Panini America’s 2023 Prestige Football set has design elements I like.
The main photo is vertical on the card front, which I prefer to a horizontal layout. The action photo is colorful and really stands out against a whitish-gray background. The hazy image behind the main photo could represent fans, or perhaps the sidelines.

The typeface is displayed in a tasteful script, and the elements on the card front are not cluttered.

Nicely done.

Prestige Football returns this year with a 400-card set. Veterans and greats of the game make up the first 300 cards, while there are 90 rookies and 10 short-printed rookies.
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As usual I bought a blaster box. Prestige has a higher price at $27.48 than other products — for example, I bought Allen & Ginter blaster for $24.98 — but Prestige does offer more cards. A blaster contains six packs, with 11 cards to a pack.

I pulled 48 base cards. In addition to today’s stars, I pulled NFL greats like Marcus Allen, Deion Sanders, Eddie George and Thurman Thomas.

I found eight rookie cards but no short prints.

The rookie cards have a slightly different design on the card front, with an action shot and a shadow-like version of the same photo behind him.

The card backs for all 400 cards are formatted to a vertical layout.

The photo on the front is cropped for the back, and there is a short biography containing highlights and fun facts about the player.

​Statistics for the current players show 2022 and career totals, while the retired stars feature one line with their NFL career totals.

It is a very clean look.
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There are 23 different parallels in Prestige Football. My blaster had two of them. One was an Xtra Points Premium blue parallel of Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Diontae Johnson that was numbered to 299.

​Considering Johnson’s 2023 season so far, having a parallel in blue was ironic. He was sidelined for a month with a hamstring injury, and he caught a great deal of criticism this past weekend for appearing to look indifferent when Pittsburgh running back Jaylen Warren fumbled.

ohnson made no effort to go after the fumble or to tackle Bengals cornerback D.J. Turner, who picked up the loose football.

The Steelers won, but could have been singing the blues. To his credit, Johnson owned up to his mistake.

In addition to the Johnson parallel, the box I bought yielded four blaster-exclusive Diamond parallel cards of four receiver, D.K. Metcalf of the Seahawks, Bills great Andre Reed, Jonathan Mingo of the Panthers and Zay Jones of the Jaguars.
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Prestige certainly does not shy away from inserts. There are 18 different subsets to chase.

My blaster box yielded five of them. Time Stamped is a 10-card insert, and I pulled one of Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons.

Heroes is a colorful insert set that features 20 subjects; the player in my blaster was Metcalf.

For the Record is another 20-card insert set. It features significant performances by players; this card featured Jamaal Williams’ league-high 17 touchdowns with the Detroit Lions in 2022.

It was a franchise record and I was surprised, wondering what Barry Sanders’ top touchdown total was for a single season. Sanders scored 16 in 1991, so Williams now owns the record.
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Alma Maters showcases players from the same school. There are 25 cards in this subset, and the card I pulled features Alabama stars Jerry Jeudy, (Broncos), Jaylen Waddle (Dolphins) and Amari Cooper (Browns).

Any Given Sunday — the insert, not the 1999 movie that starred Al Pacino, Dennis Quaid and Cameron Diaz, along with players like Jim Brown, Lawrence Taylor and Terrell Owens (he played himself, of course) — features 20 cards.

he card I pulled featured Bills quarterback Josh Allen and chronicled his four-touchdown effort in the first half of Buffalo’s 38-3 victory against Pittsburgh during the 2022 season.
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There are plenty of Prestige blasters to be found at retail stores like Walmart and Target, along with Mega-boxes. It is an eye-pleasing set with a fine lineup. The number of parallels and inserts might be a bit maddening, but they certainly present a good challenge for set collectors.

Here is a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily previewing the 2023 Bowman Draft baseball product:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/2023-bowman-draft-baseball-has-prospects-and-tom-brady/

There are few surprises in the 2023 Topps Update baseball product, which was released a month ago. Actually, the biggest surprise in my area is that it took more than a month for blaster boxes to hit Target and Walmart stores.

