A Concertina!

Nope. Just the most recent mailer from Panini. Which may have been literally put through a wringer.

Fortunately, the card was OK. I expected it to be in pieces. Even though I'm extremely likely to COMC it, at least the magnetic allowed it to survive the crushing.

2017 Hoops 3 Box Break - Box 3

And time to bring this thing home.

I'm going to open with an autograph this time. Because it is the only Raptors insert or parallel that I picked up in the boxes. Lorenzo Brown will probably spend the season going back-and-forth between the 905 and the main team, so this will likely be his only card as a Raptor. Kyle Wiltjer, who also appears in this subset will be in the same boat, especially since he just signed to play in Greece. A zero-year (tm. Nick @ Dime Boxes) auto of his will likely have me sending out the bat signal for a stateside trading partner.

And now the parallels. I always like getting Dennis Schröder cards, since umlauts rule!

I pulled two non-silver base parallels and it looks like both of them will be heading elsewhere. My next trade package to Kerry @ Cards on Cards should have this 25/25 ebay 1/1 of Noah Vonleh in it.

And the red backed card.

More first round cards numbered /2017.

When it came to the rest of the parallels, there were a lot of dupes. And that's not counting the Shaq video game promo cards. But I should at least highlight a card of a guy named Yogi.

But I got one new 2K18 Shaq card! Another trophy card!

And the other autograph in the box. A #1 draft pick? More importantly for me, a #1 draft pick with a pretty decent signature? Even better!

But that's not all! I need supplies at the LCS, so I opted to pick one final pack of the product. Kinda of a "support your LCS" deal.

Another lottery pick auto! I like the star at the end of his signature, since it is something different when it comes to an autograph.

So, 3 boxes and one pack landed me an autograph of a legend, a pair of lottery picks, a Raptors auto as well as a pretty good veteran auto, with two of them being /25 parallels. That's a pretty hot hand. With Upper Deck CFL set to drop later this week, I hope it will continue!

2017 Hoops 3 Box Break - Box 2

And box #2. While this doesn't have the autograph oomph of the last box, this was probably the most consistent of the 3.

I'm not showing any base cards the rest of the way home, so I'm leading off with the parallels. Two /199 parallel cards were in this box, with one being from the last 10 Kobe portion.

The awesomely named Sindarius Thornwell was my red-back parallel in this box.

Two first rounder cards bring me the only Raptors content among these inserts.

But I did land one of the Finals cards. These are really tough pulls, considering they're to /199 and they are limited to as many games there were in the Finals. This will be one of the few inserts I won't be keeping.

Cards from this set are slightly easier pulls than the finals card despite the lower numbering, as there are 19 total in this insert set. Each team member gets an individual card, and there are some team cards as well as some with the players alongside Bill Russell or Jerry West. Much like cards with the Stanley Cup, I love cards with players holding their respective championship trophy. A nice keeper!

Looks like someone screwed up applying the shininess to the Jokic cards. I quick check on ebay showed that these aren't super rare error editions. In fact, these seem to be the standard for the Jokic insert. Not an ebay 1/1. Poopie!

Regular, but still a special delivery.

And an extra-special delivery, as this Artist's Proof parallel is numbered to a Christmas-y 12/25.

And here's yet another appearance of Kobe for good measure.

More Shaq-advertisinserts. At least one has him looking mighty dapper with the rookie-of-the-year trophy.

Unless you're doing a set like 1991 Studio, I really don't see the need for an insert set named "Action Shots".

Your extra rookie cards.

Tip Off. Another insert set that is exactly what it is named.

Autographs!

Here's another second rounder. At least this looks more like an actual signature than the Alec Peters mess yesterday, Slightly so, but still better.

And there's my second Red Hot signature, While Ricky Rubio isn't on the level of the Dirk yesterday, it is still a pretty good one to get and not a name you expect to pull from a lower-end box.

One more box left!

2017 Hoops 3 Box Break - Box 1

Time to dig into the basketball offering of 2017. Since the amount of cards in the pack was reduced from 12 to 8 this year, I wanted to increase my odds of completing the set through pack busting, and opted for 3 boxes. And it did, as I did get all 300 cards through the boxes. So, with that important stuff out of the way, let's show off the goodies!

My first Raptors card gives me the chance to show off the base design. It is what can be expected from this with a white border, team colours and nice clean image.

The backs? Again, fairly typical of Hoops the past few years with the black and white design.

