Press Pass' Black Friday Promotions

It is time to begin the shopping nightmare known as Black Friday. Out of the major card companies only Panini and Press Pass are offering something special to collectors, though there are a number of online card retailers that are offering deals. I will cover Press Pass’ Black Friday promotion today and hit on Panini’s Black Friday promotion tomorrow.

 

Press Pass actually is offering a dual-promotion that runs from November 19^th through December 9^th and is targeting both retail and hobby products.

 

The Retail Promotion requires a collector to purchase $40 worth of Press Pass retail products from either Wal-Mart and/or Target before Sunday December 9^th, 2012. To take part you need to make your purchases and submit your original receipts to Press Pass through mail or email. Receipts can be submitted electronically (sent to info@presspassinc.com) or by mail (Press Pass, Inc. Attn: Black Friday, 9805 Northcross Center Court, Suite H, Huntersville, NC 28078 and postmarked by December 9th).

 

In return you will receive a special gift pack, which will have a minimum retail value of $20 (I am guessing a blaster box), and you will also be entered in to a raffle with the Grand Prize winner receiving a hobby half-case of 2012 FanFare.

 

The Hobby Promotion runs the same time period, 11/19-12/9, but requires the collector to take a photograph of themselves holding a hobby box of 2013 Press Pass Racing, Sports Town Football or Press Pass Legends Hall of Fame Edition in front of the card shop where they purchased the box. When you submit the photo you will be entered in to a raffle with the winner receiving a hobby half-case of 2012 FanFare Racing, Sports Town Football, or Press Pass Legends Hall of Fame Edition. If you win you can select which product you receive.

 

To take part you need to submit the photo of you with the box at the card shop through mail, email or through their Facebook. Photos can be submitted via email (info@presspassinc.com), by mail (Press Pass, Inc. Attn: Black Friday, 9805 Northcross Center Court, Suite H, Huntersville, NC 28078 and postmarked by December 17, 2012), or you can upload them to their Facebook page (www.Facebook.com/PressPassInc).

Preview: 2012-13 Panini Limited Hockey

As hockey fans continue to wonder when the lockout may end Panini is finishing up the final details for the release of Limited Hockey. Set for a December 26^th release date boxes will run $100 and contain 7 cards, which at least 3 will be hits, either autographs or memorabilia.

 

Box Break:

3 Autographs or Memorabilia cards

 

The set will consist of 150 base cards and 3 subsets; 30 Captains, 20 Retired Captains and 40 autographed Phenoms Rookies. The base cards will be #/299 and the Captains & Retired Captains subsets will be #/99. The autographed Phenoms are #/299 or less plus there will also be a 1/1 parallel.

 

I am not a big fan of the base card design; it reminds me more of what I would expect from Titanium or one of the other Pacific-rebirth hockey products. The Net Crashers and Manufacturers Mark relic cards are pretty cool, I like that the companies are looking to go with more original relics like the net strings and shoe strings from the skates.

 

Even though this is only $100 (pretty standard for Panini products), I would put this more on the upper-end product list because you only get 7 cards out of the box. While I can justify paying $100 for 3-4 hits out of a standard Panini product I cannot see paying that price here, the difference being 20-24 packs versus 1 pack. I just find opening 20 packs more enjoyable than a single pack, there is the hope and anticipation each time you rip one open.

 

It does not help that the NHL season seems more like a dream as each day passes. It should be noted that only games through November have been cancelled so if an agreement were to be reached games could potentially begin December 1^st and run on a shortened season schedule.

 

 

A Pack From The Past- Bloom County Chromium

I was going through some of my storage boxes looking for a set I collected in the 90s that I planned on writing about, I found the cards I was looking for but I also found a handful of long forgotten packs that I had opened around the same time and stored them all together.

 

Sometimes you forget about some of those sets that came out in the 90s when companies were setting the printing presses to high speed and it seemed like every guy with access to a printer was creating card sets hoping to cash in on the gold rush.

 

Being a child of the 70s & 80s I spent my Sunday mornings reading through the comics. The one section a kid could pull out of a newspaper and for one day feel like an adult, reading “our own” newspaper. Bloom County was a favorite, once I finally began to understand Berkeley Breathed’s humor I felt grown up. Breathed often covered subjects you would not expect from a comic strip like politics, culture, depression and mental health, war and even death and religion. His strips ran the entire decade before he decided to stop but then he moved on to Outland, which was a spin-off but a little more outlandish in the environment.

