On the Twelfth Day of Cardmas, My Mistress Gave to Me...

12 Cyber Mondays,

11 Football Repacks,
10 TeenyMateys,
9 Basketball Cubes,
8 Pounds of Loosies,
7 Baseball Repacks,
6 Random Blasters,
5 Jersey Things,
4 Packs of Stuff,
3 UD Heroes,
2 Goodwin Blasters,
and a Baseball Gem of the Game!

As I looked through all of my potential 12 Days, I kept coming up with the conclusion that I had natural fits for Days 1-11.  I knew that I wanted to end on something cool, so I decided to hit up dacardworld.com on cyber monday and pick up some fresh product.

Ultimately, I decided on 6 2013 Score/Prizm Monster Boxes, 4 2013 Turkey Red Football Packs, and 2 2013 Ace Authentic Grand Slam boxes.

Let's start with the monster boxes:

Each box comes with 5 Score packs, 2 Prizm Hobby packs, and 3 exclusive Prizm cards.  The exclusive cards are typically blue, but do have some rare parallels.

It worked out well as I knocked a number of Score cards off of my wantlist. I'm now down to needing 2 base cards and 21 rookie cards.

I also got some blue rookies...and red rookies:

Cobi Hamilton is not excited about either parallel.

I actually think these are pretty cool cards for a Score-like product.

This Aaron Dobson Hot Rookies Showcase #02/99 is the best Score card I got.

I landed two Hokies from my Prizm packs.

Rookies fall 1-per-pack.  Here are the 12 that I got:

The standard Prizm inserts aren't great.  The Brilliance cards are sub-brilliant with no Prizmy/refractory sheen.  The MNH cards are a good design, but just not exciting.  The Rookie Impact cards are pointless when Rookies are already just 1-per-pack.

These HRX just should have been left out.  If they aren't chromey, they don't belong in Prizm.

I got one Prizm refractor card in all of those packs.  Kaep has been really up-and-down, so I'm not sure how I feel with this being the best card in 12 hobby packs.

Let's get to the exclusive Prizm cards (3 per box)

I really like these.  Blue Prizms are hard to beat.

These aren't bad either.  Let's check the validity of the "Cornerstones" label:

Doug Martin: After a stunning rookie season, he has not been a Cornerstone.
Andrew Luck: Yes, very much so.
Tom Brady: Pretty much the definition of Cornerstone.
Russell Wilson: Many would say yes...I say the jury's still out.  When you have a defense and running game (yes I know he's a part of the running game) as effective as theirs, it's hard to say the QB is the Cornerstone.
RGIII: Not as long as Jay Gruden craps on him.
Calvin Johnson: As much a Cornerstone as a WR can be.
Jamaal Charles: Yes.
Colin Kaepernick: Not a Cornerstone, but has shown flashes.
Eli Manning: Nope, never was or will be.  The Giants have acted like he is one, but he's not.

So, Panini was 4-4-1.  Not great.

I've shown 17 cards, which means there must have been one that was a parallel:

Gavin Escobar purple parallel #09/49.

So, my monster boxes were a little underwhelming.  Not getting an auto in 12 Prizm hobby packs hurt a little.

Turkey Red Time:

Each Box/Pack has 11 cards.  One card per pack is an Auto, and one is a mini.  There are also image variations for some of the rookies, which are limited to ~100 copies.

Here's a base card.  It's not a terrible design, but isn't textured like older Turkey Red baseball sets.

Here are the minis: Jordan Reed, Ray Graham, Keenan Allen, Cordarelle Patterson.  That's actually a pretty good group of minis.  Certainly a better group than my four autos:

Da'Rick Rogers had one productive game for the Colts before being cut for a DUI.
Jesse Williams was on IR in 2013 and 2014 due to knee injuries.
Kenny Stills is actually decent.  Following a 600+ yard season in 2013, he's on pace for ~900 yards this season.
Blidi Wreh-Wilson has gotten significant playing time at corner for the Titans this year.

The best two cards I got were probably these two image variations:

Well, that makes for some more underwhelming boxes.  Let's hope the tennis boxes don't disappoint.

These boxes have 10 cards each, all autographed.  Base autos have color parallels.  There are also a few insert auto sets, and they also have color parallels.  The National Pride set is expecially nice.  I'm a big tennis fan (old readers would probably already know this) so I really wanted to bust some of these after watching some breaks on youtube.

This is what the base autos look like.  Pretty standard.  Sticker auto. Bogdanovic is a name I recognize, though he hasn't done much in his career.  The cards are pre-loaded into penny sleeves and toploaders, which should be standard for boxes with only 10 cards.

These are the unexciting autos, of which I expected a handful. Daniel Contet had an auto in almost every box break I watched.  Jimmy Wang is a funny name.

Now we're kicking things up a notch.  Berdych is a top-notch player currently ranked #7.  He's reached the Semis or Finals in all 4 Grand Slams, but just hasn't gotten over the hump.  It's hard to do when Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic are your competition.

I got one base auto parallel.  This Waske #50/50 is pretty disappointing.

These Grand Slam Heroes cards are really nice.  Roy Emerson is a tennis legend.  He won 12 grand slam singles titles, 16 doubles titles, and 8 Davis Cups.

Vera Zvonareva is a decent name, as well.  She was ranked as high as #2 on the WTA tour.

These are the National Pride cards I love.  Great simple design.

Isner is a name most people will recognize as he's the top US Men's player right now.

Gonzalez is kind of a throwaway as he hasn't done anything in singles, and is only an average doubles player.

Ashley Harkleroad was a promising US player for a while but never quite broke through to the top ranks.  Feel free to google the rest of her story when you get home from work.  You won't be disappointed.

Vic Seixas is a name I hadn't heard before.  I'm surprised I hadn't as he was an American who won Wimbledon (1953) and the US Open (1954) as well as several doubles and mixed doubles titles.

I landed a bunch of numbered NP parallels, including this awesome Mark Woodforde #/50:

The Aussie teamed up with fellow Woodie Todd Woodbridge to make up one of the most successful doubles teams of all time.

#/25

Fernando Gonzalez of Chile was a Top Ten player for several years.  He made the Australian Open Final in 2007, but lost to Federer.

I was thrilled to pull this John Isner parallel #/20/25.  It's really an awesome looking card in person.

This Galina Voskoboeva parallel is #3/5, the lowest numbered card I got.  It's not the greatest name, but still pretty cool.

If you've been keeping count, you'll know that I've shown 19 cards.  I wanted to save the best card for last.  It's a perfect card to end the 12 Days of Cardmas.

Any time you open a box, you want the best.  Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Tiger Woods...those are the names you want. I wanted the best.

I got the best.

I pulled the GOAT.

Even the Federer base autos are extremely rare in this product.  I can't believe I pulled one.

Well, I'd certainly say that card is the star at the top of the Cardmas tree.

I hope you enjoyed this year's 12 Days of Cardmas.

Merry Cardmas!