Most of the rookies get this type of design, with the background gone, but replaced with a team-colours parquet. They're mostly pretty reserved, but the Hawks design here does get loud. Tyler Dorsey is listed as a 2/14 baby at baseketball-reference, but he's actually born a few days later. I'll consider his personal twitter a better source that he was born 2/18.

The final 10 cards of the base set are a Kobe-themed subset highlighting his career.

As for parallels, I landed one silver parallel /199. Shiny!

This green parallel /99 will likely be jetting its way to Saskatchewan in the near future.

Finally, the red back parallel. These are not numbered, but fall at about 1 per box.

Inserts!

Sure, this is nothing but an easy way to get more rookie cards in the product. But at least you get the #1 pick looking like he's 10 years old. He'll make a more honourable appearance in a future box.

Courtside brings exactly what the insert set is named to the table. A courtside photo. I like how everything except the highlighted player is shiny.

Road to the Finals makes a return in this, with the cards reducing in print run as they highlight games from later rounds. The first round is /2017, reducing to /999, /499, 199 and then there also being a champions themed insert set at /99.

Special Delivery is devoted to players with a scoring touch, past and present. As usual, the logo used matches the era of the photo.

The past makes an appearance as well in the Legends of the Ball set. A nice trip back to the NBA finals between the Rockets and Magic, with Shaq being visible on the side. Speaking of Shaq...

He makes an appearance on an advertising insert set, promoting NBA2K18. The foil cards on the bottom are not exactly short-printed, as I pulled 5 of them over the course of the break. Bah!

Season Highlights, much like Courtside, is exactly what the insert set is titled. A 70 point game should guarantee you an appearance in this.

Autos!

Yegads that's atrocious penmanship. You'd think a 2nd rounder would at least try to have an auto that is memorable in a good way.

But this sure makes up for it. Does this ever make up for it. A low-numbered auto of a former MVP, a holder of two championship rings, and a certain Hall of Famer. I did pull this before the previous one, so this was technically the first auto I pulled this season. I just figured this would be a far better way to end the post.

Two more boxes to go! It will be hard to compete with this box in terms of content, but they'll both put in nice efforts.

One Card Only: I'm Lazy

I busted 3 boxes of Hoops. I collated the base set. After busting 72 packs and sorting them, I'm way too tired to scan a pile of inserts and parallels * 3, so I'm just going through my already scanned cards and showing this:

Antowain Smith against a backdrop of Buffalo. Perfect for lazy ol' me.

The Gap

With Hoops dropping later today, I figured I'd take some of my COMC credit
and turn it to blowout credit and use that to pick up some boxes of the new product. I was a little shy of the $250 credit level when checking out, and thought I'd pick up the product that would perfectly fit the amount between the cost of the Hoops boxes and the $250.

Nice that one of my favourite products fits the bill!

I won't highlight all the base cards, since I've already built the set. Interestingly, this is the first box I've busted where there were dupes among the regular base. Greg Maddux was the only one of the 40 SPs I landed. He's with Atlanta among the regular base, but is one of several players to get a card on a second team.

The state parallels.

And your zip code parallels. The codes should be the ones to where the stadium is located.

I'm only going to highlight some of my faves among the inserts. Hometown Heroes was the only one where I hit the rainbow of all 3 versions of the card. This insert set is devoted to players who spent their entire career with the same team.

The Rivalry insert sets, which highlights players who played for two rival teams, allows me to get a Mets card for Yogi Berra.

The nicknames set allows for cartoons on cards to make an appearance.

This is my first parallel from the player-turned-manager Calling the Shots set.

The Sportsflics-ish Sportdiscs set hit both of my teams with the Kingman and the Bautista. And that Lou Brock?

That's my first black parallel from these. I wish there was something on the front to distinguish these.

And the autographs!

Hometown Signatures is very much like the fan favourites portion of Archives - a nice chance to land an autograph of a player who doesn't make a lot of appearances in recent sets. I've also got an auto of Shawon Dunston Jr, making this likely my first father-son pairing in any of my collections.

A Jays auto! Despite his inability to stay on the sticker, I'll still welcome it to my Jays hit binder.

As will this also receive a welcome. There's no team specified on this, so I have no qualms calling this a Jays card. This can also replace the far less vague Molitor auto I've already got in there where he's wearing pinstripes. And that can be passed along to another blogger (which it is already packed up for).

And there you go! Depending when they arrive, I'll probably start showing off the Hoops stuff tomorrow or Friday.