 

One company that jumped on the popularity of Bloom County and Outland, Krome Productions, created a set based on the storylines from the comic strips. The cards were chrome, obviously, and seemed almost random. The set contained a 100-card base checklist and two inserts, Holochrome and Stickers. There were actually subsets within the base set, multiple cards that would follow a certain theme (like Photos from Milo’s Scrapbook), multi-panel cards and puzzle cards.

 

 

The Holochrome cards were strikingly similar to Topps Finest cards and each contained one of the main characters from the comic strip. I did not pull any of these inserts, this image was pulled from eBay.

The stickers were a parallel of the individual base cards but not of the multi-panel or puzzle base cards. As best as I can find there are roughly 60 stickers. The stickers were also chrome but they were thinner than the base cards and the backs contained “Bloom County Outland” multiple times down the back instead of the standard base card back.

 

The set was released in 1995 and even though the packs are marked as “Premier Edition!” this was actually the only product released. You can still find boxes and individual cards selling on eBay with boxes running around $35-45 on average, most base cards sell for a couple of dollars and the Holochromes and Promo cards a little bit higher.

 

I picked up this pack in a dollar bin at a card show at the Tacoma Dome in 1999, back when card shows were still relevant to the hobby and there were hundreds of dealer tables and thousands of collectors working their way from table to table. This was the last show that I attended; I dragged my pregnant wife (bad call) and met the Product Manager from Pacific Trading Cards who helped me ID a Steve Largent card I pulled out of a pack a few years earlier that was not supposed to be packed out. Pacific was headquartered out of Lynnwood, about 45 minutes up I-5 from Tacoma. She invited me to take a tour of their offices and warehouse but sadly I never was able to make it work with my schedule.

 

Here is what the backs looked like, the vertical backs had a slightly different coloring than the horizontal backs but they otherwise were the same.

 

2012 Leaf Best Of Football Is Now Live

Following up on the tail of Best of Baseball and Best of Basketball we now have Best of Football. Today we see the releases of Leaf’s 2012 Best of Football, a $200/pack product that includes 2 cards per pack. Each pack includes one original Leaf Best of Football signed card and one slabbed or graded buyback card.

 

The original Leaf Best of Football signed cards are very similar to the baseball and basketball versions and include the player along with a sticker autograph. I have not been able to find a checklist but some of the players I have seen so far include Barry Sanders, Deion Sanders, Jerry Rice, Steve Young, Jerome Bettis and Deacon Jones.

 

As a bit of a bonus Leaf is randomly replacing the Leaf Best of Football signed card with a 1/1 signed sketch card or a 1/1 printing plate. There are also short print and super-short print cards, if I am not mistaken it appears that the green background cards are the base autograph cards with the blue background cards being limited to #/10 or less and the red background cards limited to #/5 or less.

 

 

 

 

The slabbed and graded buybacks are quite varied and include cards from Topps, Panini and Upper Deck as well as a handful from companies that are long gone like Score. I have watched a couple of box breaks and have seen a few Payton Manning rookies, a Tom Brady rookie and a Joe Montana rookie.

 

This product is a high risk/high reward product, at $200-250 a pack this is well outside of my price range but even if I were to have the spare cash in hand I do not think I would buy in, not at this point anyway.  Around 20 of the Best of Football signed cards have shown up for auction since this morning, the current highest bid is $20 for two different cards. Some of the names include Earl Campbell, Jerry Rice, Jim Kelly and Steve Young.

 

On Leaf's Facebook page they have been posting up a handful of the signed sketch cards, so far Mike Ditka and Rod Woodson. Some of these cards are pretty cool, it is interesting to see how the different artists decided to depict the player. My favorites are the cards from Jason Adams, he is a painter and actually creates stencils and uses different types of paints to achieve his creations though he does traditional sketch cards too. He has worked with Topps (Star Wars Galactic Files, Mars Attacks Heritage), Upper Deck (Marvel Premier, Marvel Beginnings) and now Leaf.

