is a hip-hop artist who came into relative prominence in the late 80's and has managed to parlay his couple of hits into a fairly long career on the fringes of pop culture.

And this is how my kids are likely to remember him:

I was lucky enough to get one of the hits of the break, with a Scott Sizemore autograph. While it is not an earth-shattering card, I can't complain about getting a hit. I also managed to get two of the Topps Buyback cards, for which Topps purchases perfectly good vintage cards and stamps them with a big foil 2015 stamp to insert them in packs. I guess selling a card to customers twice is a pretty good feat if you can manage it. I like the cards well enough, with all that green and gold. Those two Diamondbacks on the bottom row are Rainbow Foil parallels, which are this year's version of the Emerald and Red Hot Foil parallels from 2013 and 2014 respectively. Finally, I needed a sixth card to complete the scan, and I chose the Storm Davis card that was included to protect the outside end of one of the stacks of cards I received. Look at that mullet. It's pretty majestic, like seeing a bald eagle in the wild.

Also included in the package were a couple of these Babe Ruth's Call Your Shot Game code cards. You scratch off one of the foils squares, enter the code into the special game site, and see if you've won something. I chose to scratch off the Autograph boxes and entered my codes. One of the codes was a winner, netting me a random autograph from the Topps 'C' list once I agree to pay $5 in shipping and handling fees. The 'C' list includes pretty much every Major League player Topps has stickers for outside of the players on the 'A' list, which is made up of all of the stars and hot prospects in the game. I'll probably wind up paying my $5 before the game ends, just to see who I end up with.

I can't complain about a relatively cheap group break that nets me two autographs and a handful of inserts, parallels, and foil-stamped vintage cards. Thanks go out to Chris for running the break and putting in all the work to open, sort, pack, ship, and post about the cards for everyone to enjoy.

Click Here to View Cart 6: Randy Kawasaki

I received a small batch of cards from Japan recently, from the same seller who sent me my R.A. Dickey SEGA Card-Gen grail card. First up is the card that I just tacked on to the order because it was cool to me. It's a 2003 Kanebo Topps Series 1 card featuring Randy Johnson. It looks like the set was produced as part of some agreement with Topps, as there are Topps logos and MLB marks on the cards along with the Kanebo logo. Zippy Zappy over at Torren' Up Cards has a post from last year that goes into a bit more detail about the set. I nearly picked up a Jamie Moyer card from Series 2, but it would have put me over my threshold for the transaction.

The second card is a Munenori Kawasaki card from the Extra set of 2012 SEGA Card-Gen. I guess the EX cards were special exchange cards that you could get from playing the game, which may or may not have been encased originally? All I know is that it's hard to build a Kawasaki player collection because he apparently has a lot of fans and not a lot of cards, so you've got to grab what you can get. His stats aren't great, but the card does mention that he hustles on all plays. I like watching him in games, because he's usually doing something entertaining.

And here's another cool Kawasaki card. It's from the 2009 Konami Baseball Heroes World Baseball Classic Edition. Again, I'm going to defer to Zippy Zappy to explain the origins of this set. I am unfortunately not an expert on any of these Japanese card sets, but I do know that I love just about every Japanese trading card I see. I just wish I could read the backs.

That's it for this purchase. I was happy to find some Munenori Kawasaki cards for my small PC of him and add to another unique Randy Johnson card to that PC. I recently picked up quite a few Japanese wrestling cards, too, and I will have to post about them once I get them sorted out.

2014 Topps Chrome R.A. Dickey Red Refractor

I am pretty tired and I don't have it in me to do a bigger post, so today you get a filler card that's been in my post queue for so long that I don't remember anything about it. It was probably on eBay for cheap enough that I picked it up, because I didn't make any kind of real effort at a Topps rainbow for 2014, although I have been grabbing up Jon Singleton cards from 2014 Topps High Tek, which makes the previous statement kind of a lie. Dickey's card looked pretty good with that red jersey and probably would have made a good rainbow to build, but after trying to do too many rainbows in 2013 I couldn't put myself through that again for 2014.

Anyway, this Topps Chrome Red Refractor is a pretty nice card and is limited to 25 total copies, with this example being numbered # 18 / 25. The quote on the back is probably taken directly from his book, which is titled Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball. I started reading the book a long time ago, but life got in the way and I never finished it. Maybe when I get done with school I will be able to catch up on all the leisure reading I haven't been able to do for the past few years. I've been saving an awful lot of things in life for that mythical day when I am done with school.