Batch o' Breaks

Some new (to me) Allen & Ginter cards, a bunch of green Birds and even a Trail Blazer. 

 

I took a bit of a break from the Meta apps awhile back, but I still had some box break cards to sift through from over in the wild wilderness known as Facebook. I had only been hanging onto that specific app for its "Groups" feature, where there were a couple of low-key super cheap break groups I was involved with.

One of those groups should immediately be familiar to readers here, as it was Colbey's Affordable Group Breaks. This batch of stuff came from a few of those breaks earlier this year, and of course, I'm just now getting around to showing this stuff off.

I felt pretty good about my decision to end my idealistic Allen & Ginter collection with the 2022 set proper, and the 2024 design did nothing to dissuade me. I still do need to track down all of the Cardinals needs from this set, however, and I did like a couple of the insert concepts as well. I even opened a couple of blasters of the stuff at one point.

In any case, the design sort of has a leather / belt buckle look going on with it, which is to say that I don't exactly think it's a bad design. It just doesn't feel anything like the Allen & Ginter sets I started collecting back in 2008.

I'm not sure I had this card on my want list, but it will head to the binders anyway. All I know of Metro Boomin' is that he was in the middle of a big event promoting the debut of the Cardinals first City Connect jerseys last summer, which he is also modeling here. I can't say I'm very up on current hip-hop, give or take a Kendrick Lamar or a Travis Scott. (I can't say I can name a single song by the latter, unfortunately.) I do known that Metro Boomin' is a local STL guy, which makes sense that he was there for the big jersey reveal party.

One of these breaks was a rare NBA break, where my sole need was current Blazers fave Toumani Camara. I'll take all the cards of the Belgian-born defensive wizard any day.

With exclusivity licenses looming in football and basketball, Topps has been putting out a bunch of unlicensed garbage that people always used to make fun of Panini for doing. That being said, I collect all of this stuff, so what do I know? I don't have a ton of Donovan McNabb cards for being the Eagles fan that I am, but I've been slowly adding some Eagles stuff to my TCDB want list lately.

Panini still has the NFL license for now, so we get logos here. Lucky us. A.J. Brown is one of the latest to enter the circle of Eagles I need more cards of, with Brown & co. coming off of a big Super Bowl victory.

Panini rolls out the 1989 Score design year after year, with Bo Nix being one of the latest to get this treatment on a faux-rookie-insert type card. Nix has an absurd number of cards for a guy that's played a single year of professional football.

Last up is this four-pack of Eagles base cards from the 2024 Score set. Again, Panini does a decent job with this low cost set year after year, coming up with a new basic design that still feels like "classic" Score in a way.

Featuring Alan Foster

 

Another nice set of Cardinals, tobacco-style minis, and other ephemera.

If I was smart enough to have tagged everyone in every trade post over the years, I could tell you exactly how many times Night Owl Cards has sent me, well, cards. As it is, I am positive that total is as close to "many" as you can get. This latest batch comes from early February, when we were still looking forward to the days where masses of pollen would be flying around the neighborhoods freely for some reason.

Panini has really scaled back their baseball releases since losing the MLBPA license, which makes sense on some level. The sets that still remain have definitely taken a dip in quality, especially the already iffy Donruss product. There were significantly fewer parallels to chase last year, especially unnumbered ones, but that's not something I'm complaining about. What I really don't like is the design, and you can't pin that on baseball because they carry it through all of their sports including the ones they have full licenses on. Anyway, here's a holo laser style Bob Gibson parallel. I'm not sure I pulled any of these in the 2024 Donruss stuff I did open.

Speaking of too many parallels, Topps has taken up that mantle quite easily in the Fanatics era. The inessential Holiday set certainly hasn't escaped this phenomenon, as it leapt from one silly parallel to a whole bunch this past season. It's still far too early to evaluate the Cardinals decision not to bring back Paul Goldschmidt, but for the moment it feels like something that benefitted both parties. Goldy takes up another premier spot in a dangerous offensive lineup, and the Cardinals free up a position to allow both catchers who were sitting behind Willson Contreras last season to thrive. Also, money was saved, if you care about that.

Everyone loves food issues, don't they? I don't have a ton of Hostess cards and am always happy to take them in just about any condition. I really like the shirt that George is wearing here. 

