Card of the Day: Jeff Francoeur 2002 Upper Deck USA Baseball Auto

Card of the Day: Jameis Winston 2012 Upper Deck USA Football Auto

Card of the Day: George Bush 1990 Topps USA White House Issue #USA1

FYI – The 100 cards given to former President Bush (White House Issue) have a thick clear coating on the front, and the others do not.

USA Baseball Auto Contest Winner Announced

Congrats to Matt Gilman on being the lucky winner of the Nico Hoerner 2013 Panini USA Baseball Champions Certified Mirror Red Auto #’ed/49.  Once Matt Gilman sends me their mailing address I will ship this card ASAP.  Thanks.

USA Baseball Auto Contest! – NOW CLOSED

This is a contest for a Nico Hoerner 2013 Panini USA Baseball Champions Certified Mirror Red Auto #’ed/49.  Good luck!

Contest Details:

• This contest will end Friday, June 14, 2013 @ 8:00 p.m. EST
• To enter, please leave a comment in this post
• You can enter once per day
• The winner will be selected at random
• Please provide a valid e-mail address when entering
• The winner will receive an e-mail when the contest is over
• The winner has one week to send me their contact information or the contest will be held again
• Once the contest is over, I will need the winner’s mailing address so I can ship them this card for FREE!!!

2013 Panini USA Baseball Champions Box Break & Review

Design: 

Hey look!  We have a Panini baseball product with logos.  Granted they’re Team USA logos, but that’s still better than any airbrushed card they’ve issued before.  The only real gripe I have with the design are the white boxes that are smacked right in the middle of the Certified autographs.  Following collectors love for bat knob relics, Panini made very rare Team USA bat knob cards.  Collectors go nuts over these knob relics, but I do think Panini should have designed them horizontally versus upright.

Panini made good use of the classic photographs of many legends in their Team USA uniform.  Of all the legends Panini included, Mark McGwire is the one that sticks out to me the most.  You don’t see McGwire in a lot of today’s products.  His rookies may be worthless, but his signatures are in high demand.  I can still remember getting the McGwire Topps USA rookie for Christmas back in 1998.  This is the first product to have McGwire autographs in three years.

Price: 

Boxes are currently selling for $60.00.  Really affordable!

“Hit” Quality: 

Every box should have (2) autographs and (3) relics.  I didn’t see a USA Baseball Legends Die-Cut card in my box.

I pulled the following:

Autos

• Nico Hoerner Certified Mirror Red Auto #’ed/49
  
• Christian Lopes Stars & Stripes Auto #’ed/672

Relics

• Albert Almora Game Gear Jersey
• Austin Cousino Game Gear Jersey
• Marco Gonzales Game Gear Bat

Parallels

• Dan Child Certified Mirror Red #’ed/499
• Trevor Williams Certified Mirror Blue #’ed/299

Certified

• Bryson Brigman #153
• Trea Turner #146
• Nico Hoerner #178
• Nick Anderson #169
• Bailey Falter #176
• Isaak Gutierrez #177

Overall: 

Overall, I give 2013 Panini USA Baseball Champions an average 3 American flags out of 5 (1=poor & 5=perfect).  Its refreshing to see a Panini baseball product that actually contains logos and seeing Mark McGwire back in a product brought back a lot of memories from that 1998 season.  Those darn white boxes just keeping popping up in Panini products.

Card of the Day: Mark McGwire 2013 Panini USA Baseball Champions Stars & Stripes Auto

Card of the Day: Stephen Strasburg 2012 Panini Prizm USA Baseball

Card of the Day: Scottie Pippen 2009-10 Basketball Hall of Fame Dream Team USA Auto

Card of the Day: Jackie Bradley Jr 2010 Topps Team USA Auto