Tag Archives: baseball

Lionel Messi For 2013 Topps Allen & Ginter

  By Sports Card Blog | December 29, 2012 - 11:18 am | ,
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Below is my pitch for the Argentine FC Barcelona star to get his own card, and autographed card, in 2013 Topps Allen & Ginter baseball.

Lionel Messi is one of the best footballers in the world right now. For those Americans, he is one of the best soccer players in the world right now. He just recently broke the record for most goals in a calendar year, a record held by Gerd Muller. In fact, he ended the calendar year with 91 goals, 6 more than Muller. That is impressive enough.

Football, soccer, whatever you want to call it is on the rise in the United States. It is one of the fastest growing spectator sports with Major League Soccer expanding to new markets and more people watching the EPL on the “tele” more than ever before. Who was the last international soccer star to appear in Ginter? Pele? That was 2009. (Maybe it wasn’t. But he is slated for 2013 Allen & Ginter!) Did we even see David Beckham? We’ve seen plenty American players like Hope Solo and Heather Mitts, Allen & Ginter could use a couple more soccer players instead of B list celebrities that no one ends up caring about.

The secondary market would be huge for Lionel Messi cards, especially autographs. He is a man beloved in Argentina and Spain, as well as around Europe for this talents on the pitch. It would also expose your products overseas with such a huge name. Lionel is 25 years old and just about hitting the prime of his career. He is going to continue to break records, win titles, and more awards. Although he lost the Player of the Year award to Iniesta, he did place a close second.

Topps, please bring international soccer to Allen & Ginter. If not Messi, maybe a big star like Wayne Rooney could make an appearance.

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Preview: 2012 Panini Golden Age Baseball

  By Sports Card Blog | December 21, 2012 - 8:49 am |
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Well today is release day and I’m finally getting a preview out to the masses. It’s nothing new for this month as I’ve finally finished up a difficult term in graduate school. My focus had to move elsewhere for a bit, but now I get some time to do something else I love, look at products.

Panini continues their baseball season after the season has ended with 2012 Golden Age baseball. Golden Age is a product that mixes up some of the best baseball players of all time with other professional athletes and faces from history. It’s sort of like a A&G type product.

Every box will contain one Historic Signatures autographed card, one Museum Age memorabilia card, and a number of parallels and inserts. One of the cool additions is box toppers that have a rare chance of including some memorabilia embedded into them. Thank you for bringing back the box topper, Panini.

One of my favorite additions is always the history memorabilia cards. For instance, in this product you might find a small piece of the infamous ship that sank in 1912, the Titanic. Or maybe you’ll find something with the baseball theme and get a piece of a bat used by “Shoeless” Joe Jackson from the famed Black Sox. How about an authentic 1930s-40s Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig Goudey card?

The autographs contained in this product will be historic, as the title of the card suggests. With cut signatures of big personalities and baseball players, Triple Crown jockeys, political standouts, and more, there is a lot of American history in each box of this product.

You should be able to find it, starting today, at DA Card World for about $72.

You can find the full checklist over at Cardboard Connection as well.

Want more images? Check out the Panini Peek!

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Review: 2012 Panini Playoff Prime Cuts Baseball

  By Sports Card Blog | December 8, 2012 - 10:58 am | ,
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2012 Prime Cuts has arrived, shortly after 2011 Prime Cuts, and features some of the best cards you can find of the old-timers of the game. With game used jersey swatches from legends and Hall of Famers, to cut signatures, and everything in between, there is the chance to hit something big in every pack/box. Each pack/box provides 2 cards with at least one of them being an autograph. Mine had 3 cards, so I’m not sure exactly what happened there. No complaints on the bonus. So let’s see what we pulled.

Design:

I enjoyed the design of last year’s product and this year provides little change to the successful formula from last season. One of the greatest parts about the design of the product is you often can not tell that the photos are lacking MLB logos. Panini has done a great job in this department since acquiring the MLBPA license and this product is no different. Through all the various designs, they do a good job. I even really like the design of the Team USA autographs, but we’ll have to go more into that later…

Checklist:

The checklist of names in this product is actually pretty decent. You can find everyone from Lou Gehrig to Ty Cobb, Joe DiMaggio, and today’s stars like Albert Pujols and young stars like Yu Darvish. It really is a wide variety of players in this product. One of the highlights is always the old-timers and it is a reason people love to try their hand at this product. Pulling a Cobb or a Gehrig is always a thrill for those lucky enough to pull those cards. The only real issue I have with the checklist is the Team USA cards. Why are they in this product? But that is also a big issue with the…

Value:

Man, a file I don’t use too often. But right now this product is at $150 at DA Card World. For two cards and the possibility of some really weak autographs, like the Team USA autographs, it’s overpriced. Not even really a bit overpriced, but very overpriced. My break wasn’t terrible because I hit that low numbered patch of a superstar. However, I’ve seen some absolutely brutal breaks. If there is a definition for a truly hit or miss product, I think this would fall into it. If you hit a nice signature or a nice memorabilia piece you’ll be happy, but otherwise this product is a tough sell at that price. Good luck if you try it.

Overall:

Somehow this product averaged out to 4 stars. It makes me wonder if I should hold more weight to the actual value of the product you are buying. Do I add in a rating or re-buy value?  The design of the product is pretty well done and that deserves the applause. A non-licensed product is tough to design so they did a good job with that. The checklist while solid as usual for this product, does have it’s serious issues that cause it not to live up to the $150 price tag for two cards. It’s a tough sell at that price, but there is the opportunity for some huge cards.

