Ripping Some Racing Cards

Has there ever been a product from a sport you don't necessarily collect that you've really wanted to get? That's the way it is for me with the 2017 Donruss racing cards. Now, I'm not an avid NASCAR watcher but I do watch a race from time to time, mainly the big ones like Daytona and what not. When Panini announced last year that they were getting into the NASCAR card business, I'll admit, I was a bit curious. I read some reviews of their initial offerings and the cards looked good but it wasn't anything to really draw me in to getting a pack or two. However, when I saw the preview and details for Donruss racing, I'll admit I was intrigued. Then, I saw two breaks over on the Sport Card Collectors blog and that sealed the deal, I had to get some packs for myself, which is what I did on my most recent card shop visit.

Here's the base design. It harkens back to the 1990 Donruss baseball cards with the name titled and written in script. Not only are there Monster Energy Series (aka Sprint Cup Series) drivers in the set, there are also drivers from the Xfinity Series and the Camping World Truck Series.

Here's some of the horizontal base driver cards. This is the only real negative on this set for me and the picture is horizontal but the name and nameplate are vertical. The photos are pretty nice though, especially the Kyle Busch card with the flag in the background.

The nice thing about this is that it's more that just pictures of drivers on cards in the base set. There are cards that show off the particular cards with a split screen type of effect for the standard design and an alternate design. This gives a casual watcher (like me!) an idea of what the car looks like for a particular driver.

There are also cards featuring the pit crews of certain drivers. That's pretty cool if you ask me as it gives the crews some recognition.

As is the case with Donruss, the inserts are plentiful. I'm not sure if these would be considered "cracked ice" or not but regardless, they are really nice, especially the Richard Petty card.

Another one of the insert sets are 84 Donruss throwbacks. Don't believe me that they're throwbacks? Just have a look at Kyle Petty's hair.

Here are the rest of the inserts I pulled. It's nice that Panini did Race Kings cards much like they do Diamond Kings for baseball, Court Kings for basketball, etc. Opening these packs was a nice change of pace and really left me wanting more. It's always nice to crack open some packs of cards of something new and I must say I'm definitely a fan of this product.

Baseball, Racing, and ... Freddy Krueger?

As you saw in my previous post, last weekend I attended the card show at the Nutter Center. However, that wasn't the only card related thing I did. After the show, I headed over to TCI Sports Fan, a card shop I've written about before in my "Card Shop Chronicles" series, that was about 10 minutes down the highway from the venue. I had my mind set on getting some newer packs to rip since I figured it would be my only opportunity to do so for a while but there were some other very specific cards I was looking for as well.

Last year when I went to the Horrorhound Convention, I grabbed a pack of the Topps Fright Flicks cards from 1988. Since then, I haven't seen hide nor hair of those anywhere so I figured if anyone would have them, it would be TCI, since they literally have every sort of sports or non-sports trading card (except for gaming cards) available. I asked at the desk if they had any and Terry, the great guy who runs the shop, winced a bit and said he remembered having some but wasn't sure if he did anymore. He pointed me in the direction of display case that had the bottom filled with 25 cent non-sport boxes. He said if there were any, they would be there. I took a gander and it didn't take long for me to find them. There were a bunch of duplicates but I did manage to grab eight new cards for the set I'm building.

Most of these are from the Nightmare on Elm Street films but there are cards here from other films such as Predator, The Fly, Alien, and Fright Night. I'm not particularly one for gross out creature feature films like The Fly but they are a necessary evil in a set like this. I'm more for the suspense/thriller/slasher type films like Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, etc. The other attraction for this set is that this is the only set (well, until last year) that had cards from the original Ghostbusters movie. Unfortunately, there weren't any of the Ghostbusters cards from the set to be had in the box I found. Perhaps I'll dig a little deeper next time I stop in. I have a feeling though that those are going to be the toughest part of completing the set.

Fright Flicks cards weren't the only thing I was after though. 

