Insert Hunt

2014-15 Hoops is another one of my favourite boxes to bust, and is for reasons I also like Rookie Anthology and Chronicles - variety. There are a lot of inserts and parallels per 12 card pack, usually 3 or more per. Which makes each pack interesting.

I'm just going to highlight the inserts and parallels in the order they upload, and end with the hits.

I guess calling these cards Hoops Dreams would be really cheesy. And possibly a copyright violation as well. At least the black and white photo does make it look like Randle is reflecting on his future.

There were 10 of the gold parallels, 10 of the red-back parallels, and 10 of the green parallels in the box. Those numbers made me decide just to scan one card each per insert, regardless of how many were pulled. Of all the parallels, including the numbered ones, this gold rookie of Joel Embiid, last seen being reduced to tears by Kawhi's bouncer, is the best of all of them.

Not enough sets use parquet as the background for a design. It would at least be more interesting than the usual white you see on high end releases.

And you can play with the colours in an interesting manner. Imagine how bland either of these two would look if the wood grain was gone and it was just one plain colour.

A courtside seat combined with a full-bleed photo makes for a beautiful card. I like how they get the other backboard in the background to make the court seem longer than it is.

A green parallel is perfect for a Celtics card.

Once again, I've managed to have two cards that can sorta go together back-to-back. Parquet, then some CanCon.

Maybe I should have selected a better card for the Class Action insert set than this derpy photo of AI.

More full-bleed, and this time some Raptors content.

Oh yes. The legendary match-up between Deron Williams and Chris Paul. That doesn't really scream out Magic Johnson vs. Larry Bird, does it?

Nine steals in a game might not be completely worthy of the card, but Carter-Williams managed that in his NBA debut game. Now if only the photo was of one of those swipes, it would be an even better card.

Here's the first of the numbered parallels. The /99 ones are 1 per hobby box.

There's another combination of action and non-action photos among the inserts with this one.

Red backs. The dullest of the inserts.

Here's the second Raptors appearance among the inserts, a flashback to when their playoff appearances usually meant the ol' one-and-done. I tried not to do multiple appearances of the same player with this post, but I figured I should at least double up on the Raptors/DeRozan content.

Just another excuse for there to be multiple insert cards for the star players.

And finally, the parallels draw the non-hit portion to a close with the silver parallels to /399. Getting 4 of these to go alongside the /99 card makes it seem like everything collated out just right.

The Blast from the Past relics show how Panini dealt with outdated jersey swatches back in 2014.

Autograph time! Although I don't think of Orlando Magic when I think of Horace Grant, he did spend parts of 7 seasons there, just like he did for his more familiar stomping grounds in Chicago. And it is a nice autograph of a retired player with a really solid career.

I really didn't know if O'Quinn was still in the league, but it turns out he's still around, and signed with Philadelphia this off-season. With a name like O'Quinn, it just seems destined to be on the back of a Celtics jersey.

Something Panini did with Hoops this year that was odd was adding a third autograph in boxes if you landed an auto of a lottery pick, and generally having one of the autos being of a rookie player. When I pulled the Grant and O'Quinn autos, I expected there would be a third. Lavine did get picked near the back of the lottery, but this is one of the better ones to get from that portion of the set. He, and his two slam-dunk championships, have moved on to Chicago since this card. (Aaron Gordon was robbed in 2016)

But there you have it! And I can finally get caught up on trade envelopes next post.

Your 2018 Raptors

More group break goodies showing up, this time from the first NBA release of the new season. The Raptors did not have a draft pick this past draft, so the one benefit of that is they will be cheap in group breaks as a result. Undrafted rookie Deng Adel (with the G-League team) did have a card in contenders, and I'd love it if Montreal's Chris Boucher (two-way contract) gets a card in something.

But, that's enough of that. Let's see the team.

This is the base set. As I said when I busted a few packs, it is really nice to see some variety in the photo selection this year. I love the angle used on Anunoby's photo. My only beef - no Fred VanVleet base card yet. All his Raptors cards to date are autos, with his only non-hit cards being Wichita State cards from 16 Contenders.

Parallels! These purple ones would look even nicer if there was a photo of them wearing throwbacks with the Dino logo. I don't recall them wearing those last season, though.