Thanks to Panini America for providing this box for review. You can find them online on their official site, blog, Twitter, and Facebook.

You can find the full checklist and other information at the Cardboard Connection.

Check out this short video, but one sweet card of a superstar pulled:

 

 

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Group Break: 2007 Upper Deck Ultimate Collection Baseball Case Break

  By Sports Card Blog | December 6, 2012 - 2:10 pm |
19 Comments

Group Break as Low as $5!

I have received a case of 2007 Upper Deck Ultimate Collection baseball. I would LOVE to do a group break with my readers and the product. This product is loaded with hits from just about every team out there. At 3 hits per pack and 1 base, 4 packs per box, and 4 boxes per case, that equates to 48 total hits.

You can find some sweet rookies autographs like Tim Lincecum, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Ryan Braun, Josh Hamilton, Adam Lind, Michael Bourn, Delmon Young, Hunter Pence, Troy Tulowitzki, Billy Butler, and more. Just check out this full checklist. There are a couple redemptions in the product, I apologize if one is pulled for you as they are expired. I will send something to replace the expired redemption or you can have the expired redemption yourself, your choice.

Read all the product details here at Cardboard Connection on all the types of cards you can hit. Tons of sweet autographs, patch cards, etc.

So what I’ve done here is painstakingly counted all of the cards in the set and found out the percentage you pull a card based on the team. That is then correlated into a price for each team. Price includes PayPal fees, shipping, and cards you pull. If you get 0 cards (including base), I’ll send you something for joining, probably some packs of cards or something. You are welcome to buy as many teams as you wish. Break will be done simultaneously live on YouTube and BlogTV at a date to be determined (depending on when it fills).

Cards with multiple teams will be randomized unless someone owns the majority of the teams on the card.

Angels – $22
Athletics – $33
Mariners – $22
Rangers – $34
Indians – $22
Tigers – $22 – Gladdy (Confirmed)
Twins – $54
Royals – $5 – Michael Poullas (Confirmed)
White Sox – $22
Blue Jays – $10 – Community Gum (Confirmed)
Orioles – $34 – Waxtopia (Confirmed)
Rays – $22
Red Sox – $64 – Kevin (Confirmed)
Yankees – $59
Braves – $22 -
Marlins – $33
Nationals – $10
Mets – $34
Phillies – $22
Astros – $34 – FieldLevelView (Confirmed)
Brewers – $34 – Michael Decker (Confirmed)
Cardinals – $49
Cubs – $34
Pirates – $5
Reds – $22 -
Diamondbacks – $10
Dodgers – $10 -
Giants – $15 – Adam (Confirmed)
Padres – $34
Rockies – $22

Please respond here if you are interested in purchasing a spot in this group break. First come, first serve on payment. As soon as payment is made, that team will be crossed out.

Break will be December 19th, whether filled or not! Payment is due by that date.

UPDATE: If the break is filled, $100 will be donated to Sandy Hook victims.

Break has been completed. Visit http://www.blogtv.com/users/sportscardblog for the videos!

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Review: 2012 Panini Signatures Series Baseball

  By Sports Card Blog | December 6, 2012 - 7:49 am | ,
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2012 Panini Signature Series baseball is out as one of Panini’s premier products that produces penmanship from prospects and pros. All alliteration aside, it’s a product with a three autographs per pack/box along with three parallels. Without the use of the MLB logos, this product is still a great looking set with an old-school Donruss Studio look to it. Let’s see what you can find in a product like this…

Design:

As stated in the introduction, the design is sort of a license-less homage to the former Donruss Studio products. A studio setting face shot, dark background, with a slight appearance of the hat that is cropped out just enough so you know it’s a baseball player. Great use of cropping in the product to give it a great feel. Now most know about my feeling toward manufactured patch autographs, and this product is full of them. If they came up with a different design for that portion of the product, I easily would have given this at least another half star. But we also have the inclusion of faux baseball leather autographs on the Sweet Spot, which I have always loved. I’m glad to see those brought back again in baseball products.

Checklist:

The checklist is heavy on the rookies and short on the veterans. There really isn’t much else to say about that. If you pull one of the stars or legends of the game you’ve got some luck on your side. While the selection of rookies is large, it is still larger than the selection of veterans/legends in terms of variety and numbering. For instance, most of all rookies are numbered to 299…veterans and legends? 25 or less.

Value:

I was actually shocked when while doing my research I saw the original and current price for this product. Right now you can find the product for $97 at DA Card World. I thought that was still too high, but it originally came out at $120. For a product that leans heavy on the rookies, despite the three autographs per box, it feels very overpriced. Even at $97 it feels overpriced. I’ve seen this and other breaks of the product and I can’t justify $120, let alone $100 for this product. I’m not sure why it was priced so highly, but it could definitely use a price drop if Panini wanted to sell more product earlier in the cycle. My one issue with the MAPP is that I shouldn’t have to wait until after it expires to get a price that is accurate.

Overall:

It’s weird going from a huge success in Panini Cooperstown to a semi-fail in this product. The product design is nice, despite not being a huge fan of manufactured patch autographs. The Sweet Spot autographs was a nice addition to the product as it has always had a solid backing in a lot of previous sports card products. The checklist is sort of disappointing, but there are still some really nice autographs to be found in the product. At the price of $120, it’s definitely a no-go. Even at the newly lowered price, it is still a tough break.

Thanks to Panini for providing this product for review. You can visit them on their official site, blog, Twitter, and Facebook.

You can find the full checklist and other information at the Cardboard Connection website.

Video is below, it’s short and sweet.