Card show pickups - shiny Panini

Off a seller, these [dollar] cards are ones I might have left in his box back in January, but might have had another chance to flag down when I saw the person again - I'm not on that unlicensed baseball kick outright, but a serial #'d parallel and/or a shiny parallel might give my loose card pile [I'm building] a breath of fresh air as probable binder material [for a star like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. or a recently retired great like Yadier Molina].

I think the Bryan Reynolds is my favorite as it looked pretty special on first glance - even though I found a different version of the parallel [probably serial #'d to a lower amount] I had no interest in making a keeper for $5.

I don't actively collect Reynolds, but I can imagine him being a higher profile star once he moves on from the Pittsburgh [Pirates] - with his contract status kind of up in the air [where he wants to be paid], maybe a non-MLB licensed card is more of an ideal find [where some guys end up mercenaries].

Five for $5 from a bitter beer face seller

Off a card show trip, I don't know what I was thinking but I had to go back to a random table I stopped earlier and look for a 2020 Donruss Retro 2000 Football Tom Brady #R2K-TB - I’d also seen the card in the $0.50 boxes from the previous post, but maybe that copy had a soft corner I couldn’t live with.

One of the guys out of the seller duo at the table seemed like he was a little off where he seemed like a miserable, glum person - where maybe he didn't want to get out of bed or someone ran over his dog.

I think the guy at the table was the same guy that told me this at show date in late June - maybe it was a nothing remark, but maybe in my head I'm thinking this guy's tone was a little passive aggressive for no reason.

"[Chief], there are lots of good cards in there," the guy sitting at the table said. "You just gotta dig, the cards are not going to pop out in front of your face."

I eventually found the said Brady and spent $4 more to pick up some other dollar cards - including a 2022 Panini Father's Day Bryce Harper #28, the only baseball card I was able to fish out of a two-row shoebox.

2020 Panini Select Concourse Brady #1

2021 Panini Mosaic Tom Brady #135

2020-21 Panini Select Concourse Luka Doncic #15

As far as the Panini Donruss Brady, I remember the 2000 Donruss design [and a 1999 Donruss design] used as ‘never has been throwback’ inserts in 2001 Donruss baseball - where it was the first Donruss product that came out after Donruss Leaf Playoff went bankrupt in 1998.

Maybe after time things start to look old school and I was more nostalgic about the design - I might have thought it was only created to see what cards from a 2000 Donruss [and 1999 Donruss] baseball set would look like, but they were were actually used in the Donruss football sets for those years, which DLP had the licenses to make.

Looking things up, Brady does have a harder to pull, short printed [serial #'d] rookie from the 2000 Donruss football set - if there was one 'stud' quarterback from Michigan I was thinking about 25 years ago, it was definitely Drew Henson.

COMC - modern Hall of Fame cards

Inspired by a Web site or two and hardly an original idea, I'm trying to put together a Hall of Fame collection - featuring at least one card [if available] of a Hall of Fame inductee [players, umpires, executives, etc] as a loose card project to work on for fun.

I picked up 11 retro cards of Hall of Famers to give my HOF collection a small boost [I'm up to about 140 different subjects] - I went on a little 'sampler' run, picking up at least two of the same type of insert / parallel from Panini releases from the past several years.

The wood motifs on the 2013 Panini Cooperstown Collection Cooperstown Lumberjacks inserts caught my eye - though modern, shiny UV cards featuring long deceased old-timers are kind of anachronistic, the newer cards are much more interesting to look at as opposed to comparable junk wax era retro cards featuring the same subjects.