My main reason for heading to the shop was to get some packs of some current stuff to tear into. One of the things I really wanted was some 2017 Donruss racing. Now, I'm not really into watching NASCAR but I saw the Beckett Box Busters video of this and thought it would be pretty fun to get. Plus, it's always good to spice things up with a bit of variety. I'll share how I did with these in a future post.

Also coming in a future post will be these packs of Donruss baseball. Even though Panini doesn't have the MLB license, I still enjoy the Donruss cards as you get a lot of fun stuff for a decent price. As of this writing, I haven't torn into these but stay close. I did pretty well when I bought some Donruss on a whim last year so perhaps my luck with this will continue.

Finally, since they were completely out of Heritage, I picked up four more packs of Series 1. While I've already opened ten packs of this, it never hurts to pick up some more. Plus, I really like the cards this year. I'll share these in a separate post as well. Since I bought so many packs, the shop owner was nice enough to throw in the Fright Flicks cards for free without me having to even ask.

And thus, another fun trip to the card shop concludes. Speaking of card shops though, while I was at the card show, there was a vendor there from a new shop (well, new to me). I plan on checking the place out this weekend and who knows, I might find something fun.

You've Got Mail #63: Wrigley Roster Jenga

Out of the blue a while back, Tony from Wrigley Roster Jenga surprised me with a PWE stuffed full of all kinds of craziness.

I'll start with these reprints. Trying to pinpoint the year these reprints are from is a little crazy but I think they're part of the 1978 Dover reprints, although I could be completely wrong. Regardless, reprints like this are the only way I can get old school cards of old school dudes such as Nap Lajoie and Cy Young. 

Speaking of cards that are hard to pinpoint, I've always had a quandary as to if I should file TCMA cards with my vintage cards or put them with my misc cards. The more I think about it, perhaps they should go with my misc cards as they don't really fit inside any other part of my collection. These are 1979 TCMA 50s of Rocky Colavito on the left and Don Mossi, he of floppy ears fame, on the right.

As usual, some Reds cards were thrown in, both new and somewhat old. These are all from last year, with the exception of Denny Neagle chilling on a stool. Jose Peraza is now the second baseman since Brandon Phillips was shipped off to Atlanta for what amounts to pocket change. I'm excited to see what he can do playing a regular position everyday and potentially batting second with Billy Hamilton at leadoff. The Bench card is one of those "Berger's Best" inserts from last year, just another one of those inserts that Topps did last year with the flagship set that no one really liked.

Not only were there Reds cards but the envelope was predominantly full of Indians cards. I'm getting so many Indians cards now that I'm to the point where I'm going to have to start a binder for them. That might be a project for later this summer. First though, I need to finish organizing everything else.

These cards are part of baseball related games. I can't say I've played either of these games, or any card game for that matter (except for poker or rummy) but I might have to learn one of these days. 

Here's one of the co-stars of the package, this well worn, well traveled, and somewhat defaced Mel McGaha card. McGaha was the Indians manager in 1962 and managed the Kansas City A's in 1964 and briefly in 1965. His lifetime record was 123-173. During his playing days, he was a career minor leaguer, mostly at the AA level, including a five season stint with Shreveport in the Texas League.

Here's the other co-star of the envelope, my first NASCAR card in who knows how many years. While I'm not a huge NASCAR fan, I know the majority of the drivers and I'll watch a race or two when I can't find anything else on. One thing I've been considering doing this year is adding a racing card to my collection here and there and possibly buying a few packs of the Donruss Racing as it looks like something fun and different to rip into. As for this card, looking at it on the front, I thought it was just a standard Press Pass insert but then I turned it over ...

... and it's a promo card from the 1996 National Sports Collectors Convention. This is the gold foil version, which is apparently rare according to the chart on the back. There's also red foil and green foil versions. It says the gold foil is "rare" which leads me to believe that it's just the standard variety. This makes a good springboard to buying some NASCAR cards and I'm happy to add it to the collection.

Thanks again Tony for the great cards! I've got some stuff I think you'll enjoy that I'll be sending out in a few weeks.