Random Wax: 1991 Pro Set Football Series 1 4 Packs

1991 Pro Set:  I followed the Cowboys way back in the day, way before Aikman and company.  Only thing I have left from those days are my appreciation for their blue unis.  Can't argue with Troy Aikman's greatness.  He led the Cowboys to three Super Bowl Championships, won a Super Bowl MVP, was named to the Pro Bowl 6X, and ended up a Hall of Famer.

Some defensive back love.  Great Steve Atwater photo.  In my mind he makes the interception on the ball we can't see.

A horizontal offering on a nice-looking Nick Lowery card.

Lots going on in this set in terms of subsets.  Here we have Heisman Hero, Milestone and 1990 Replay cards.  I do like all three.  The Heisman cards are pretty cool.

These still hurt...

Chan Gailey would go on to head coach in the NFL with Dallas and Buffalo having one winning season with the Cowboys.

We like our head coach cards.

Love the art on the Hall of Fame cards.

Reed led all receivers with 14 receptions in the 1990 playoffs and added two touchdowns.

More great art on these NFC All-Pro team cards.  We need these every year.

We love Barry and he's just as fun in his college uni.

Really good photography and framing across the board.

These cards are just too much fun.  From the great cards, the variety, and fun memories I never get tired of them.

BREAKDOWN:
60 – Total Cards
5 – League Leader
4 – World League
3 – All-Pro
3 – Hall of Fame
2 – 1990 Replay
2 – Heisman Hero
2 – Super Bowl XXV Replay
1 - Coach
1 - Milestone
1 – Award Winner

Oklahoma City Thunder Win the 2024-2025 NBA Championship

 24-25 NBA Finals:  Congratulations to Thunder.  They deserved this championship, and I love how they did it with a combination of defense and young talent.  Shai was dominant averaging 30 points per game but had lots of help from Jalen Williams (23 ppg) and Chet Holmgren with his defense.  We got a seven-game series, great moments and some really good games.  There were some blowouts as well but that doesn't mean we didn't enjoy the playoff's Cinderella, Indiana, making us believe they could win this series.  OKC is a very young team outside of 30-year-olds Alex Carusso and Kenrich Williams.  They are setup for a long successful run.  I won't put money on more championships, because as we've seen parity is the name of the game in the NBA right now.

Random Wax: Kayou Hero Series Battle Series 1 Legend Booster– 3 Packs

Kayou Hero Battle Series 1:  Scarlett Witch has been very prominent in the Marvel movie universe and one I've liked.  I'm still now sure how much I liked WandaVision but she really shined in the movies.

These licensed cards come from a trading card game.  I really like the look, and they focus on the early Marvel cinematic universe which is something I'm a fan of.  These sets are really hard to find information on outside of a checklist.

Some cards are rarer than others and are easily denoted by the letters just below the photo on the left.  In order they go R, SR, SSR, HR, SGR, LR, UR, MR, and CR in that order from most common to the rarest.  The checklist gives a pretty good breakdown of what you should find in each box, and it was exact with mine.  I really do appreciate these being easily labeled.  I still don't know why some cards have red backgrounds behind the lettering and some of the border as opposed to others.

Purchased this off AliExpress.  Prices aren't pretty good compared to other comic card offerings.  That Iron Man card may be my favorite from this post. 

Some of the other packs had more variety but these are really fun.  I still have more packs to show off over time.  I really like the Iron Man and Captain Marvell cards in these packs.

BREAKDOWN:

18 – Total Cards (3 Packs)

7 – SR

1 - UR

1 – SSR

1988 Donruss All-Stars

 1988 All-Stars:  Feels like I should kick off every post from the era with Tony Gwynn.  He led the league in hits (220) and average (.372) in his age 37 season (1997).  Just wow.

I cannot remember where I picked these up, but I assume it was an eBay purchase last October.  This set is a total of 64 cards with of course All-Stars from the NL and AL.  I really enjoy the design which is very similar to what we saw in Donruss sets.  Not sure I knew this set ever existed.

The backs may look simple, but they have plenty of the player's All-Star stats and other player information.  I like them.

The NL and AL logos are favorite inclusions of mine on the All-Star sets.  They are both iconic and need to be on more cards.  I'm glad the managers were included.

I also got this Pop-Up and a Stan Musial puzzle piece.  Pop-Ups are fun inclusions.  I like this set and I'll pickup a complete set at some point at the right place.

BREAKDOWN:
7 – Total Cards
1 – Pop-Ups
1 – Stan Musial Puzzle Pieces

Random Wax: 2023-2024 Donruss Blaster

23-24 Donruss:  NBA draft is tonight!  Teams have dreams of picking futures franchise cornerstones like this guy.  He was drafted 7th in the 2009 NBA Draft behind Hasheem Thabeet (Memphis) and Jonny Flynn (Minnesota).  Yeah, look those guys up.  Had to kick off this post with the slick looking Holo Purple Laser Parallel #/99 Steph Curry.  Curry was 36 this season.  How will a full season of Jimmy Butler as a Warrior work and can Curry keep up his level of greatness at age 37 will be a big storyline next season.

