Month: December 2018

Random Review: End of the year Upper Deck E-Pack sale

~ danieladubay ~ Leave a comment

I have had my eye on Upper Deck E-Pack for the past 500 days or so. Like most collectors, I didn’t know what to make of it.  I didn’t like that every pack didn’t guarantee you a physical card; then again I am a fan of breakers who ship their common cards. Today, I finally jumped in with my first foray into buying packs from the program. It helped that they are having an end of the year sale.

My purchase:
2 – 2017-18 AHL Hockey packs
$3.99, Buy one, get one free
1 – 2016 Goodwin Champions
$4.99, not on sale
2 – 2018 USA Football Packs
$9.99,  Buy one, get one free
Tax was charged on top of it

I was sold by the USA packs because they guaranteed a hit. For them, I was expecting the worst: a plain cheap jersey or a Canadian player Sorry Canada but there just isn’t many pro prospects with your players. Instead, I hit 2 USA high school players. One does not seem well regarded as he is 68th in the state at his position; and he doesn’t live in a big state like California or Texas. Still I feel that I didn’t do too bad by hitting 2 autographs.

The AHL packs did not offer much. Here is where I wish that I could get my base cards. These are the types of players where it would be fun to track their progress.

I didn’t hit a Ben Simmons in the Goodwin product but it was still fun. Bret Hart made an appearance; another one where I wish that I could get the base card. I got a mini of a water polo player.

2018-12-31 (1)

I was able to transfer 4 cards to my COMC account. I was expecting a wait but this was done instantly.

I am not sure that I will be buying more from Upper Deck E-Pack program. I would rather buy these cards in a card shop. Still, I can see myself jumping at a sale or two like today. I could have shipped my hits home instead of directing them to COMC. However, given that shipping is similar in price to PackRip, I would rather go with them for the time being. This is still a decent platform if you like Upper Deck products and are not a fan of accumulating base cards in your house.

Angry: Prevalence of Panini Points lately

~ danieladubay ~ Leave a comment

As some of you know, I have a love/hate relationship with Panini points. They are good when I can fill needs for random players in my collection but they offer no value and shipping is atrocious.

Lately though, it seems that there has been an abundance of points in new product released. It has hit embarrassing levels. For example the 4 boxes on Youtube that I have watched opened on Twitter of Contenders retail have all had points replace the autograph. This is is also in line with numerous football hobby releases. Every case seems to have two or more boxes of points replacing an autograph.

When I buy a product, I want a card from that product. I don’t want a hit from another product that I have to pay an additional shipping cost on. I don’t want to have to add those up to get a better hit. Collectors want instant gratification for the most part. Contenders football updated their base cards and the base cards are something that I can get excited about. I was thinking about buying a box of them from Target until I saw all of the boxes had points replacing the autograph.

The rise and prevalence of points is at the point where I am genuinely worried for the hobby and Panini as a whole. They have a new football release every week. They are oversaturating the market. I understand that this is part of the contract with the NFL and NFL players association but to me it is clear that they have not learned from the mistakes of the 90s. The industry is a period where it has risen and collectors have come out of hiding. Also people are buying more product when they buy now. Instead of buying packs, people are buying boxes to chase hits. Parallels are a dime a dozen and feel like the new base cards; don’t get me started on those. On top of the fact that football cards do not age well because of short careers and injuries decimating every team every season. My point is, I genuinely worry is Panini is overproducing base cards again to meet demand. I worry that this is why we are seeing more of those awful points replacing hits. Aren’t there enough autographs to go around so that points aren’t needed? If not, why aren’t there?

Random Review: 2018-19 NBA Hoops Holiday Edition Christmas Edition

~ danieladubay ~ Leave a comment

I got retail packs for Christmas but picked up this second Hoops blaster a few weeks ago. I opened it today figuring that I wouldn’t want to open it after Christmas. For a more detailed review on this product, check out my last review of it: Random Review: 2018-19 NBA Hoops Holiday Edition

This was a more typical box. I liked that the jersey card had a winter theme on it, something that my hit last time did not.

The rookies from this pack were pretty bland. As of right now, I didn’t pull any big rookies but the rookie class is fluid so who knows what I might come back to in a year or two.

The jersey card is a typical hit in these boxes. This box was very typical overall and not flashy; just like the Hoops brand. Nothing flashy but a healthy amount of base and rookies. I might keep my eye out and grab one or two of these if they hit the clearance rack. The winter theme is a nice change of pace for a product that doesn’t offer much.

A non winter themed card slipped by; the Maurice Harkless card. For comparison check out the card next to it to see how the base card should look with the winter theme.

Random Review: 2018-19 NBA Hoops Holiday Edition

~ danieladubay ~ 1 Comment

Today’s Random Review is a blaster of 2018-19 NBA Hoops Holiday Edition. Unlike other products, these have been readily available in my area. I have seen them at Target and WalMart for the typical $19.99 price point.
You can find 11 packs in them with 8 cards per pack. It has a guarantee of a relic card.

The ends of the packs have a green holiday theme.

All of the cards have snowflakes on them; well except the autograph that I pulled. In the picture above, you can see that the snowflakes pop in some cards versus others. The picture doesn’t really show what I mean with the P.J. Tucker card as I had a hard time seeing the snowflakes when I had it in my hands at reading eye level. I put a card in the background for comparison to show the difference.
There are purple parallels in the box. As stated in the last paragraph, the autograph did not have any holiday theme on it. I am not really complaining as it was nice to pull an autograph from a Hoops blaster. Interestingly, despite being a $3 autograph from a player who currently plays overseas, it is Mangok Mathiang’s first autograph card.

I had fun with the inserts and rookies. A good 30% of the box was inserts and rookies. All of these were holiday themed and helped make this a fun box to open.

Overall this was a fun rip. If the base set wasn’t 300 cards, I might even consider doing a set of these. For an entry level product, this is a great product. I would love to see more holiday themed products of other sets. I can only imagine the potential for the snowflakes on a set like Optic or Chrome.

Random Review: 2018 Panini Black Friday multi sport packs

~ danieladubay ~ Leave a comment

@GoGTSLive & @fatpacks year end survey is out. In a sea of great blogs, don’t forget to vote http://AngryCardCollector.com  as your favorite for question 67. Incidentally, my old playing number when I was an all star football player. You can vote here: https://t.co/hQNsulFWi8