This is, of course, a 1975 Topps buyback from last year's Topps Heritage set. This is actually the second time I've featured Alan Foster on this blog according to my records (i.e. the tags.) The last time was an Airbrushed Fridays (remember that?)

Here's a quad pack of those Fleer/Laughlin World Series cards from the '70s. No one talks about pitchers throwing lightning anymore, these days. It's always heaters and fire and such. Lightning seems cooler to me.

Here's some more stuff from the 2024 Heritage line. These are a couple of inserts from the original (low) series. I have had a hard time finding High Number stuff at a retail level that suits me, but I'm hoping that changes after today's official 2025 Topps Heritage release. I think it's probably due to the abundance of big name rookies in High Numbers, which is kind of silly no one collects Heritage for the rookies. (And, likewise, no one that collects rookies treats Heritage as a big deal.)

Big Cat! I don't mind animals on cards, but this always felt like a half-baked trivia game. The "answer", on the back, is Andres Galarraga.

Night Owl has sent me a ton of Allen & Ginter minis in recent years, and this latest package proved to be no exception. Which one is your favorite? I am going to guess that McCutchen would get the most votes.

Ian Kinsler was the lone horizontal representative in the stash o' minis, and he gets his own spot here. Insurance ads, partially displayed or otherwise, have no place in this product.

Contest Results and buckstorecards Cards

 

Genuine Coverage... Plus!

The 16th edition of the March Radness contest has concluded, and thanks to Florida's victory, there was a big shake-up in the final results. This also means that there was a new face on the top of the podium. Congrats to PSU wrestling dynasty (James C) for taking the top prize! In second place was fellow Cardinals fan Ray S, with Brian P taking third. Bringing up the rear and taking the mysterious worst place prize was none other than Bo Rosny. If you are one of these chosen few bolded names, please get in touch with me as soon as it's convenient so we can figure out the whole prize situation. As a side note, I still do have a couple of prizes to distribute from the winter bowl game contest, but that should get figured out here very soon.

As always, though, we're here to look at some cards. Today's offerings are from regular trader and all-around good guy Doug from Sportscards from the Dollar Store. The Blues have had a pretty incredible season which, heading into the playoffs, somewhat mirrored their 2019 Stanley Cup winning run where they fired their head coach about a month and a half into the season and ended up champions. This season they dumped their coach once again around six weeks into the season and turned things around. They were white hot in March leading into April, although it looks like they've dropped a few since their recent huge winning streak. Anyway, only Robert Thomas is still with the team. I do like the cardboard-y feel of these O-Pee-Chee cards and wish there was something like this in the baseball card world.

Here's a pair of champions from the 2024 Score NFL set. Score football is probably the best thing that Panini does, considering that it's affordable and typically decent to look at, while paying tribute to those old school Score sets.

Ricky Watters in his Eagles uniform came from the Tecmo Super Bowl III era, although seeing him in the modernized Eagles branding is a little jarring here.

I really like Jerami Grant (Portland native... technically!), but he really fell off a cliff this season. I don't have a lot of positive things to say about the Blazers in general right now, but I guess we shall see how this summer plays out.

Upper Deck's SPX sets are really a prime example of '90s sports cards excess.

Mookie Cook is a Portland kid but really just could not find much playing time in his time at UO. I hope he does well, of course, but him taking a bit of a half-step down to a WCC school (San Francisco) is interesting.

Here's a chunky Marcus Mariota card. Panini's "scope" parallels are kind of fun to look at with their circular patterns.

I know there probably aren't a ton of Jonathan Stewart megafans out there, but his career NFL totals of more than 7300 yards rushing and 1200+ yards receiving are nothing to sneeze at. The average pro running back's career is not a lengthy one.

*** PRINTING PLATE ALERT ***

Man, here's Mookie Cook again. Leaf did crank out a lot of cards of his. I wish this company or whatever it is would calm down and just put out a normal set or two with a few parallels, but it instead insists on driving anyone with a mere thought in their brain of compiling a checklist to the brink of insanity.

Bo Nix had a pretty impressive rookie season, so snagging a copy of his rookie card numbered to just 50 is a huge prize. I'm not sure that he's going to be a Hall of Fame type player or anything, but I think in the right situation he could prove to be pretty valuable at the helm of a good team for a number of years.