2013 Panini Cooperstown Collection Green Crystal Shard Dan Brouthers #13

2013 Panini Cooperstown Collection Red Crystal Shard #23 Hack Wilson - serial #28/399

2013 Panini Cooperstown Collection Cooperstown Lumberjacks Roger Bresnahan #36

2013 Panini Cooperstown Collection Cooperstown Lumberjacks Chief Bender #99
2013 Panini Cooperstown Collection Cooperstown Lumberjacks Eddie Plank #100

2014 Panini Classics Timeless Tributes Silver George Kelly #53 - serial #’d 98 of 149

2014 Panini Classics Timeless Tributes Silver Willie Keeler #144 - serial #’d 129 of 149

2014 Panini Hall of Fame Blue Shield Red Frank Chance #15 - serial #’d 24 of 50

2014 Panini Hall of Fame Red Shield Red Zack Wheat #29 - serial #’d 7 of 50

2014 Panini Hall of Fame Crusades Red Herb Pennock #20 - serial #’d 40 of 75

2014 Panini Hall of Fame Crusades Red Mordecai Brown #22 - serial #’d 23 of 75

Assorted Angels prospects pick ups

The Major League team is mostly down with the exception of Mike Trout and the farm system is barren - perhaps there aren't a handful of 'future Angels' to latch onto before they reach the Major Leagues.

After the Angels drafted Matt Thaiss 16th overall in this year's amateur draft, I searched for some early cards of him and it looked like he had some USA baseball cards - I picked up what I assumed to be a patch card sight unseen and while I didn't know what I was getting, in-hand, this card looks pretty sweet with the noticeable patch piece and also the camo jersey material.

Jahmai Jones is an 18-year old outfielder who was the Angels' second round pick in 2015 - he was drafted out of high school, so while an 'athlete' perhaps, it may take him time to gradually climb through the minors as opposed to a guy who ends up on the fast track.

Jersey cards

This game-used [or was it event worn] swatch from some player's jersey card isn't guaranteed to be from anything - I just grabbed it online to have a picture up.

I still like jersey cards but liking them isn't the same as valuing them considering what the swatches on the cards may or may not actually represent - from I read on the Blowout Cards forums, Panini's high-end football cards product [one that costs $1,349.95 for a pack of 10 cards] was exposed when suspicious looking swatches were inserted into memorabilia cards.

Panini deemed the apparent mistake a mislabeling issue but it's a joke when a company can't even get things right in their top of the line football card product - cards featuring game used swatches have fallen out of favor because collectors just don't know if they are holding something that is all made up, but there is still an allure to getting a sweet patch card, along with an autograph.

When there is big money involved, the fraud trickles down from the big time collector of actual memorabilia being duped to a card collector - animated with the cool things you can do with a trading card.

As is, a card company maybe oblivious when cards collectors want something that is too good to be true - a card company wants to sell product, maybe do a little 'razzle-dazzle' in the process, but maybe the logistics in trying to secure the real deal, means settling for something less than true, like reality TV.

I used to laugh when bloggers would occasionally rant about the COA / fine print on memorabilia inserts cards - but with the Authentic Sports Investments / Bradley Wells game-used scam was exposed in 2012, the New York Giants memorabilia lawsuit and now this, it showed just hard it is to secure a game worn jersey / uniform from any number of professional athletes, chop them up and get assorted swatches on cards.

If game used memorabilia cards have to be created, make it where it's easy to get things right - get items direct from teams [with good provenance, not just a blanket 'it's good' seal of approval] from specific events / games / workouts.

Even being right most of the time doesn't mean it isn't flawed or the process is clean - so more care should be taken to label things clearly so there is no confusion.

In the end, maybe the focus should be on manufactured memorabilia cards - so no one has to worry about where a particular swatch came from.

Sorting through the various baseball card releases

It maybe the time of the year where the MLB / MiLB season is basically a done deal and until things pick up again in the spring - I might have to turn to filling my time with picking up the random, cardboard offerings put out by mostly Topps, but also by Panini [so maybe I won't get bored and I'll have new cards to try and get autographed in-person in 2014].

I'd like to be able to pick up a couple [or really several] boxes of something, but that isn't going to happen - trying to account what I'm planning to accumulate with regards to recently recent products.

