22-23 Contenders Basketball: These hit the shelves last week so I grabbed a couple of blasters.  This first one delivered well with a 1/1 I'll show off below.  We'll kick it off with Paul George who is an amazing player at both ends of the court.  Unfortunately, injuries have robbed him over the years of way too many games and hasn't played more than 56 games in any of his four seasons with the Clippers.  Still the six-time All-NBA and four-time All-Defensive player can still be a game changer on the court.

Similar to the 2022 Contenders Football I'm good with the design but I'd still like a bit more ingenuity for this brand.  I like Contenders but they need to think outside the box.  Really happy to see two of my favorite players here in Dame and Domantas Sabonis.  No complains with any Luka pull of course.

Rookies show up in inserts.  I like the Rookie Stallions inserts.  Would have been nice if the muted photo in the background was different from the color photo but still a good look. I like the Draft Class cards as well.

This set has a 100 base card set so you should get a good pull in most packs and boxes.  My second blaster was loaded compared to this one but still no complaints here.

That Rookie Swatch of Christian Braun is a 1/1 Tag parallel.  I didn't realize that until after I did the scan.  One/One is written out next to his left arm.  That Markelle Fultz is a red parallel though it doesn't show.  Game Night Tickets show off great nights by players.

The backs are fine sans the lack of more stats.

Sec = Weight/Sec = Heigh in Inches/Seat = Uni#.  Love the Historic Draft Class.  Retired Greats are always welcome and showing off their being drafted is fun.  And who doesn't like Chuck?  I really enjoyed this box.  Really enjoying the NBA playoffs right now so this find was exciting and timely.

2020 Topps WWE Women's Division: This showed up at lunch and I couldn't be happier.  This was delayed from last year and went through a format change.  Originally a 24 pack box, hobby boxes are now a single 60 card pack.  You still get an auto and relic.  I had the chance to cancel my order when the change in format was made but I didn't and I'm so glad.  My auto was this gold parallel Sasha Banks #/10.  Great pull for sure.  Love her autograph and she is a name in the sport.  The roster auto gold parallels odds are 1:58 packs.  Nice hit but there was another great hit in this box...

The design is fairly simple but I like it.  Plenty of room for the nice photos you'll see here.  

That Charlotte Flair blue parallel is #/25.  

Love these inserts.  To some the differences may seem negligible but I really enjoy seeing these gals then and now side by side.

This isn't my other big hit but this Superstar Mat Relic is a hit.  It is #75.

These four are Roster card inserts which includes NXT UK wrestlers as well.  Bless Topps for giving Charlotte Flair the horizontal treatment here.  This classic pose of hers deserves the space.   

I also like these Breaking Barriers inserts.  Something about the bricks.  Good to see China's inclusion in the set. 

Action photos are fun as always. 

Plenty of good photos across the different WWE platforms.

And my other big hit is below - a Magenta Printing Plate 1/1.  Those also fall 1:58 packs which is actually better than base card red parallels which is like 1:228 packs.  No matter, it is still a really good pull.  I really enjoyed this box and with the hits is definitely a winner.  I would have preferred the larger amount of cards originally planned for this set but it is still good.  Was hoping for more Alexa Bliss in my pull as well but again I have no reason to complain. 

BREAKDOWN:
60 – Total Cards
12 – Roster Cards
6 – Breaking Barriers
6 – Superstar Transitions
1 – Blue Parallel #/25
1 – Superstar Mat Relic #/75
1 – Magenta Printing Plate 1/1
1 – Gold Parallel Roster Autograph #/10

 I'm a big fan of Cardboard Collections: Affordable Breaks & Giveaways on Facebook. Colbey also has the Cardboard Collections blog.  Check him out at both spots.  The prices are great and he has plenty of fun sets to choose from.  I like the ability to "stack" my breaks and finally had my baseball cards sent to me. So many cool cards.  I'm going to just show off a lot of the cards and let them speak for themselves.  This is a 1996 Leaf Preferred Tony Gwynn Stare Masters insert which is #/2500. Definitely one of my favorites.

 While I tend towards my Braves and Red Sox the prices allow me to chase favorite players as well.  I hit with Mike Trout inserts in a few breaks.

 I love those Angels unis and Tim Salmon is a PC guy for me. 

 I had everything from metal cards, die cuts,  inserts, numbered cards, posters, 1/1 - pretty much anything you can think of.  

 Plenty of A's from those nineties A's that I really like including PC guy Mark McGwire.

 I think this captures all the different breaks I was a part of that got me these cards:  2020 Diamond Kings, 1997 Pinnacle Express, 2004 Upper Deck Play Ball, 1991 Studio, 1995 Topps Bazooka, 1995 Donruss, 2002 Donruss, 2002 Donruss Super Estrellas, 2005 Rookie Cup, 1996 Leaf Preferred, 2017 Honus Bonus, 1995 Upper Deck SP, 2003 Upper Deck Standing O!, 2020 Big League, 1992 Fleer Ultra

 Great photo on that Carlos Correa card.  These are both new offerings.  The majority of the breaks are from older sets but these are just as fun.  