Rookie Johnny Wilson is also a Super Bowl champion. He's pictured in his college uniform as Score is always one of the first NFL releases of the season. He's a giant dude who I think could be useful in certain situations down the road.

The last card selection on offer is this Panini 'EEE' (as I like to call it) autograph of a St. Louis Cardinals prospect. Levenson was a 5th round pick in 2023 and is still at the A+ level of pro ball. There is a new Panini release ("Prospect Edition") that recently came out, even though it's branded '2024', that might be just a replacement for the Elite Extra Edition. I'm not really sure. I almost bought a blaster of it today, but I'm trying to temporarily save all of my cards cash for the back-to-back Topps Heritage sets this spring.

Contest Update and More Cards from Padrographs

Who is going to win this thing? 

 

It's finally baseball season and that feels great. It also means that we're just about to wrap up another year of March Radness. Before we get into the cards proper, let's see where we're at with the contest.

With just the Final Four games remaining, it's a pretty tight race for the top. The top three (Brandon L, Jordan L, and Andy R) are also the top three in max possible points, but there are quite a few brackets nipping at their heels. There was a fairly diverse selection of champions picked by everyone, but surprisingly most brackets' winners have made it all the way to the semifinal games. My champ is still alive as well, but everything else about my bracket has it stuck in the dregs of the standings.

Let's check out the cards from Rod of Padrographs. This is one of last year's holiday-themed parallels, but it looks more like some sort of tablecloth pattern to me.

I do like a good bat chunk, authentic or otherwise. I know we all need to assume the worst with cards like these, but I still like to collect them.

The second Goldy of the package is this blue prism refractor from the 2023 Topps Chrome Platinum Anniversary release. Are they doing this again this year? (And by this year, I mean last year, I guess?) I hope not. It just doesn't really appeal to me, even though I've always enjoyed this particular (1954) design.

When Victor Scott (the sequel!) debuted on the Opening Day roster last season, I noticed that I had zero cards of his. No draft cards, no minor league cards... nothing. It's nice that his cards are finally starting to trickle in, especially thanks to releases from late last year.

Here's a pair of Chrome parallels from last year's Stadium Club release. A legend of the game and a future Hall of Famer.

I don't know how much longer Topps is going to be rolling with the Pro Debut set, but it looks like they once again made Chrome parallels like this one.

I know it's baseball season and all, but I still haven't properly celebrated the Eagles big Super Bowl victory here on the blog. Fortunately, there were some nice recent Eagles cards in the package for this very occasion. This is some sort of orange parallel from a Panini Illusions release featuring QB1.

This one is a black parallel of the Eagles big (literally) wide receiver star.

Speaking of big, this is one of those silly "big head" cards that bothers me a lot. Maybe I just don't like fun. The weird thing about these is that they only increased Hurts' head size just enough to be disconcerting. I've seen bigger is what I'm saying.

The last one is a pretty slick looking Prizm parallel of Haason Reddick, a guy who was not on the recent Super Bowl winning team but was a key contributor on defense for the two previous years, including their big run to the Super Bowl in 2022/23.

Thanks again to Rod, whose pile of cards keeps accumulating slowly. I swear I'll drop it in the mail one of these days.

Cards from Oren and a Final Contest Reminder!

 

Don't forget to fill out your bracket! And let's check out some terrific cards from Oren. 

 

We're less than 24 hours away from the start of the big NCAA men's basketball tournament, which means it's time to get those brackets filled out. We're still taking sign-ups down to the wire, so check it out if you haven't already!

After the jump, because there is a giant amount of images to load, let's check out some cards from a trade with reader Oren that was put together over the Christmas holidays.

Game On! March Madness Sweet Sixteen Style (A Contest, Obviously)

Make the picks. Win the cards.

It's pretty simple. Pick the best NCAA bracket and you can win a prize. There are also runner-up prizes. I will also create a bonus contest at some point, selecting a game for anyone, including those who don't want to fill out a bracket, to predict the final score of (game TBD.)

This is the sixteenth edition of the contest, and I appreciate all of you for joining up. Go Ducks!

