Sport Kings Ringside Boxing TKO pack break and bonus

Went on over to one of the card shops after work yesterday.  Mainly to get another gridiron redemption code for week 2.  This is Topps new hobby shop promotional program. 

But I saw the new Ringside boxing cards up on the counter too and I couldn't resist picking up a pack.

You get 4 cards per pack with various inserts and autos possible.

After checking the website and back of the pack hard signed autos are 1:10 so about 1 per box.  There are Turkey Red inserts, Muhammad Ali inserts, Gold Parallels and more.

Here's what I got.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. Weigh in card

Ray Mancini Victorious base card.

Ezzard Charles.  This is the one guy I got the I never heard of but after reading the back he was a boxer in the 40's and was elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990.

And a Tim Witherspoon hard signed auto.  This is the box hit and I feel lucky too because I pick the first pack out of a fresh box right on top.  I have to say that the inserts look cool and so do the memorabilia cards offered in this set.  For 10 bucks a pop a good pull.  I did a quick search on ebay and this card is going for about 12 bucks on an active auction.  I do believe all the cards have gold parallels that are numbered.  The regular cards are call silver level on the sell sheet.  There is also a KO level box with guaranteed hits and I'm sure a nice price tag.  Also the sell sheet and website say this product was due out in June so just a little late.

And to get my redemption card I picked up a couple of packs of Platinum and scored this.

Black Hardesty auto #d to 01/99.

I also picked up a few packs of Epix and probably will not be picking up anymore.  For how expensive it is I've pulled nothing except for some unnumbered inserts of nobody great.

cb out.

Are the Jets the New Badboys of the NFL? or Beard Envy

Hmmm.  It's been a busy couple of news weeks in the NFL not for amazing catches but for stupidity.  First for the locker room BS and now for Braylon Edwards DUI.

Seems the Jets are trying for the title of the Bad Boys of the NFL.  Just last year it was the Steelers with Burress and Rothlisburger.  Didn't the Raiders use to hold the title?  Or maybe that's just the fans.

And what the hell is up with his beard?  Gives me beard envy. 

It's pretty much a forgone conclusion that Braylon will face some kind of suspension and fine from the NFL not to mention whatever he gets from the NY justice system.  Are the Jets going to be able to mount any kind of season with this kind of team?  It's pretty disgraceful and just stupid on Braylon's fault.

He got pulled over not for driving reckless or speeding or swerving nope he got pulled over for over tinted windows on his land cruiser.  He probably thought he was fine to drive.  And the Jets offer a car service so shit like this doesn't happen, as do most NFL teams. 

I realize that these guys are human but just like any celebrities we hold them to a higher standard.  Kids look up to these guys, and want to be them.  They're role models whether they want to be or not. 

Don't make me Angry you would like me when I'm angry

I've been sitting here thinking at work again.  Bored.  Got stuff to do don't want to do it.  My boss is way down the hallway and everybody leaves me alone.  It's great.

My mind wanders again to the lack of innovation and complacency that seems to be taking over the card market right now. 

This is going to be a little one sided since I don't buy much hockey and I buy even less basketball. I invite anybody out there that collects those 2 sports to chime in, but this is mainly my gripe about the football and baseball releases this year. 

First Topps.  It just seems lazy to me to use the same design over and over again for different products.  There was a time when Topps Baseball looked nothing like Topps Football, Hockey, and Basketball.  Remember when Topps got to put out those kinds of cards?

Here's what I mean.

Series 1 baseball

Series 2 baseball, you would expect these to look the same there the same set just different issues. And we can expect Update to look exactly the same. 

Topps Football

Topps WWE

Topps Pro Debut, and series 2 of this is coming out soon too.

Lazy.

Now onto Panini. Like I said I can't speak for the Basketball issues but here is what I've pulled together in 5 minutes from the Panini website, using just the base cards of Peyton Manning.

Rookies and Stars

Threads

 the New Epixs.

Prestige

Classics

and Donruss Elite.