 

Here are the two cards by Jason Adams, you can see these are paint/sketch cards where he used a stencil and paint:

Here are a selection of the other cards that Leaf has posted on their Facebook page.

 

A Day To Honor Our Veterans

Today is Veterans Day, a day where we celebrate all U.S. military veterans. This day originally began as Armistice Day when President Wilson proclaimed that November 11, 1919 would be a holiday to honor those who served with pride and to remember those who died in service of our country during World War I. The date coincides with the day that the Germans signed the armistice, November 11, 1918 (11/11/18 at 11 am), to end all hostilities between the Allies and Germany. The day was observed as a day of remembrance but it was not until 1938 when the date was designated as a legal holiday. Following WWII and Korea it was decided to re-name it as Veterans Day to honor all American veterans who have served our country in the military.

 

I rarely talk about my personal life outside of sports but I am extremely proud of my family and friend’s military vets so today’s post is dedicated to my father (USMC), my oldest brother and his wife (US Army) and my middle brother (US Navy). Today is a very important day and it gives everyone a chance to thank all those who have served our nation proudly.

Happy Birthday To The Corps

Today, November 10^th, is the 237^th birthday of the United States Marine Corp. In those 237 years many Marines have served this country with honor, my father included. So my post today is dedicated to my father.

 

There are many important events connected to the Marine Corps in our country’s history but few have such a visual impact as the flag raising on Iwo Jima when five Marines and a Navy Corpsman planted the flag on Mt. Suribachi. A moment memorialized by photographer Joe Rosenthal. The moment is also captured in the Marine Corps War Memorial statute located outside of Arlington National Cemetery.

 

Most people do not know that this famous photograph was actually of the second flag raised on the mountain. The first flag was raised shortly after the Marines took control but Lt. Colonel Chandler W. Johnson told one of his officers to return to the ships for a larger flag so all the Marines on the island could see it once it was raised up, which he figured would lift their spirits. This is one of only a few photographs of the first flag to be raised on Mt Suribachi, taken by Marine SSgt. Louis R Lowery of Leatherneck Magazine.

 

Early Preview: 2012 Panini Playbook Football

In March 2013 Panini will be releasing 2012 Playbook Football, a high-end set consisting of all autographs and memorabilia cards. Each $200 box will contain 4 cards; one Rookie Booklet RC, one autograph and two memorabilia cards. There will be 3 boxes in each 10-box case that contain three autographs and one memorabilia card though. There are 1/1 versions of the Rookie Booklet RC that contains printing plates.

The set includes:

Playbook Materials: Booklets featuring up to eight swatches of game-worn material spelling out unique words and #/99 or less; there are Prime jersey versions #/49 or less.

 

Rookie Playbook Materials: Booklets featuring up to eight swatches of event-worn material spelling out unique words for each rookie and #/199 or less. There are also on-card autograph versions with two different die-cut phrases.

 

Rookie Signatures: Autographs from top rookies and #/149 or less; there is also a Black 1/1 parallel.

 

Accolades Signatures: Autographs from some of the top NFL players of all time and #/49 or less.

 

Fabled Fabrics: Game-worn jersey relics from the NFL’s greatest and #/99 or less; there are prime versions #/49 or less.

Looking through the preview it seems well over-priced. The Rookie Booklet RC cards are pretty cool with a jumbo prime patch, jumbo relic and an on-card floating auto but that is about it. The Playbook Materials look an awful lot like Topps’ Triple Threads and the rest of the cards could have easily ended up as “hits” in a low-end product. When you pay $200 for a box you deserve more than sticker autographs (Rookie Signatures and Accolades) and event-worn relics (Rookie Playbook Materials).

 

I have a feeling that unless you pull a top rookie or superstar booklet card you are looking at a bunch of $5 cards and a feeling of regret.

 

 

How Cool Would This Be?

I think we all can agree that Fleer Retro Football would do much better with an NFL license. This is my vision of what could have been. I spent about 5 days building the templates and another day or so working with the player images to find the right shot and cleaning them up to fit in the templates. Finding the right font with some of the cards was a pain in the ass, I have hundreds of fonts that I went through to find the perfect match but a couple were off slightly but I don't think it really hurt the aesthetics.