2025 rules:

• Selection Sunday is March 16th (tomorrow!), which means that is the earliest the brackets can be filled out. The games that actually count for the contest will start on March 20th.
• Default ESPN scoring rules apply. You must fill out the entire bracket, including the tie-breaking final score of the final game.
• First place wins a 2024 Topps Heritage High Number Value Box OR 2025 Topps Heritage Value Box (blaster) or suitable equivalent (subject to availability! up to $24.99 in value!) I will email the winner shortly after the final game to make the prize selection among the available products at the time.
• Second and third place prizes will consist of some team bags of cards from your favorite MLB and/or basketball teams. And maybe some other card junk.
• As always, the worst (honest) bracket will get something, too.
• Click here now to join, and follow the "Create a Bracket Now" link. Make sure to fill out your entire bracket prior to March 20th!

Radness is Coming; A PWE Round-Up for Monday

Look for a new contest sign-up next week! For now, let's check out some cards from plain white envelopes.

It's time to recap a few of the sneaky white envelopes that trickled in over the past few months. I actually have been getting a ton of these in the mail lately, but at least 95% of them are part of TCDB trades. I've made sure to set aside any others that come in so I can show off the cards here. (I'd love to show off all of the TCDB trades, but I can just barely stay on top of getting them logged in and sorted.)

Padrographs sent me one of my first looks at the 2024 Topps Archives set, which was released very late in the year. Topps caught a lot of flack, at least among the online circles I spend time in, for their terrible attempt at the 1970 design. The biggest issue was the player name font, which bears no resemblance to the original design. It's even more silly when you consider that it's essentially the same font used on the 1994 design (which looks fine!) and was featured as recently as 5 years previously when its turn came up in the Heritage set. It was obviously a choice, and people have opinions about that choice, but I've never really heard a definitive, satisfying answer. What I do know is that while they do try to replicate a lot of the design elements for the Heritage sets, Archives often ends up becoming a more cheaply made, fun house mirror version of the original cards they're attempting to emulate.

Nachos Grande is a big Barry Larking collector, and I recently pulled one of Larkin's shiny parallels from the 2024 Panini Prizm set and sent it his way just for fun. I wasn't expecting anything in return, so I was pleasantly surprised when he hooked me up with some of his Allen & Ginter mini extras. The two Luis Castillo cards (black border and Allen & Ginter back) join up with Tyler O'Neill's mini to head to my Ginter set binder.

These two Brendan Donovan minis (A&G back and black border) are headed to my Cardinals binder. Unlike O'Neill's card above, I didn't have a single copy of either of these.

The biggest of the three PWEs came from frequent flyer gcrl, who sent over a fat stack of Cardinals cards and set filling needs. Alec Burleson's second year Topps card is a sparkly purple parallel numbered to 799. Do people still say "second year card"? I'm guessing not, unless you're trying to scam influence someone on eBay or somewhere of the like.

Chrome Sapphire cards are a pricey thing, so I am always thrilled to snag one for my team collection. Most of the ones I do have seem to be of the reliever variety like Gallegos here, but I'll surely take any of them.

This one is a Halloween-ish holiday parallel of Cardinals speedster Victor Scott II. Any time someone insists on going by "II" as a suffix instead of Jr. makes me tempted to call them The Sequel. I know that Topps was thinking "orange and black" when they designed these parallels for the Topps Update set, but they really made it look weird instead of spooky or whatever.

Here's a couple more parallels (rainbow foil and royal blue) from last year's Topps sets. I believe royal blue has been phased out in favor of even more foil this year.

Speaking of foil, here's a parallel of Jordan Hicks' rookie card from the inaugural Topps Big League set from back in 2018. It's numbered to just 100. Hicks finally successfully converted from a reliever to a starting pitcher last year with the Giants after the Cardinals had attempted it a few years back.

The set needs came in various flavors. Here's a couple base cards from the 2004 Topps Heritage set plus an insert from the 2020 set.

Alec Mills is not exactly a household name, but he did notch a no-hitter in that 2020 quasi-season. The Carlton Fisk card is a big get, since I'm very close to finally finishing off the 2014 Allen & Ginter set. This is the last set I haven't completed aside from the first two (and the last two where I decided not to pursue them anymore.)

The last grouping of cards are all from the 2003 Topps Heritage set, one of my personal favorites. I love the logos, the multiple photos and the green card backs. Of course, I like the original 1954s that they represent, but they're not always so affordable.