I wanted to so a side by side of Elite, but couldn't find any base cards from previous years on the website and I couldn't find an image for the base Absolute due out soon but you get the idea.

At least Panini changes the direction of all the lines. And Epix and Threads look way too similar.  At least in Threads you get some background action.

What's really worse here though, Panini at least mixes up the design.  Although they are all eerily similar.  The hits all look the same too.  And I have a hard time paying so much for so marginally designed cards just to get 7 or 8 cards and a blank white bluff card.  Although those can be made in to cheap easy dividers for your monster boxes.  But that's a later post.

While I don't look forward to the days when the market was flooded from every direction by product I do miss the incentive that competition fostered into innovation and design.

Topps Gridiron Giveaway Redemptions Hobby Store codes

I'm sure most of the community know, but maybe not, in addition to Topps' GridIron Giveaway code cards found in Topps Football, Topps is also doing a Hobby in Store Promo.  Every week Topps will name a player of the week for that weeks code.  All you have to do is buy a Topps product to get a card. 

Now your saying so what another crappy redemption code.  But wait here's the kicker.  The guys at the hobby stores I go to said they only got 20 code per week.  Now I don't know if that's based on quanity of product ordered, which I doubt since they don't order their cards directly from the company, or if each store was given only 20 and that's it.  That can actually make these redemption codes fairly rare.  Spread over the whole country.  According to these guys the new redemption week starts on Tuesday.  Last week it was Javid Best.

He had a great game last week, expecially in fantasy football, even though the Lions still lost.

This week it's Demaryius Thomas.

I'm hoping these cards are chrome. 

I don't think this is getting a lot of recognition because I got three codes last week and there were still quite a few code cards left on Friday.  I'm going to go buy a pack of Platinum and get this weeks today.

All in all I still like free cards so who know maybe Topps will through in a loop and offer some player with 10% auto version.  Who knows.  Probably not. 

2010 Topps Platinum Box Break

Well I broke down and bought a box of Platinum.  I saw some really nice hits at trade night last week so Friday I picked up a box.

For those that haven't seen this product here is what the base veteran and rookie cards look like.

The rookies are chrome and the base vet's look like they were produced by Panini.  Very shiny.

There are also Rookie Variations.

These cards are thick but unnumbered.  I like that Topps makes it's decoys collectible.  It beats a blank white card or a super think advertisement  Hint hint, Upper deck and Panini.

So here were my hits.

I got 2 numbered rookie refractors plus the 3 variations up top there.

Brandon LaFell #d to 999

David Reed #d to 499

The box boasts 2 rookie autos and one patch auto per box.

Here they are.

Armanti Edwards #d to 900

Marcus Easely #d to 599.  It's just coincidence that I pulled his rookie card for the comparison up top.

And a really nice Emmanuel Sanders Auto Patch # to 10!!

Not terrible.  Very shiny.

What do you guys think?  Nothing like more sticker autos, huh?.

Some trade night pick ups and pack

I was at Don's Sportscard's trade night last Wednesday and picked up a few packs of stuff and some vintage cards I saw in his case.  For those of you not to familiar with trade night.  It's pretty much is what it is.  You come to the store to trade stuff.  Don usually has specials and for every 10 bucks you spend you get a ticket entered into win a box of cards.  A couple month ago he gave away a box of exquisite football.  Well I didn't win the box again.  Got close twice. 

I did pick up a pack of new Sweet spot NCAA football, 5 packs of Platium and a couple packs of threads.

I also dualed 2 packs of Platinum and got my ass handed to me, but I saw 2 nice hits come out though. 

I didn't really get anything out of my Platinum packs which is disappointing but I think I might by a box anyways cuz I'm bored.  I did pull this rookie holofoil.

I think that's what they're called anyways.  There on super think card stock and really shiny.  Now I like the rookies in the set they have the chrome quality but the base vet's are all on foil board.  If Topps didn't have there name all over the front you could swear this was put out by panini.