Out already
2013 Bowman Chrome - looking to pick up a base prospect set.
2013 Topps Chrome - looking to pick up a base set, though is there any notable rookies besides Yasiel Puig? Don't really need a bunch of redundant veteran cards.
2013 Topps Finest - though it's basically redundant vets and maybe some young stars, I like the 1993 Finest themed inserts and maybe looking to get at least a couple if random singles once the novelty wears off in a month or so. I can't imagine buying even one mini-box [about $50 or so] for this stuff. 
2013 Topps Update - maybe I'd picked up a blaster box, hanger box, hanger rack / jumbo pack by now, but maybe I'd settle on picking up a base set and call it a day.
2013 Topps Update Chrome - not really an intriguing product to me, though it may actually entice me to try out a Topps Mega Box anyway.

It seems the value really isn't there with only two 4 card packs of this Topps Update Chrome in a box with five 8-card 'filler packs' of 2013 Topps Update - it isn't like Topps Update Chrome is going something really sought after once the novelty dies down, though there might be some nice pulls as far as parallels.   

Upcoming
2013 Bowman Draft - definitely looking to get a box or two of this, maybe a base set, maybe related inserts and some loose hobby packs, retail blaster boxes and maybe a hanger rack / jumbo packs.
2013 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Picks - looking to pick up some loose packs, a base set and maybe related inserts if it has players that pique my interest.  
2013 Panini Elite Extra Edition - looking to pick up some loose packs, a base set and maybe related inserts if it has players that pique my interest.

Panini Black Friday pack recaps

Pack one
#15 Albert Pujols - we all are waiting to see where he'll end up, how much he'll be getting paid and for how many years.

#201 Terrelle Pryor - serial #'d 173/199 - this one looks like a card from 2011 Donruss Elite; I'm vaguely aware Pryor as more of a 'project,' considering how his college career at Ohio St. ended and how he profiles more as an athlete than quarterback; needless to say he is now Cam Newton...

Pack two
#18 Matt Kemp - the typical modern day metrosexual baseball player exemplified on a trading card.

I didn't pull anything special in these two-card packs, given as promotional items when I made a Black Friday box purchase at a local card shop - I didn't realize Panini inserted cards of baseball players in these packs, giving baseball cards collectors a sneak peek of what the cards look like out of their non-MLB [but MLBPA] licensed baseball product.

NNO Terrelle Pryor - this one looks like a subset card from Playoff Prestige.

NBA, Panini, trading cards and you

It is a good thing I don't collect basketball - though I can't say I haven't tried to collect it one way or the other at least a few times in the last 20 years, for one reason or the other.

However, it is staggering to learn about the NBA reaching agreement with Panini - to become the sole producer of NBA trading cards.

I think Panini just threw so much money at the NBA - it was an offer they couldn't refuse, despite the fact Panini is known in the United States more for its sticker books printed more than 20 years ago.

Would Panini even have the motivation or is their plan to radicalize the trading card industry - to bring it back to the 'Stone Ages,' where you had one choice, one option for trading cards.

How many products will Panini put out [?] - is it conceivable that they may only put out one flagship brand of cards for an entire year? Would basketball collectors only have one option? I doubt that will be the case, but is Panini capable of creating products that distinguish themselves between low-end, midlevel and high-end?

Would that be realistic and if it were to happen - would it be something to sap the money aspect about collecting cards as far as commodities? While there might be more mainstream interest, would serious card collectors just quit the hobby? Does this new agreement signal the death of the modern basketball card as it is valued by serious collectors?

I cannot name a basketball product from Topps, so I could care less if there were no more Topps basketball cards - at the very least, Upper Deck has exclusives like Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James to possibly juice up any product they decide to produce. I would think the NBA would have come to an agreement with Upper Deck as far as exclusive rights to print their cards [like how I believe it is in the NHL].

Having Panini as the sole trading card company to produce NBA trading cards is like O-Pee-Chee [long before Upper Deck bought its rights] -being handed the keys to produce every single Major League Baseball card.

I wonder how it will affect basketball trading cards and will it be conceivable - something like this would happen to the baseball card industry.

Beckett blog link - to the news

Beckett blog link - NBA's reaction

Wax Heaven blog link - Topps and Upper Deck's reaction