Devin Booker may lose KD as a teammate in the upcoming months, but all indications are he's not looking to leave Phoenix.  Reigning MVP SGA.  Nice pull in this box.  This season's MVP (Shai) was drafted by Charlotte with the 11th pick in the 2018 NBA Draft.  He was traded on draft night to the Clippers.

Shai: June 21, 2018: Traded by the Charlotte Hornets to the Los Angeles Clippers for Miles Bridges, a 2020 2nd round draft pick (Vernon Carey Jr. was later selected) and a 2021 2nd round draft pick (Scottie Lewis was later selected). (CHO's 2020 2nd-rd pick from LAC is CLE's pick.)

Needed this Wemby pull in a box that otherwise wasn't big on rookies.  Andre Jackson and his amazing hair was drafted 36th overall in 2023 by Orlando.

Darius Garland had a big year being named an All-Star and was a huge piece of the #1 seed Cavaliers.  Drafted by the Miami Heat in 2011, Bogdanovic didn't play in the league until 2014 after being traded for Norris Cole on draft night

.  

(Bogdanovic) July 12, 2010: Traded by the Minnesota Timberwolves (as a future 2011 2nd round draft pick) with cash and a 2014 2nd round draft pick (Markel Brown was later selected) to the Miami Heat for Michael Beasley.

June 23, 2011: Drafted by the Miami Heat in the 2nd round (31st pick) of the 2011 NBA Draft.

I like all three of these photos.  Jackson really looks like he's going to throw that down.  Is that Curry underneath him?  Fred VanVleet went undrafted in 2016 and signed with Toronto.

Great X-Pectations isn't a bad looking card as is Magicians.  Need more color on the Bomb Squad cards but it's nice to see a retired great gracing the front.  Trae Young was famously traded for Luka Doncic on draft night.

(Trae Young) June21, 2018 Traded by the Dallas Mavericks with a 2019 1st round draft pick (Cam Reddish was later selected) to the Atlanta Hawks for Luka Dončić. (2019 1st-rd pick is top-5 protected.)

What the Lakers do this offseason is huge.  Can they get enough talent and depth around LeBron and Luka?  That's why GMs get paid the big bucks.  More great pulls from this box which was lots of fun.

BREAKDOWN:

90 – Total Cards

6 – Holo Green Parallels

5 – Rated Rookie

2 - RC

2 – X-Pectations

1 - Magicians

1 – Bomb Squad

1 – Retired Great

1 – Franchise Features

1 – Holo Purple Laser Parallel #/99

Random Wax: 1990 Pro Set Football (4 Packs)

1990 Pro Set:  You can't think of the great players of the '90s without thinking of Barry Sanders.  He led the league in rushing four times in his career while averaging 5 yards a carry over his 10 seasons.

Some great receivers.  Stanley Morgan is still the New England all-time leader in receiving yards at 10,352.  About 2,500 yards ahead of #2, Rob Gronkowski.  He is 4th all-time in receptions for the Pats.

These backs are great.  We get just about anything you could want including the AFC logo.

Super Bowl Collectible inserts.  Love the art they did for Super Bowls back in the day.

The backs were just as fun.  Bold move using the blimp used in the filming of Black Sunday.  Just saying.  Some filming of the movie was done during Super Bowl X.

Wilber Marshall played more seasons for Washington than Chicago (5-4) and was named an All-Pro and to the Pro Bowl while with the Redskins as well.

Always enjoy coach cards.  And we get the legendary Buddy Ryan.

Pro Bowl cards with Pro Bowl photos?  I've gone to heaven...

Ickey Woods dancing around officials.  Unfortunately, not the Ickey Shuffle.

It's fun seeing the Hall of Fame selections shine on cardboard.  Griese guided the Dolphins to two Super Bowl victories.  Hendricks and Buchanan were just beasts on defense.

These are so much fun.  Great cards and memories.  Like those classic Rams unis made even better with Jackie Slater wearing it.

BREAKDOWN:

60 – Total Cards

8 – Pro Bowl

4 – Super Bowl Collectibles

3 – Coach

3 – Hall of Fame

1 – Award Winner

Joe Pickett

 

Joe Pickett is a television series that ran two seasons on Paramount+.  My pop read the 25 books by CJ Box and really enjoyed them, so we wanted to try this series.  The characters and storylines in the TV series are similar but don't follow the books.  The plot follows a game warden in Wyoming.  Bad things happen and he has to figure them out which plays out throughout the season.  We liked season one.  Season two wasn't as good.  I think they had some good things going overall in the series but there are some characters and plot lines that are over the top which take away from the series.  I'd say take a look at this one if you're looking for something in this genre that's an easy watch, but you can put it low on your priority list.