I did better with my Threads packs.  I got three and had 2 hits.  I've done pretty good with this but I have no plans on buying a box.  The base cards look like everything else Panini has put out this year.

I got this Jahvid Best Jersey #d to299.

And this

Morgan Burnett Auto, a packer no less

#d to 499

Out of my Sweetspot pack this was my  hit

Hakeem Hicks unnumbered sweet swatch.  Now I do like the UD hits in this product from those that I've seen, but the base cards are hemmmm.  Nothing to right home about, not terrible either but lets be honest who wants to see there current NFL stars in their college dud's?  I did snag a Brett Favre for nothing at the shop though. 

I also picked up a couple 67 Philidelphia vintage packers and a sweet Jordy Nelson Bowman Sterling Jersey #to 299 but i'm going to put those up on my new packer blog Long Way from Lambeau.

Musings on Ben Sheets.

Now this isn't a hate post.  When Ben was a Brewer he was our guy.  But Ben was prone to injury.  When he was on he was golden.  Took us to the playoffs in 2008 and then got hurt.  Is it his fault?  No of course not.  But when I look at guys who pitched for 20 + years like Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens, Greg Maddox, ect, I guess they were just built of better stuff. 

So I was pursuing ebay and checkoutmycards.com and saw some Sheets cards for cheap.  I didn't bite, but it got me thinking that I hadn't heard anything about him since I heard the A's signed him this year to a 1 year 10 million dollar deal. 

So guess where he is.  On the DL again.  He had 20 starts this year, finishing 4-9.  That's half a mil for a day's work and not a good days work, not too shabby.  But I'm sad to say that maybe it's time for Ben to give it up.

Maybe he can give Strasburg some pointers in rehab.

Tom Wolfe Failure

Well after having my first success I got my first failure

Got My Tom Wolfe back unopened RTS.  BOOO.

First TTM success

So I've been away for the last 5 days working on the McCarthy Rd here in Alaska.  It's the gate way to the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, the country's largest national park 33 million acres.  Alright enough with the bragging.  I was expecting it to be cold and rainy but on the second day of the trip the taps were shut off and it was cool and clear the rest of the trip and the scenery was incredible.  We stayed at the Chitna Hotel the first night and at the Halfway House B&B the other 3 nights.  It happened to be a great place to base ourselves being about halfway down the road. 

On Sunday we finished up with out last survey by 1pm so we decided to head home to Anchorage which is about a 6 hour drive.  And when I got home I had my first TTM success waiting for me, and my fiance and dog too.

It's from Russell Johnson, the Professor from Gilligan's Island.  Super fast turn around too.  I sent the card on September 3 and it's postmarked the 7th!

A sweet start to the collection.

Mini Madness

No not that kind of mini!!

This kind.

As of late the domant variation insert has been the mini card.  With T 206 you get 2 parallels per pack with the bronze as well.  Not that I'm complaining  I love the mini's.  I like the non-sports topics too. Gotta love dinosaurs!!   There are tons of different mini's out there from lots of different sets.  Going all the way back to 2000 pacific Aurora.  Now I'm talking modern cards here not tobacco era. 

But why are they all mainly baseball products??  Yes I know we get some hockey mini's, Champs anyone, and some football, hello Mayo, but compared to the baseball offerings they seem like a pitance.  And come on  I know we are honoring baseball heritage with the A & G but wouldn't an Allen and Ginter football set be cool?  or a 206 set.  Let's mix it up a bit.  Or even better lets come up with something totally original.  I'm not saying it can't be vintage based, something like Masterpieces.  That was a great product.

My other grip is that the card storage industry is behind the times.  I've heard it all around the blogosphere about how hard it is to store your mini's.  Yes we have mini top loaders, and pages, but there are cards you just want someplace to put them where they won't get beat up.  We need mini boxes.  Come on. 

Some new customs ready to go out.

Well I've been busy going to weddings , but I did manage to put together 3 more auto customs to send out.