 

I began with the RG3 Precious Metal Gems just to see if I could replicate the card surface. I did the Jambalaya next, which was probably the most difficult to make because I had to build it almost entirely from scratch. The Hardware cards are pretty boring really but I made this to add some variety. The 1960 Peterson and base card Richardson were both pretty easy to make. The base card is my second favorite, behind the Jambalaya, followed by the 1960 card as my third favorite. I like the simplicity of the designs.

 

Some of the shots were difficult to find because I had certain things I was looking for (besides size) like the 1960 Peterson where he was in a Vikings uniform with his helmet off. If you look at the original Fleer 1960 football cards the players are all without their helmets and most are in posed shots. With the Jambalaya, my favorite, I wanted to use a shot of Fitzgerald jumping because the basketball versions all have players in a jump/shooting motion. With the Hardware card, because the card theme is players with trophies/rings, I wanted to use a Brady shot from a winning Super Bowl so I used this one from Super Bowl XXXIX where the Patriots beat the Eagles.

 

I was working on a Noyz Boyz card but was not happy with how it was coming out so I dropped it all together and I wanted to add one of the Autographics cards but I decided to hold up and just post what I have completed so far.

 

I am an Upper Deck fan going back to their first releases and I know that Richard McWilliam has made some horrible decisions regarding the company and the athletes UD has worked with but I still hope that someday either he will pass the company on to someone else or shows he can make the right choices and earn back the lost licenses.

 

Nightmares On Cardboard V Voting Time

The Nightmares on Cardboard V entries have been posted up and this year Bill is doing something different, he is allowing the readers to select their favorite Nightmares on Cardboard submissions. There is about 20 hours left in the voting, so if you have a chance take a look at all the cool cards that were submitted this year and vote for your favorites. The poll is located at the top right, above the Milwaukee Brewers logo. 

If you like my cards, I would appreciate your support in vote form.

Thank you
Shawn "Corky"


Link to the  Nightmares on Cardboard V poll


Here is the link to my House of 1000 Corpses custom card submission for the contest so you can see the 4 base cards and one video card that I included in my entry.

Early Preview- 2013 Topps UFC Knockout

The popular Topps UFC Knockout release will be returning in 2013, currently set for a February 25, 2013 release date. Boxes are pre-selling for $150-155 and will include 8 packs per box (5 cards per pack). Each pack will include 3 base cards, 1 base parallel and 1 hit.

 

Box Break:

24 Base cards
2 Autographs
2 Autograph-Relics
4 Relics
8 Parallels

 

The base set contains 125 cards and is made up of UFC and Strikeforce fighters and there will be 4 parallels of each base card: Gold (#/188), Green (#/88), Red (#/8) and Printing Plates (1/1). There will also be a new parallel, Mat Parallels, which will be printed on a simulated mat-like material, these cards will be very limited (1/1).

 

Like prior Topps UFC sets there will be plenty of hits including autographs and relics. A run-down of the hits:

 

Autographs:

Base Autographs- 40 fighters and they will be on-card. First time fighters will include the “First Issue” stamp. There will be parallels too; Red (#/8), Mat Parallel (1/1), Red Ink (#/15) and this will include the fighter’s signature in red ink along with their nickname.

 

 

Notable Nickname Autos- 20 fighters and their nicknames are highlighted on cards containing signatures of the fighter’s nickname. (#/25)

 

Three Of A Kind Autographs- Fighters sharing a common link are grouped in sets of three, along with their atutographs. 10 cards all numbered to 10.

 

Sicksigs Autograph Book Card- Six fighters are grouped together by a shared bond on tri-fold book cards, featuring six autographs. Six cards all numbered to five.

 

Full-Contact Autograph Card- 20 fighters put silver pen to card for a set entirely on-card. (#/75)

 

Memorable Match-Ups Dual Auto Card- Ten pairs of fighters who faced off against each other in the past are paired up on cards with their signatures. (#/10)

 

Ultimate Knockouts Autos- Ten subjects from the Ultimate Knockouts inserts also receive a special autographed version of their card (#/25).

