Random Wax: 2019 Score Football Blaster with Relic

 2019 Score Football: Drew Brees retired this week so this blaster seemed a great way to kick off this Sunday.  Dude was crazy good for so long and of course holds many NFL passsing records to show for it. He won a Super Bowl ring to go along with his great career.  He also has one of my all-time favorite cards where he looks like a boss as a San Diego Charger. 

To say I like 2019 Score is an understatement.  I picked it up ever chance I got.  This post has been sitting around for a while ready to go.  I had a really good pull including this Mahomes and PC guy Luke Kuechly.

These blasters come with hits and mine was a good one.  Mack's hasn't hit double digits in the sack column since 2018 but he still had nine last season.

There are always plenty of inserts in Score.  Epix seems to be a collector favorite.  The Throwbacks Steelers card is a miss.  I see no throwback in that uni.

Tom Terrific.  'Nuff said.  That Ravens Huddle Up is one of the better cards from this insert set in my opinion.  The photo is taken closer to the huddle than may of the others I've seen. 

Score does a good job showcasing rookies as well with base cards and inserts. The excitement around that Haskins rookie card felt a lot different when I pulled it two years ago.  Same can be said for the Minshew but in a different way.

And another Steeler...This was a fun box of cards.  Love this set and I enjoy looking at these each time I post them.  

BREAKDOWN:
132 – Total Cards
34 – RC
4 - Captains
4 – Gold Parallel
3 – Epix
3 – Throwbacks
3 – Signal Callers
3 – Fantasy Stars
3 – 2019 NFL Draft
2 – All-Hands Team
1 – Celebration
1 – Huddle Up
1 – Scorecard Parallel
1 – Defenders Jersey Relic

Random Wax: 2020 Donruss NASCAR

 2020 Donruss NASCAR: I was out for a long drive yesterday with the music up and ran by a Wal-Mart I haven't been to in years.  Found me some 2020 and 2021 Donruss NASCAR fat packs which made me really happy.  We'll kick this pack off with the reigning NASCAR champion on this checkerboard parallel Contenders insert.  Chase Elliott is having a good start to the season currently sitting in fourth place after four races.

This set's base card design is shown on that Clint Bowyer card while the Retro 1987 cards have almost the same amount of cards within the set.  I think the black borders and race wheels in the gray border really work even though I'm not a big fan of that design on the original 1987 baseball set.

Simple but good looking car cards.

I enjoy seeing retired greats in the set like we do here on that gray looking silver parallel of Michael Waltrip.  The Sorenson and Almirola cards are Carolina Blue parallels while Almirola's card is also one of the Optics that collectors like finding in these sets.

The Top Tier inserts are nice looking cards working in the driver and the car.  Another retired great, Hall of Famer and two-time champion Terry Labonte.  I'm a big fan of the Race Kings cards as well as all the "Kings" cards across the different Donruss sets.  Fun pack.  Plenty of good drivers and a nice surprise find these.

BREAKDOWN:
30 – Total Cards
11 – Retro 1987
4 – Retired Greats
3 – Carolina Blue Parallels
2 – Contenders
1 – Top Tier
1 – Race Kings
1 – Silver Parallel
1 – Checkers Parallel

Mail Day: Trade with All Cardinals All the Time

 Ray from All Cardinals All the Time reached out for a trade after reading my post of a 2020 Topps blaster.  He threw up a post about some of the cards that went his way and it's always fun seeing those.  I was excited knowing this Chipper Jones patch was headed my way.  I liked the look of this insert but the odds of grabbing one in the wild was pretty low.  He also sent more Chipper which is always a good thing.

  

I'm not a Cardinals guy but there are some Redbirds I do like to include Ozzie, Mac, and Vince.  All three were so much fun to watch play.  

I'm really enjoying all these cards but that USA Baseball rookie card is the highlight.  Such an iconic card.  So many of these have great photos but the Fleer art is one I've always liked as well.  

Lucky for me Ray's son is an Altuve fan so he had some extras running around.  The Astros deserve all the grief they've gotten the last few years but I'm still a big fan of Jose Altuve.  Thank you so much to Ray for reaching out and for the great cards.  He really went above and beyond with these cards.  

And these guys...

2020-2021 Hoops Winter Blaster

2020-2021 Hoops: I'd missed out on these the first time my small town Wal-Mart had them two weeks ago.  Nothing new on the shelves Friday night when I went for something else.  Then yesterday morning there was Hoops and NFL Optic which I passed on.  I didn't take all the Hoops but so glad I did grab some as by the time I checked out all the Hoops and NFL were gone leaving only baseball and hockey.  I'm very happy to get these.  I love the NBA and basketball but was resigned to not getting to buy any of these outside of picking up singles or team sets.  These are just in time for the NBA All-Star Game tonight.  To the cards and we'll start here with King James!