So I have one  of my favorite authors.  I enjoy Wolfe's nonfiction, his fiction, not so much, but The Right Stuff is awesome. Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is pretty good too if you can get into the prose style and then after reading it you realize just how big of a freak Ken Kesey was, then you go read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It explains alot.

One for the old Lenomeister.

And my first Sports related attempt Bob Uecker.

Again you can see the theme at least for 2 of these that I'm trying to get autos from people that are old.

And being a Brewer fan I would love to add Mr. Baseball to the collection.

Here are the backs.

My Classic Classic pulls.

So a few weeks back I walked into Don's Sportscards to see what was new.  He had just opened his newly arrived case of Panini Classic.  Well I was saving my money for Topps Football but I decided that I'd buy a few packs.  Don let me pull my own and I took 2.  Then he asked me to pull 2 for him to put out to display.

Well I didn't open my packs there but he didn't get anything. 
I ended up pulling two hits.

A really nice rookie auto of Dominique Franks.  Sorry forgot to write down the numbering but I think it's under 500.  I'm posting at work, shhhhh don't tell.

And then I got this one too.

Again can't remember the numbering or if this one even is, but I could think of a lot worse cards to pull.

2010 Score football.

I've been obsessed with Score this year.  I think it's because it's so cheap and you never know you might get some goodies in there.

I recently finished my set, rookies and all.  And probably spent way too much money on it.  3 boxes and tones of rack packs, but I did it.  And along the way I got some nice numbered parallels.  You know Scoreboard, Gold Zone, and Red Zone.  And this year I got a couple of Autos.  2 years ago I bought a bunch of boxes and didn't really get anything but this year not only did I finish my set but bamm.

Here's what I got.  You be the judge if I did good.

Unnumbered unfortunatly.  But

But this bad boy is #d to 10!!

2010 Topps Football 2 Jumbos Break

Well I've been waiting for a while for my annual Topps Football.  Now I got it.  I bought these 2 jumbos from different stores about a week apart.  The reason I didn't buy my second box from the same store is I got the case hit from the 1st box so I figured I'd try my luck elsewhere.

I won't bore you with all the inserts and what not just the hits and goodies.

So I'm not breaking down box by box here this is the hits from both.

I got one black parallel from the first box and this gold Tebow from the second.

Question.

Are there only gold parallels of rookies in the jumbos???

Cuz at one per pack I got 20 rookie gold parallels and not a single vet. hmm wierd.

Each box boasts 2 autos and 1 relic.

So here are the basic relics I got.

I like the horizontal layout of the Peak Performance cards and they work well with jersey versions too.  I kinda wish that Topps had done a 2020 version in football instead of Legendary Linage.

It's funny or not funny I guess but I got the Dexter McCluster auto and jersey in the same box.

Really nobody too great there, but wait the case hit!!

yep I got me a Rookie Premiere Auto and a good one too.  I've already seen one of these go on ebay for 162 bucks not too shabby.  Over all except for the case hit the hits are pretty poor but that is pretty much par for the course on flagship Topps.

My pack of Topps Tribute break

About a month ago, I got paid, I had worked a ton of overtime and been in the field for most of it.  So I got back bought a box of something I can't remember what it was probably prestige or something and a pack of Tribute.  This is the first time I've ever bought a pack of something that expensive.  But I figured what the hell I love high end sticker autos!!

So one pack  = $50 = 5 cards.

Here they are.

My one base card Ryan Howard.  I think the base cards in this release should be the most expensive since you only get one, or maybe I got lucky and got 2 205 cards.

Mr. Nolan Ryan and some guy named Pujols, is he any good?

A nice card to add to my Milwaukee Braves collection.  Warren Spahn #d to 399.

And

Darryl, DDDDAAAAARRRRRRRRYYYYYLLLLL.  A nice Strawberry Jersey Auto #d to 99.

Not a terrible pack especially with the Strawberry auto.  A yount triple relic would have been nicer at least for me.