Posts

Panini Select Road to the World Cup

-
Image
 While on vacation in the Olympic Peninsula, I still took part in a few breaks here and there. I found a couple streamers on Fanatics Live that were running incredibly cheap spots in half cases of Panini Select Road to the World Cup, so I couldn't bypass the opportunity to try my luck with the product. In my opinion, it went very well. I ended up with five autographs, including three legend autos of guys I don't have in my collection which is exactly the type of thing I am chasing.  I got two Gerard Pique autographs, including the purple Prizm /49. I already sold the base one to recoup some of the money I spent towards these breaks. I got a base auto each of Argentina legend Gabriel Batistuta and Netherlands legend Dennis Bergkamp. I also got an auto of Spain World Cup winner Martin Zubimendi. When you consider that I got five autographs plus about twenty numbered cards, I feel like I did very well for a relatively low cost. For example, Spain costs about $400-500 in a case of...
Post a Comment
Read more

In a Break I took....Barcelona?!?!?

-
Image
 I've gone over breaks on this blog ad nauseum so if you follow along at all, you know that when looking to get into a break, the vast majority of the time I am looking for deals or smaller teams. This is because the Premier League teams like Everton, West Ham, Brentford, or smaller international teams on the global soccer scale like Ghana or Nigeria are always cheaper than the bigger teams. I like bundling multiple teams in a break that cost me the same or less than one big team does in the same break. I also usually know the checklist going into the breaks pretty well so that I know where some value can be mined. That isn't to say that I never  go with bigger clubs, it's just less often. For example, I like to take Liverpool every so often as they are the club I support so I will splurge on them at times.  However, for the first time ever,  I actually took one of the biggest clubs in the world in a break, Barcelona. I decided to grab them in a three case opening of...
Post a Comment
Read more

Topps Pristine

-
Image
 Lots of stuff happening over the last few weeks from a soccer card release standpoint. Now that I am back from our annual family road trip, I can catch up a bit with these posts. One new product that came out was Topps Pristine Premier League, which is a higher end set that includes three encased autographs per hobby box. I partook in a few case breaks of this stuff to some mixed reviews, including the five autographs below.  One of the really cool things about Pristine is that you can get match worn memorabilia. In the above example, I got this autograph of West Ham player Tomas Soucek, and if you pay attention to the jersey piece and look at the back of the card, it tells you that this is a piece of his kit from the match at Old Trafford against Manchester United on May 11 2025. What makes this even cooler is the fact that Soucek scored in this game which ended up being a 2-0 West Ham win, their first win at Old Trafford in 18 years. Being able to tie this to a specific gam...
Post a Comment
Read more

Peyton Manning

-
Image
 As I've shifted to doing breaks, I've moved away from doing much in the way of sealed products. I have learned that if you buy correctly in breaks, the hit potential versus value spent is much higher overall than opening packs of cards yourself. That being said, every now and then I'll find a product I want to buy and see what happens. I was at Target the other day and came across a 2025 Panini Rookies and Stars "Preferred" box, which is a retail exclusive. If you recall back to when I pulled the Patrick Mahomes , that was out of a Revolution Premier retail box direct from Walmart online. These products are interesting because they are technically retail products only, but they are just like hobby boxes used to be. In my opinion, these now fit that gap of boxes that used to be $100-150 in which you can get guaranteed hits and which used to be the standard hobby box price. As hobby boxes have moved to $400+, these preferred boxes are what Panini has slid into that...
Post a Comment
Read more

Autograph Additions Catch up

-
Image
 With a new job and a lot of stuff going on, I have only really had time to post some of the bigger hits I've recently gotten. I am going to use this post as a catch up for everything else I've acquired recently that has not yet been posted.   Three Juventus autos from a break, the above being Francisco Conceicao /10 and the next two being base autos of Lois Openda and Fabio Miretti. This ended up being a very good break for me as I also pulled a Kenan Yildiz super short-printed case hit numbered /5. If you notice the autograph of Openda below, and compare it to the /25 autograph I got of his from Topps Chrome about six weeks ago , you'll notice a big difference. It's always interesting when a signature changes so much. Could be nothing to it and the athlete got tired of signing by the end so shortened the auto, or it could be something more nefarious at play like he didn't sign one of them himself. Who knows? The next two autographs are of AS Roma player Evan Fergu...
Post a Comment
Read more

Francesco Totti Marks of Excellence

-
Image
 Another beautiful card was hit for me in a break a couple of weeks ago, this time in the form of Francesco Totti on another Marks of Excellence on card autograph. I mentioned I'd had insane luck recently, to the point where I hit two MOE in a six day span plus other great hits like the Fernando Torres /5 and Kenny Dalglish. This particular card was the card I wanted in the AS Roma spot, so to actually then hit the exact card was a great feeling. Totti is one of the all time Italian greats, and played his entire career with Roma. He's a national hero and this card is just really cool. 
Post a Comment
Read more

Andriy Shevchenko and Luis Figo Marks of Excellence Autos

-
Image
 I've discussed at length already about my infatuation with on card soccer autographs and where I think the long-term value will be in collecting them. To recap quickly, they are essentially scarce in the soccer market since it's harder to coordinate in person signings with athletes overseas and logistically more of a pain to ship cards back and forth in these scenarios. It's much easier for Topps and Panini to ship the player a sheet of stockers that they sign and then place signed stickers onto cards. In the other major sports, sticker autos take a bit of a hit in the value game whereas in soccer they take less of a hit due to the acknowledgement that sticker autos have to be more prevalent due to the aforementioned logistics involved. However, that means that the rare cards that do  actually have hard signed autographs on them, like the Marks of Excellence subset that Topps has been inserting into various soccer products, have a very high premium placed on them. I also j...
Post a Comment
Read more