The design isn't too bad though the borders take up quite a bit of room.  Maybe let the team colors come down the one side or the other would have been good too.  I'm happy overall with the photos though and I can live with any issues I have with the design.

Plenty of rookies in the blasters and I pulled three of the top five in scoring this year.  Ball is the most impressive so far and looks right at home in the NBA.  I really wasn't high on him but once again I prove why I'm not a GM.

These inserts are a bit bland for me.  They're not bad and probably hit the mark for a vanity plate but I'd think vanity plates for these guys could be more.

I love the Slam magazine inserts.  I got quite a few from everything I busted and may look at completing the set.  I know that may not be cheap so don't hold me to it.  Arriving Now is another opportunity to showcase rookies but I'm not feeling it.  The background does nothing for me.  

Each blaster have a relic or auto and I pulled Rookie Sweater relics in each of mine.  They're okay but not exciting.  Killian Hayes is still finding his way with Detroit only averaging 4.6 points per game.

The backs are the standard boring black and white we are accustomed to with Hoops.  

I like the Lights Camera Action design for this year.  That star is cool and in my mind gives more hype to the stars on the card.  Frequent Flyers isn't bad but the ticket and title could have been smaller.  Nice Westbrook photo.

The jersey swap cards are simple but work.  This is somewhat new in the sports world and I'm good putting it on cardboard.  Was this fun?  Heck yeah.  It was great finding these in the wild and I was like a kid ripping them when I got home.  A good pull, design and variety helped make it fun.  I'll show off the rest of the packs and blasters I picked up over time.  Enjoy the game and festivities tonight.

BREAKDOWN:
88 – Total Cards
23 – RC
2 – Vanity Plates
2 – Slam Magazines
2 – Lights Camera Action
1 – Jersey Swap
1 – Arriving Now
1 – Purple Parallel
1 – Frequent Flyers
1 – Rookie Sweaters

 

2015 NFL Stickers

 2015 Panini NFL Stickers: More stickers.  This time from the NFL and 2015.  These don't see as dated as the MLB and NBA stickers did.  I like this set as it has plenty of variety.  

 I like the design and colors on these.  They work really well with the uni colors.

One of the foil team helmet stickers.  All that black is silver but foil hardly ever scans that way.  

I like the design on the Hall of Fame stickers.  That big logo works well while the player photo doesn't seem lost here.

These are foil stickers and look pretty good in hand.  

Thomas Davis won the Walter Payton Man of the Year award.  I like the draft stickers.

This set is definitely fun.  Plenty to choose from and good looking stickers.  And then there's more Tom Terrific...

BREAKDOWN:
91 – Total Cards
22 – Foil
8 – Helmet Cards
3 – Franchise Championships
2 – Hall of Fame Class of 2015
1 – Score
1 – NFL Honors
1 – 2015 NFL Draft
1 - Super Bowl XLIX

2016 MLB Stickers

 2016 Topps MLB Stickers: We'll keep the stickers theme going this week with some MLB stickers from 2016.  Didn't have many of these but I know there were other stickers that I had used on the end of card boxes to identify the team so I don't know how many packs I bought back in the day.

Some of those that ended up on card boxes would have made my pull look a little better.  There were also team logo stickers in the set which I liked.  There were a total of 301 stickers in the set.  

A decent design though there is way too much white at the bottom.  Still this probably worked within an album where you'd put the stickers.  I liked the stickers but wish there had been some variety.  Looking at the checklist I really don't see any outside of the team logo stickers.  Still fun to look back at the players.  Only five years but seems longer looking at the players that were promient then.  I still don't know what I'll do with these but I'm sure I'll figure out something.

2015-2016 NBA Stickers

2015-2016 Panini Basketball Stickers: I've had stickers from different sets and sports laying around so I thought I'd show them off.  From the dates I'd say they've been laying around for quite a while. If you're like me these really bring back memories of your childhood and buying stickers and the books you put them in.  This Marcus Smart is one of the foil cards.  

I like the design on these base stickers.  Simple but with a nice team logo and plenty of room for the photo.  The only omission is the player position.  My pull from this pack wasn't that great but this set has a total of 483 stickers which means pulls like this wouldn't be that uncommon.  Each of these guys did win a championship in their career and Barbosa was the NBA 6th Man of the Year playing for Phoenix in 06-07.

It's always fun looking back at cards from older sets like this. Some players were big deals at the time but like any sport it is never a guarantee they'll continue to shine.  Nerlens Noel was one of the first pieces of "the process" in Philly but injuries and some guy named Embiid meant his time there would be short.  Fun find and I'll show off more stickers as time goes on.  

It was this suit and tie that got Tommy Heinsohn elected to the Hall of Fame.  Just saying...  

BREAKDOWN:

7 – Total Stickers

1 – Foil

1 – Hall of Fame