 

UFC @utographs- Fighters and UFC personalities are spotlighted with cards that contain on-card autographs along with their Twitter handles. (#/25)

 

Relics:

Fight Mat- 30 fighters, from specific fights, will contain a relic of fight-used mat from UFC and Strikeforce fights, they will be numbered to #/288. There will be parallels; Green (#/88), Red (#/8), Mat (1/1).

 

Knockout- 30 fighters and will include fight-worn shirt or shorts relics, the cards will be numbered.

 

 

Memorable Match-Ups- 10 pairs of fighters and will include fight-worn shirt or shorts relics (#/50).

 

Premium Pieces Relics- 30 fighters and will include multi-color relic pieces from fighter-worn shorts or shirts (#/88).

Between Rounds Relics- Cards featuring the Octagon Girls, it will include pieces of their outfits, the round cards, and robes (#/25)

Ultimate Knockouts Relics- 10 fighters from the Ultimate Knockouts insert will have a special relic version of their cards which will include fighter-worn gear (#/25).

 

 

Autograph-Relics:

 

Dual Autographed Fight Mat Relics- 10 cards featuring 2 fighters, includes autographs from both fighters along with a mat relic from the fight (#/10).

 

Knockout Autographed Relics- 30 fighters including an autograph and a fight-worn relic and they are numbered. There will be parallels; Red (#/8) and Mat (1/1).

Autographed Premium Pieces- 30 fighters, including an autograph along with a premium/multi-colored fight-worn gear (#/50).

Memorable Match-Ups Dual Autograph Jumbo Relic Book Card- 10 pairs of fighters and will include their autographs and jumbo swatches of worn gear (#/5).

 

Between Rounds Autograph Relics- Cards featuring the Octagon girls, it will include pieces of their outfits, round cards, and robes, and an autograph (#/5).

 

Ultimate Knockouts Auto Relics- 5 fighters from the Ultimate Knockouts insert will have a special relic and autograph version of their cards, featuring fighter-worn gear (#/10).

 

 

Triple Threads:

Triple Threads Relics- 48 cards featuring 24 fighters and will include 3 relics for each fighter (#/36). There will be parallel versions; Sepia (#/27), Emerald (#/18), Gold (#/9), Sapphire (#3) and Platinum (1/1).

 

Triple Threads Autograph Relics- 24 cards including the fighter’s autograph and 3 relics (#/28). There will be parallel versions; Gold (#/9), Sapphire (#3) and Platinum (1/1), Leather (1/1) and White Whale Printing Plates (1/1).

 

Triple Threads Combo Relic- 12 cards featuring 3 subjects with 3 relics (#/26). There will be parallel versions; Sepia (#/27), Emerald (#/18), Gold (#/9), Sapphire (#3) and Platinum (1/1).

 

Triple Threads Relic Double Combos Booklet- 8 cards featuring 6 fighters and 6 relics (#/36). There will be parallel versions; Sepia (#/27), Emerald (#/18), Gold (#/9), Sapphire (#3) and Platinum (1/1).

 

Triple Threads Glove Patch Book Card- 30 fighters featuring three swatches from a fighter-worn glove and jumbo patch (1/1).

 

Triple Threads Autograph Glove Swatch Book Card- 30 fighters featuring three swatches of fight-worn glove along with an autographed jumbo glove swatch. (1/1)

 

Special Inserts:

Fist-OGraphs Box Toppers: 20 fighters (20 cards total) with the fighter’s fist impression in ink along with an on-card autograph. Note that these box toppers are oversized and they are very limited, they will be randomly inserted in to only 20 boxes.

 

Autographed Glove Redemption: 30 fighters (30 cards total) will have redemption cards randomly inserted in to boxes, the card will include a code to redeem a UFC glove signed by the fighter.

I am a huge MMA fan and with releases very limited I think that Topps has done a nice job. Knockout is on the upper end of the product line and price-wise is outside of my price range but I love the release. The Fist-Ographs are hugely popular from last year's release and even the "cheaper" cards are selling in the $150 range.

Just looking at the base set I would rate this a 4 out of 5 on design alone, add in a healthy selection of solid inserts and this moves up easily to a 4 1/2 out of 5. The only downside is the over abundance of parallels, I am not a fan of paralleling almost every single card in the release. The cards are limited enough before tossing in 3-6 parallel cards.