Way too many 2009 Donruss Americana packs

Through browsing a couple of trading card sites, I saw a pack I was interested in opening. It was the 2008 Donruss Americana II set. Unfortunately, after looking around the shops, I could only find the latest Donruss Americana series (2009 edition). Luckily though, I was able to buy a large number of retail packs cheaply (19 packs for about $30).

Donruss Americana is a celebrity trading card set. The 2009 edition contains 5 cards per pack and the ratio of inserts is (according to the back of a pack): Private Signings (100 cards) numbered to 500 or less; Star Material/Materials Silver Proofs/Gold Proofs (100 cards) numbered as low as 25 or less; Cinema Stars/Materials/Materials Silver Screen (24 cards) numbered as low as 25 or less; Hollywood Legends/Materials (26 cards) numbered as low as 25 or less; Co-stars Materials/Silver Screen/Golden Era (16 cards) numbered as low as 50 or less; TV Stars/Materials Small Screen (23 cards) numbered as low as 50 or less; Movie Posters/Combo/Triple/Quad Materials (65 cards) numbered to 500 or less.

The retail packs traditionally don't have has many inserts as the hobby box sets so I wasn't really expecting to pull any inserts. However, somewhat surprisingly, I pulled 3 inserts:

Jill-Michelle Melen - Proof card numbered 156 of 250 (she's a comedienne in case anyone was saying "who?");

Barry Bostwick - Proof card numbered 242 of 250 (probably best known as the Mayor from the tv show, Spin City); and

Edward G. Robinson - Hollywood Legends card numbered 779 of 1000 (a veteran of over 100 films).

Although I would've liked to get the 2008 set, I think the layout of the 2009 set is better. The colour of the card really stands out and is consistent across all the cards in the set. Good to see a bit of info on the back of the card about the celebrity portrayed. The smooth texture of the card is good too (although it can make the cards slide around abit if you stack them on top of each other).

Donruss did well in mixing up the celebrities included in each pack. I think there was only 1 pack where I really was going "who are all these people?". In terms of how easy it is to collect the commons in the set, I ended up with 32 doubles/triples. This slightly high number might have been a result of the fact that I bought loose packets and they may not have come out of the same box. For the meantime then, it looks like I'm going to be doing a bit of trading to get the remaining commons I need.

Pack Break - 2006-07 UD MVP Hockey

So now it's time for my first post about breaking some packs open. I was able to pick up a cheap pack of 2006-07 Upper Deck MVP Hockey cards from the shop earlier (all of about $1). I didn't collect hockey cards when I was younger but ended up buying the pack because of curiousity (and because of how cheap the pack was).

For those who aren't sure what the pack looks like, a pic of one is below. Supposedly there is an insert or rookie card in every pack (then UD throw in the usual caveat - "on average"). There are 8 cards per pack.

So, in light of that info, here are the cards I ended up pulling (with a little bit of info):

#76: Milan Hejduk - so the first card is of the Avalanche's prolific goal scorer. Too bad the card isn't of him shooting for goal.

#349: Martin St. Louis - Hmm .... instead of getting a bit of info on the Tampa Bay star winger, UD stuck a checklist on the back of his card. Still, reasonably good pic of St. Louis going down the ice.

#179: Jamie Langenbrunner - I think this series of cards was released around the same time Langenbrunner re-signed with NJ., so in that way, the card is interesting .... (and the crowd images in the background that don't really show much interest in what's going on).

#174: Zach Parise - Ah, another NJ player. Parise started with NJ the season before and now he's one of NJ's best attacking player/goal scorer.

#192: Brendan Shanahan - This card would have been released around the time Shanahan moved to the Rangers. He only stayed at the club for 2 seasons.

#62: Michael Handzus - This card is interesting enough for being of Handzus during his time with the Blackhawks. After being injured, he played less than 10 games for the club before signing with the Kings.

#175: Brian Rafalski - This must really be a pack for NJ cards. A good defensive player for NJ, Rafalski really looks focused in the pic. The crowd in the background is another talking point .....

#112: Ilya Kovalchuk - So this must be the insert card. UD have put the Thrashers star as an International Icon. Card design is good, but was the only card in the pack not to have an imprint of the player's signature.

A pick of the cards pulled is below:

So there you have it. A bit of a long post, but I thought for my first pack I would write about each card. Might buy another pack of the cards since they are so cheap, but really can't see myself collecting the series.

The Beginning .....

Welcome to my new blog!

I've decided to enter into the world of blogging to describe to the world my trading card search. I've recently got back into a hobby that I first commenced in the late 80s and early 90s. Back then, there were many trading card shops around the place and they all seemed to sell every single variety of trading card you could think of. Of course, there were the sport cards on baseball, basketball, football (every variety) and every other sport imaginable. Then there were the cards on tv shows and movies, cartoons, etc. The card companies would often even throw in a little something extra into the card packs - often it was gum (of some sort) - but you might have also got a sticker or some other thing that you would find great amusement in.

To think - you saved up all your pocket money to go down to the shops and buy a pack or two of trading cards. You knew that you could place them in the card folders that you bought, take them to school or the shop, and either trade them with your friends or proudly show the latest card you had acquired. Although you were always hoping to find a "rare" card (based on the description on the card packet), you were equally as happy to find that elusive common card to finish your set.

Well, like so many hobbies, the enthusiasm amongst the public for trading cards began to diminish somewhat in the late 90s. I put my cards in a box and stacked them in my cupboard. I just couldn't bear to part with them - after all, I enjoyed the hobby but it was getting more difficult to trade the cards.

Skip forward a decade or so, and in the midst of cleaning, I decided to open up the trading card box and take a look at the cards I had collected. They certainly brought back some memories. Out of curiousity, I then started to take a look on the internet to see what had happened to the world of trading cards since the 90s. Well, I was glad to see that there were still many out there who collected trading cards of all different genres. Even better, I saw that people were writing blogs on packs/boxes they had opened or cards they had traded/bought.

So, here I am now. After seeing many places on the internet selling trading cards or putting collectors in contact with one another to trade their cards, my enthusiasm for card collecting has come back. I'm not one to go out spending huge amounts of money on trading cards (particularly the boxes). I enjoyed the time when a couple of dollars would get you a couple of packs of cards.

Therefore, this blog will describe my re-discovered adventure of opening packs of trading cards. It might only be a pack or two a week (with the occassional 'cheap' box), but I want to do two things primarily with this blog: (i) describe to everyone the excitement of opening a pack of trading cards, and (ii) along others to see what cards they might be able to pull from a pack of cards before they buy them.

Regardless of whether you are interested in trading cards or not, I hope you can take a look at this blog and join in the adventures that will (hopefully) follow .....