Random Wax: 1991 Upper Deck Football (3 Packs)

91 UD Football: Today we'll look at three more packs of 1991 greatness.  We'll kick it off with Herschel Walker on a team checklist card.  I enjoy the art on these.  Wish we saw more of this on checklist cards today.  Walker rushed for 5500 yards in three USFL seasons.  Have to wonder how that affected his NFL career which never quite lived up to the hype.  A former Georgia Bulldog great he's a favorite of mine.

The design on these is a classic and the photography is great. For whatever reason it feels like we haven't duplicated this lately.

Probably not my best pull of these three pack posts.  I bought this box in March.  Love going through these.  So many memories of great players.  Another nice team checklist with Rod Woodson.

Team MVP cards are another chance at seeing team favorites within the set including these nice Moon and DeBerg cards.  Bentley was an odd inclusion though.  That 1990 Colts team wasn't loaded with stars, but it seems like there were better options there (Eric Dickerson, Jeff George, Duane Bickett).

Roy Green is a favorite of mine.  A couple of Bills to end it including this hologram of Thurman Thomas.  I think I pulled three total Thomas holograms in the box.  Could be worse but would have appreciated more variety.  These old boxes are so much fun.

BREAKDOWN:
36 – Total Cards
3 – Team MVP
2 - Checklist
2 – Team Checklist
1 – Game Breaker Hologram

 

Random Wax: 3Bros Baseball Pack

3Bros Baseball: Found these 3Bros packs in Dollar Tree last year.  This is the second of those four.  Lots of variety in these and fun which makes them an easy pickup.  Joe Carter could mash and is an appropriate part of the team MVP cards.

Pulled Hall of Famer Larry Walker.  No complaints there.  Also get to see those fun Expo jerseys.

Great looking Atlanta Braves sticker.

The packs.

Fun pack.  Maybe not the best of the four but for the price no issues.

BREAKDOWN:
10 – Total Cards
5 – 80s Cards
4 – 90s Cards
1 – Sticker
1 - Duplicate
1 – 10s Cards

 

Random Wax: 2022-2023 Donruss Basketball

22-23 Donruss:  Luka Doncic and the Mavericks are running it back with Kyrie Irving.  That didn't work so well in limited playing time last season.  It's an interesting experiment.  Kyrie is so good but there hasn't been a lot of goodness in his last few stops in the league.

Great pull in this pack.  I do like this design so I won't hesitate to pick these up.

Some nice rookie pulls as well.  Jaden Ivey averaged 16 points per game while Jalen Williams averaged 14.  No complaints with either of those.  That Williams is a Green Laser Holo parallel.  

Michigan Wolverine alum Franz Wagner had a really good sophomore season averaging 18 points per game while shooting 36% from the field.

Some nice photos here of Williams and Jackson.  We end it with a Bomb Squad insert of Donovan Mitchell who had his best season yet as a Cleveland Cavalier.

BREAKDOWN:
30 – Total Cards
4 – Rated Rookie
2 - Green Laser Holo Parallel
1 – Bomb squad

2022 Chronicles Football

2022 Chronicles:   My first look at these cards and we'll kick it off with a cool shot of Patrick Mahomes on this Bronze Parallel Photogenic.  Mahomes also took top honors in the other pack I picked up with another good-looking card.

The base cards are okay.  The design is what we are used for Chronicles base cards.  Always happy to pull Brady and Watt cards.

Here you have two Gridiron Kings and a Desmond Ridder Panini.  I like the Gridiron Kings but would like to see some veterans on them.

Luminance goes horizontal with this nice-looking Kenny Pickett card.

These see through cards are Clear Vision and Magnitude offerings.

I'm happy with Chronicles this year.  A few designs click for me and I like the photography.  Wish the packs had more cards but that isn't in the cards.  No pun intended.  We'll end it with another good Photogenic showcasing Justin Herbert.

BREAKDOWN:
15 – Total Cards
7 – RC
3 - Chronicles
3 – Photogenic
2 – Panini
2 – Luminance
2 – Gridiron Kings
1 - Prizm
1 - Magnitude
1 – Clear Vision
1 – Bronze Parallel

Fame Movie (1980) and Television Series (1982-1987)

 Just remember "random" is in the name of the blog.  Fame was a favorite of mine when it came out in 1980.  I believe I first saw it on HBO at a friend's house.  I know the music appealed to me, especially the title track.  But I liked the movie.  It was gritty and adult themed.  Definitely not anything that I could relate to personally, but I liked it.  The soundtrack had a few catchy tunes but they aren't all hits.  I I memorized Fame the song and was also a fan of Dogs in the Yard.  The movie did well at the theater grossing five times its budget of $8M.  I don't think it's a cult classic.  I never here it come up. You'll recognize a few stars including Irene Cara and Paul McCrane but few others that I really remember.  Debbie Allen is in the movie for a blink of the eyes but makes her mark in the series.  There are some good performances here which help the story tremendously but not all the characters are wins to me.  I won't try to analyze the movie but I'm putting something here as I've recently finished watching the movie and first two seasons of the series.

Speaking of the Fame television series, only two seasons ever made it to DVD.  Unsure why but I assume it's due to a lack of folks buying the first two.  The TV series is definitely not as gritty as the movie but does try to take on issues found within society at the time.  The series is okay but didn't age well.  The characters, whether played by returning actors or new actors, were good but it just wasn't the same as the movie.  

I'm not telling folks to go out and watch either the movie or series but Fame was something to me.  Not a top 10 movie for me by any means but here I am writing about it.  I'm curious if anyone else watched this back in the day.

Random Wax: 2022 Topps Baseball Archives Blaster

2022 Archives:  We'll kick off this blaster for a nice-looking Mike Schmidt card.  Many consider him the best third baseman of all time.  I don't think I'd put up much of an argument with them.

Really good pull in this box.  Here we have the '63 design. Not my favorite look but I'm good with it.

This '78 design is pretty nice and has more players like Trout and Altuve who are always good pulls.

The Astros would go on to win the 2022 World Series so these '87 cards are appropriate to share.  Jeremy Pena hasn't lived up to his playoff exploits but it was still fun.

One of the Big Foil inserts.

Wander Franco is another guy still figuring it out.  He's only 22 so there's still time.

The back of the Postcard insert for Joey Votto.  Twenty-five home runs in 230 at bats?  Wow.

Of course the retired greats are a huge draw to this set.

Greatness.

This was a fun box.  You get the variety that comes with Archives, great players and fun designs from the past.

BREAKDOWN:
56 – Total Cards
18 – 1987
17 – 1978
17 – 1963
16 – RC
15 – Retired Greats
3 – Big Foil
1 – Postcard
1 - 1961 Topps MVP
1 – 1955 Topps Scoop
1 - 1992 Topps Major League Debut

Kawhi Leonard 56 Card Lot

Picked up this 56 card Kawhi Leonard lot off eBay last week for just under $20.  The price was right as was the variety of cards.  We'll kick it off with this 2018-2019 Contenders which is a nice looking card.  

Kawhi's my favorite player in the league today.  Unfortunately, he continually deals with injuries but when he's healthy he's one of the best in the league.

I'm not great at looking for these types of card lots but if you are patient they can present themselves.

The call him The Claw for his large hands and they are shown off on that last Prizm card.

I'll let the rest of the cards speak for themselves.  No regrets picking these up.  Plenty of good-looking cards.