But that’s a distribution issue that is out of my control, so when I saw a shelf full of the Update series at Target, I naturally bought a blaster box.

Collectors know the drill. The 330-card Update series is the final installment of Topps’ flagship product, featuring rookies, traded players, veterans and combo cards. If you are a set collector, completing the Update series finishes off the master set for the year.
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In another bizarre device that Topps has used over the past few years, there are two cards listed at US149 — Levi Stoudt and Teoscar Hernandez. There is no US250 card.

As usual, I bought a blaster box to get a taste of the set. There are seven packs to a box, with 12 cards to a pack. In addition, Topps provides three Orange and Black Foil cards, so a blaster will contain 87 cards.

The design remains consistent with those from Series One and Two of the flagship set.

There is an action shot on the card front that dominates the space, with a white border and a thin line containing the primary color of the team’s uniform.


A mug shot of the player is positioned in the lower left-hand corner, with his name in white block letters below the smaller photograph. His position is anchored in the bottom right-hand corner of the card.
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Every base card in the blaster I bought — and there were 68 of them — had vertical designs, which I love and prefer. There were also 30 rookies in that group.

The card backs follow the same pattern as the first two series this year and utilize a horizontal design. There are columns of statistics, which look so much better in a horizontal format. The Update set uses that design to highlight the player’s vital statistics and year-by-year numbers. Where there is room, a short biography or a paragraph explaining a career highlight is included.

The most interesting parallel was a Jack-O’-Lantern Foil card of Blue Jays pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu. The Jack-O’-Lantern dovetail nicely with the Halloween and Thanksgiving seasons. They fall once in every 21 packs and are a blaster exclusive.
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Another autumnal theme is evident in the Orange and Black Foil parallel cards. As promised, there were three in the blaster I opened — Royals pitcher Amir Garrett, Athletics infielder Aledmys Diaz and Yankees pitcher Jhony Brito.

I also pulled a Gold parallel card of Reds second baseman Matt Reynolds that was numbered to 2023. I also found a Rainbow Foil parallel of Rangers receiver Jose Leclerc.

As for the inserts, 2023 Topps Update Series Baseball returns with 50 cards featuring the 1988 Topps baseball design.

The cards I pulled were Diamondbacks catcher Gabriel Moreno and Orioles pitcher Grayson Rodriguez.
The cards are stamped in foil that reminds collectors that this design is 35 years old. Mind-blowing for sure. Has it really been that long?
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Laid Out is a 20-card insert set that features players stretching to make big defensive plays. The card I pulled was of Braves outfielder Kevin Pillar.

Action Stars is a 30-card insert set that has a similar theme as Laid Out, although much more foil-oriented.

I pulled a card of Blue Jays shortstop Bo Bichette.

Stars of MLB inserts return for the Update set and typically fall one per pack. One pack had two in the blaster I opened, so I wound up with eight of them.

The other insert is a 50-card offering commemorating All-Star Game selections.

he two cards I pulled featured outfielder Adolis Garcia, who would be the Rangers’ most valuable player in the American League Championship Series; and Rays shortstop Wander Franco.
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The Update set is an enjoyable way to wrap up the year for Topps’ main set. It is predictable, but that is its strength.

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the IRS delaying the $600 1099-K reporting for another year.

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/irs-again-delays-reporting-rules-for-paypal-venmo-and-cash-app-users/

Topps Archives is one of those sets that give collectors a taste of different set from years past. Unlike Heritage, which only concentrated on one year — this year’s product pays tribute to the 1974 Topps set — Topps Archives spoons out nostalgia in small doses.

This year’s set places its main focus on the 1956, 1965 and 2003 Topps designs. I have always loved the 1965 design, since it was the first set I ever actively collected when I was young. I gained an appreciation for the 1956 set in later years, when I turned to filling in the Topps run from 1952 to the present (still trying).
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I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that the 2003 Topps design is considered for the Archives set, since it seems like I was putting the set together yesterday. But time flies, and it is 20 years old, so it qualifies.

As usual, I bought a blaster box. There are seven packs to a box, with eight cards in each pack. As an added bonus, blasters contain three 1969 Topps Single Player Foil cards. So, 59 cards in this box.