 Colbey is a Braves fan so I don't get a chance at picking Atlanta but being the great guy he is he threw in some for me anyway.  

 This is the 1/1 I mentioned earlier from the 2017 Honus Bonus set.  Kimbrel is a PC guy for me so this is a really awesome pull.

 That Eckersley is a silver parallel.

This is a very small portion of what I received.  Going through these was a lot of fun.  Never know what you'll pull and the prices make grabbing extra teams so easy. Thanks Colbey!

2019 Topps Stadium Club:  I didn't have a plan when I attended the Sports Collectibles Show in St. Louis Sunday but did have the thought of picking up a Stadium Club hobby box in the back of mind since they were first released.  Sure enough there was a dealer with two boxes so I grabbed one at $85.  While the autos aren't anything to write home about I did pull a big hit in this Khris Davis Chrome Chrome SuperFractor 1/1.  I didn't even know there were Stadium Club Chrome cards.  I'm a big fan of Davis so this is an awesome pull.   These fall 1:5,976 hobby packs.  I did put it up on eBay.  I sell very few cards but knew there would be a market for this card.  I'm not in this for the money but on those rare occasions I get something decent these help fuel the hobby budget.  Definitely stoked about this pull.

  Neither of my two autographs really move the needle though Richards did pitch to a 1.93 ERA in 23 innings for Tampa Bay this year.

That Bader card is one of my favorite photos.  That emotion right after a play is awesome when caught in a picture.

I love me some retired greats and there were 29 in this box.  That Bagwell is my favorite for some reason.  Probably the beard and that Astros jacket which isn't a Houston color and design you see often.

  I like the Power Zone design and really liked pulling these two PC guys.

That Hosmer is a Red Parallel.  The Beam Team doesn't do much for me.

This Christian Yelich is the one variation I pulled.  Most variations seem to be a bit more of a special photo but hey a variation is a variation.

More nice photos.  Alex Bregman is hoping he and he Astros can turn things around tonight against the Nationals.

Some horizontal love.

This was a really fun box.  I love the photos of which retired greats are a big part of.  I rarely pick up hobby boxes and this one didn't disappoint.  Tomorrow I'll show off more cards from this box.  

BREAKDOWN:

This 2019 Topps baseball hobby box is my first hobby box of the flagship baseball set since I jumped back into collecting in 2011.  This was a very fun box.  I pulled a Tony LaRussa Revolution of the Game autograph and a 1/1 artist sketch of Masahiro Tanaka by Brett Farr (both below).  The LaRussa card is earmarked for a buddy and I'm trying to sell the sketch card.   I'll break this into a couple of posts because I have so many scans.  This post will consist of a few basic cards and I'll show off most of the subsets and inserts I pulled.  I received a Silver Pack as well and will show those of in my next post.  Always nice when a card from one your team's players stands out to you as this Dansby Swanson does to me.

I really like the design here.  It harkens back to the '82 Topps baseball but updated in a way I like.  The photos are very good as always though it seems some of the sets of years past were a tad better.

  I was getting a little bummed about my pull until I was down to four packs and I seemed to hit it big in those four packs as the stars kept on coming.  One pack had both the standard base Mike Trout and the SP variation Mike Trout in it.  Both of those were cards I really wanted to pull.  Now that's a great pack.  I also pulled a Trout Topps Now card from a separate pack.

As always Topps pays homage to the young players from the league with the Topps All-Star Rookie, Future Stars and RC cards.  I pulled Ronald Acuna Jr. in one of my first packs giving me one of the handful of cards I really wanted.  I like the Gurriel Jr. photo and Poncedeleon is a really cool name! 

In this World Series Highlight card is World Series MVP Steve Pearce pointing to the Yankees and reminding them who didn't go to the World Series and win it all?  <big smile>  The photo of Pearce is a great example of when the photo goes over the border in a nice touch.

This Greatest Season Mark McGwire card was another favorite.  Here we get the skinny Mark McGwire.  That Vlad Guerrero is one of the 1984 card inserts.  Nice throwbacks to cards of my teen years.

The Yaz Iconic Card Reprint was another card I was looking forward to pulling.

The stadium cards from each team are nice cards.  This pairing of Ty Cobb and Bryce Harper is curious to me but I'll just roll with it.

This is the 1/1 Tanaka sketch card.  I do like it but since I'm neither a Yankees nor Tanaka fan I'll try finding it a better home.  At the moment that effort involves eBay. 

 This is a great card and by far the best baseball autograph I've ever pulled.  It's a great looking card though the auto isn't an on card autograph.  I have a buddy who was a fan of A's back during this era and is also a Cardinals fan so this card will go to him.  

BREAKDOWN: