Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the 2018 Topps Museum baseball set, which will be released in June 2018:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/topps-museum-baseball-returns-in-june-with-high-end-hits/

​Donruss Optic football had a very nice debut for Panini America last year, so it stands to reason that consistency is a virtue for 2017. This year’s product follows the same formula that made it a hit in 2016.

A blaster box contains six packs, with four cards to a pack. The card design mirrors the standard 2017 Donruss football set, and some cards give a tip of the hat to the retro designs of Donruss’ 1980s baseball cards.

This is not an autograph-based product, so buying a blaster is not going to deprive the collector of any huge hits. The base set contains 100 cards, and there are an additional 50 rookie cards. Rounding out the “base” set are 50 more Rated Rookies.

In the blaster box I opened, I pulled 13 base cards, three rookies and four Rated Rookies. I also pulled pink parallel cards of Raiders rookie Gareon Conley and a Rated Rookie card of the Jets’ Chad Hansen. Pink parallels are exclusive to blaster boxes.

There were two inserts in the blaster I opened. One was a Gridiron Kings card of Todd Gurley, while the other one was a Rated Rookies card of Deshaun Watson.
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The card design will please lovers of the shiny stuff, as they have a nice chromium finish. I previewed Donruss Optic football earlier this week for Sports Collectors Daily, so check there if you are looking for a more complete description. 

​Upper Deck’s 2017-2018 Parkhurst hockey product is a Walmart exclusive for its United States and Canada retail stores. It’s also a set-builder’s dream, particularly if a collector is buying blaster boxes.

A blaster contains 12 packs, with 10 cards to a pack. The base set is 300 cards, which includes rookies; the final three cards in the set are checklists. That number is less than last year’s 400-card base set, but it does make this year’s Parkhurst set easier to complete.

The card design is clean, with mostly vertical action shots. The upper right and lower left corners of the card have triangular green tabs, much like you would find in an old-time photo album. The Parkhurst logo is situated in the lower left-hand corner of the card, with the player’s name in white type against a green background.

The card back features a horizontally cropped version of the photo on the front. Vital statistics are included, along with year-by-year and career playing totals.
Both sides sport a very clean, uncluttered look.

The design for the rookie cards are slightly different. Those green tabs are only at the bottom of the card front, and at both corners. The word “Rookies” is spelled out in large letters beneath the action shot, with the player’s name directly underneath. Like the base set, the player’s name is in white type against a green background. The Parkhurst logo sits under the player’s name. As if to hammer the point home, “Rookies” is placed under the horizontally cropped photo of the player. The green tabs are at both corners of the top of the card.

The blaster I opened contained 91 base cards, along with four red-bordered parallels and one black bordered parallel. There were also 17 different rookie cards.

Here is a link to the podcast I did with Paul Hensler for his new book, "The New Boys of Summer: Baseball's Radical Transformation in the Late Sixties, on  the New Books Network:

newbooksnetwork.com/paul-hensler-the-new-boys-of-summer-baseballs-radical-transformation-in-the-late-sixties-rowman-and-littlefield-2017/

I am not sure what to make of Panini America’s Chronicles baseball, which has been on the shelves nationwide for about a month (in Florida, however, I saw blaster boxes at a retail store for the first time this week). It’s hard to be enamored with a baseball card that has a card front that looks like it should be the card back.

Chronicles is the debut set of the MLBPA for Panini, and it looks like it was designed by someone in the legal department for the players’ union. The “Chronicles” themes seems to mirror a newspaper mentality, albeit a blocky, 1860s New York Times version. There is a headline at the top of the card’s right-hand side, and the “deck” is the player’s name, with a bar beneath it. Some explanatory type is added, much like the beginning of an article, but then the story “jumps” to the back of the card.
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The left half of the card shows a small, cut-out color photograph of the player in action, with a larger black-and-white version of the same photo behind it. If Panini was trying to emulate newspaper design, then the photographic subject should have been facing from left to right, rather than “looking off the page.”
The card back features the same lead photography element, but it is tinted red and the “jump type” covers the bottom part of the photo, which is situated on right-hand side of the card. The left side contains vital statistics, such as birth date, hometown, height, weight, and how they bat and throw.
The base set has 100 cards, with an additional 50 rookies; the first-year players are numbered to 499. Parallels for the base cards include gold, numbered to 999; blue (399), green (199), purple (99), red 25) and black (1/1). There are the same types of parallels for the rookie cards, although the gold ones are numbered to 399 and the blues are at 299.
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As has been my habit lately, I opened a blaster box to review. A blaster contains four packs, with five cards to a pack. Four of those cards are Chronicle cards, while the fifth one is a baseball version of some other 2017 Panini brands. I pulled 15 base cards and a gold parallel of Rays pitcher Chris Archer. One of the base cards I pulled was that of Yankees Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle. It’s always a nice touch when Mantle gets the No. 7 card designation; Topps did that for years in its more modern sets, so it is nice to see Panini do the same thing.

Of the four non-Chronicle cards I pulled, two were from Donruss baseball, one was from the Absolute brand and the fourth was from Prizm. Other brands I’ve seen pulled have Gold Standard and Spectra designs.

Panini Chronicles takes a different kind of approach, one that is less visual. The design is simple and consistent, and at $19.99, a collector is basically paying a dollar a card. But then again, that’s the cost for a daily newspaper in many cities, too.

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily previewing the 2017 Donruss Optic football set:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/2017-donruss-optic-football-preview/

Here is a link to the podcast I did with author Brett L. Abrams on his latest book, "Terry Bradshaw: From Super Bowl Champion to Television Personality," which aired on the New Books Network today:
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newbooksnetwork.com/brett-l-abrams-terry-bradshaw-from-super-bowl-champion-to-television-personality-rowman-and-littlefield-2017/

Heres' a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about a rare photo of Jack Johnson that is being sold at auction this weekend:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/photo-of-the-day-jack-johnson-vs-stanley-ketchel/

Here's a story I did for Sports Collectors Daily about a photo of Rogers Hornsby that is on the auction block:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/classic-photo-of-hornsby-hitting-part-of-rmy-auctions-holiday-premier-sale/​

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily previewing the 2018 Bowman baseball set:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/2018-bowman-baseball-preview/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the 1964 Wheaties baseball stamp set:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/1964-wheaties-baseball-set/

​Panini America’s 2017 Rookies & Stars football is an exclusive offering through Target. Collectors can buy a blaster box for $19.99, or a larger, six-pack Longevity box for $49.00. A 10-pack hobby box is also available.

Rookies & Stars is a nice blend of veterans and rookies. The 300-card base set is split with 200 veterans and 100 rookies. A blaster box, which I opened, contains seven packs, with 10 cards to a pack. Panini is promising one memorabilia card per blaster box, on average.

The box I opened yielded 48 base cards and seven rookies – one first-year player per pack. The card design is a strong vertical, with the player’s photo set to the left side. The photograph takes up approximately two-thirds of the card front, and the background gives the player a speedy look. The player’s name is placed on the far right-hand side of the card, perpendicular to the photograph. The name is shown in block capital letters, in one of the primary colors of the team. The team logo appears in the upper left-hand corner of the card.

The card back showcases the same photo as the front, albeit cropped to a more horizontal look. A six-line biography includes highlights from the 2016 season and fun facts about the player. A statistics box details the player’s 2016 efforts and his lifetime numbers.

The rookie cards’ design is slightly different than the veterans’. The player’s photograph covers more than 75 percent of the card front, with the team logo at the bottom left and his name in the other corner. The bottom 25 percent of the card uses the player’s team colors as the primary color.
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The rookie card backs are like the veterans’, except the bubble that contains the card number is in the upper left-hand corner of the card, instead of the right side for the established players.

The rookie cards’ design is slightly different than the veterans’. The player’s photograph covers more than 75 percent of the card front, with the team logo at the bottom left and his name in the other corner. The bottom 25 percent of the card uses the player’s team colors as the primary color.
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The rookie card backs are like the veterans’, except the bubble that contains the card number is in the upper left-hand corner of the card, instead of the right side for the established players.

The blaster box I opened yielded 14 inserts. There were three Action Packed cards (there are 20 in the subset), with horizontal designs and action photographs. The cards I pulled were three running backs — Marshall Faulk, Bo Jackson and LaDanian Tomlinson.

There also were three inserts from the 20-card Airborne subset, which is making its debut this year. This insert shows an action shot of the player in a vertical format, with red foil stamped underneath the team logo. The players I pulled were Faulk, Rob Gronkowski and Todd Gurley.

​Some of the best passers in NFL are featured in the 20-card Precision Passers insert (another first-year subset), and I pulled three legendary quarterbacks — Troy Aikman, Peyton Manning and Dan Marino. These cards are generously sprinkled with red foil, with the player’s team primary colors used to nice effect.

Standing Ovation is an insert that celebrates some of the game’s biggest playmakers. I pulled two cards — Deion Sanders and J.J. Watt). Two more inserts debuted this year, and I pulled one card from each — Alvin Kamara from Rookie Rush, and Alvin Thomas from Prowlers.

Even bigger names make up the 40-card Great American Heroes insert set. This is the nicest, most colorful of all the inserts in this product, relying on a patriotic red, white and blue border. The chrome card I pulled was former Chiefs quarterback Len Dawson.

The big hit in the blaster box was a Star Search relic card of Steelers running back James Conner. The card features a black uniform swatch, a gold background and red foil stamping.
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The Rookies & Stars football set sports a clean look, and casual collectors can still hope to get some sizzle out of a blaster box. The rookies are tough to collect, but not impossible.