The set contains 300 base cards.

The breakdown among the three sets was fairly even. There were 18 cards from the 2003 set, and 17 apiece from the 1956 and 1965 sets. The 1956 cards are listed as the first 100 in the checklist, with cards 101 to 200 featuring 1965 designs.

​The final 100 base cards showcase the 2003 layout.
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There is a nice mix of rookies, veterans and legends in the base set. The 2003 cards I pulled, for example, included Hall of Famers Satchel Paige, Harmon Killebrew and Roberto Clemente. I did not have any Hall of Famers from the 1965 cards I pulled, although the checklist includes Wade Boggs, Rogers Hornsby, Babe Ruth, Kirby Puckett, Honus Wagner, Randy Johnson, Stan Musial and Mike Piazza.

The 1956 Cooperstown crew I pulled included Tom Seaver, Ken Griffey Jr., Robin Yount and Lou Gehrig.

To throw a curveball at those collectors who are set builders, each year depicted in the Archives set has variations.

The 1956 designs have a white back variation, just like the original set. The difference should be obvious to collectors, but they can be confirmed because the code on the card back ends in 268. In a blaster, the odds of finding such a card is one in every 64 packs. The odds are slightly better for hobby boxes at 1:61, according to Topps.

There are 40 different variation cards from the 1956 design.
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The 1965 Inverted Variations are interesting in the sense that while the main photo remains the same, all of the other elements of the card front are reversed. So, the flag with the team name, and the player name plate and position, along with the Topps logo in the top left-hand corner appear as if someone is holding it up to a mirror.

The code is the same as the 1956 variations, and so are the odds. And there are 35 cards with these variations.

For the 2003 cards, the variations include a foil stamp where the team logo was positioned on the base card. That means toward the lower right side of the card front.

The code ends with 271 and there are 20 card variations.

There is also simply a straight variation card, where one image — or, in the case of the 1956 design, a main and secondary image — are swapped out.
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The chances of finding one in a blaster box are one in 337 packs. Again, the odds are not much better for hobby boxes, with the ratio at 1:332.

I was not fortunate enough to pull any kind of variation card, but then again, I did not expect it. 

I did, however, unwrap a green parallel card from the 1965 design featuring Carlos Rodon. The card was numbered to 99.

There are several inserts in the Archives set that allows Topps to dip deeper into its vault of card designs.

The Baby Bombers is a 25-card subset that borrows from the 1998 Topps set. The card I pulled was Josh Jung.
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The largest insert set is the 1969 Topps Single Player Foil card. There are 60 in the subset and I found three — Mike Trout, Julio Rodriguez and Joey Votto.

The 1989 Doubleheaders insert is a 25-card offering that features a player photograph on each side of the card. They fall about once in every eight packs.

here was a possibility that I might not have pulled such a card, but I did get lucky and found a Padres double-sided card featuring Juan Solo and Fernando Tatis Jr.

Trout was featured in another insert I pulled — the 1957 Topps Hit Stars subset. There are 15 cards in the subset, and they fall approximately once every seven packs.

The 2023 Topps Archives set is a fun one to collect. I love new players featured  on vintage designs, and it is nice to see sharp versions of those layouts. It is not surprising that almost all of the 1956 and 1965 Topps I own have seen better days, so seeing crisp photogrpahy and sharp corners is a treat.

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about Abby Doherty, who caught the racquet that Novak Djovokic threw into the crowd after winning the 2016 French Open: 

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/fan-who-caught-djokovics-racquet-after-2016-french-open-win-selling-it-at-scp-auctions/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about Grace Enlow, a 108-year-old Detroit-area resident who knitted quilt in 1941 that was signed by members of the New York Yankees:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/stitched-in-time-quilt-with-signatures-of-1941-yankees-headed-auction/​

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about a group of 39 cards from the 1921 Herpolsheimer set -- including nine cards that have never been seen before:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/1921-herpolsheimer-cards-found-in-band-aid-box-headed-to-love-of-the-game-auction-sale/​