Shiny OG to 199.

 My lowest numbered parallel was this green /99 of Kawhi. 97/99? Wearing #2? That's an ebay 1/1!

You want some more numbered cards? Here's some commemorating their first round victory over the Wizards. Only one more card to complete their playoff run!

Just a couple of inserts to wrap this post up. A punny card, but more importantly, the NBA City insert gives a great look at their alternate jersey.

And that's it! No autos, but the lack of any rookie made it a tougher pull. I'll take their 8-1 record so far as a consolation prize.

Wow.

Toronto Group Break Goodies

Back to the ol' mailbag today and some group break stuff from the two Toronto teams I root for - the Raptors and Blue Jays.

Here's the base design. Shiny, and I like the contrasting black & white/colour photos combined on the front. Sadly, it only really pops when they're wearing the red uniforms like on OG's card.

Excepting the Norman Powell, I also landed almost a complete set of the red parallels.

One insert.

Two inserts. That is a facsimile autograph on the License to Dominate, but these still count as case hits. So, while I didn't land an actual hit in this, I did land something relatively close.

Off to baseball, and a mixer of various products.

I'll go through this in relative chronological order, and start with some 2016 Bowman's Best. Only a pair of Joey Bats cards in this, but one was a nice shiny refractor. And yes, I did pick up the Topps Now card of his return to Toronto. Mainly because I thought that could be his only Mets card, since nothing is certain with Update. Then he got another Now card days later.

A nice selection of last year's Stadium Club, which like any year's release I can't really get enough of.

ThjA couple cards out of the rather odd Chronicles set, which was sorta like Rookie Anthology in terms of a base set, and a bunch of kinda Update-ish cards from various sets along with other unreleased Panini product lines. Spectra baseball?

The only hit in this post was an auto, with Anthony Alford experiencing some level of sticker woe.

2018 Bowman! Which I've busted a grand total of nothing of, but still have picked up a few cards through breaks and trades. A trio of Vlads? Yes!

And let's throw some parallels in with this. A shimmery parallel in Blue Jays blue is up first, with this one being 47/125.

While red isn't as important a colour in the Jays uniform, it is still there. This beauty is numbered to an ebay 1/1ish 5/5. Nice, but I'd put the odds at 50/50 that it ends up in my COMC sales account at some point. Since a blue Jays card is still nicer than a red. Unless they photoshopped one of the Canada Day jerseys onto Zeuch.

There you go. Assuming the mailman doesn't drop anything off in the near future, only one more envelope and I'm caught up! Yay!

COMC Fresh Raptors

Another day, another bunch of cards from my COMC to-be-posted box.

This insert from Grand Reserve was the card I was most excited to welcome into my collection. It might not be obvious from the front of the card, but when you flip it over...

It's more obvious on the back of the card. Demar is rocking the Toronto Huskies throwback uniforms. Surprisingly, given Panini's tendency to add alternate uniform photos in their sets, this seems to be the only appearance of the Huskies look.

One throwback uniform deserves another.

Just a cheap card I saw that I liked the look of.

And yes, this is a Raptors card. For an undrafted player last season, he's been a very pleasant surprise. He actually does not appear to, after a season and a half, received a non-autoed card where he's pictured as a Raptor. A dual card Wichita State card with Ron Baker is the only card period he has without a sticker auto attached. This actually makes his autos priced more than you'd expect for an undrafted back-up.

And there you have some new Raptors.

Chronicling my latest Raptors cards

As in, the cards that came my way from a case break of the recent Chronicles release.

The look is exactly the same as the baseball release. Although I wasn't a fan of that, I don't mind it as much here - likely due to the presence of team logos.

The backs just continue the write-up from the front. They probably didn't have too many games to choose from for the write-ups, so Panini might as well get some more mileage from that Philly game.

The real attraction here comes from the inserts. Similar to one of my favourite Panini releases, Rookie Anthology, Panini takes inspiration from other releases to create "what if?" type cards. Here's OG on a Panini base football design, with this being an Artist's Proof /99 parallel.

And on a set that we haven't seen in a bit, a Momentum design.

And one more of Anunoby to wrap things up. On a sliding scale, that's one of his better autos.

And here's the second part of his story. For completeness' sake.