New Side Project: Jeff Gordon

Yes, that Jeff Gordon, the race car driver from NASCAR. Now this might be a bit out of nowhere in terms of what I've been posting on here in the past, but I felt like it was a good time to throw something a little bit different into the mix. Hello racing cards!

 

 

When I was a kid, I was actually really into NASCAR for a few years. Jeff Gordon was my favorite driver and I will always remember those colorful paint jobs on his #24 DuPont cars from the 90's. I had a bunch of t-shirts and toys with those colors plastered all over them.

As far as collecting, in recent years I have diversified a bit and gotten away from exclusively collecting hockey cards. While I will never collect baseball, basketball or football, there are at least a handful of other types of cards I collect now or possibly will in the future.

I've come a long way from simply hoarding low end 90's and 00's hockey. While hockey is still my main focus, I really enjoy some of these oddball side projects like train cards and stuff for some of my favorite shows like Stranger Things, Lost and Jericho. 

I'm also a big believer in the "collect what you want and ignore what everyone else thinks" approach. Nobody is going to tell me what I should or shouldn't collect. I do this as a hobby for fun so I'm going to do it in a way that makes it enjoyable for me.

Back to the focus of this post, I've always been aware of NASCAR cards from reading other blogs (specifically Cardboard History) and what not, but I know next to nothing about them. After some initial searching on eBay and COMC, Gordon has a ton of cards out there. Since I'm treating this as a fun mini-PC project, I'm going after just the ones I like.

Here are some example of what's out there.

Honestly, I wasn't even aware that Upper Deck made NASCAR cards in the late 90's and early 2000's. There is even some overlap with the hockey designs from back then, so that's a neat tie in with my current collection. I'll probably gravitate toward those types of cards.

A quick check of the Trading Card Database shows Gordon has over 7,000 different cards out there. A lot more than I was thinking. I guess the good thing about that is I should easily be able to find a bunch of low end stuff that I actually like for this new side project.

So we'll see where this goes. I'm not making it my top priority or anything, but it will be fun to have another type of card to go after. Anyone else a NASCAR card collector?

2019 Topps Allen & Ginter: Chugging Along

I never thought I'd see the day when I purposely bought baseball cards for my collection. Well, that has finally happened thanks to a set of mini inserts from Topps.

After reading a recent post by Fuji, my love of trains had me doing a quick eBay search for the Shinkansen card. That was where I stumbled onto several cards from the 2019 Topps Allen & Ginter set, which unsurprisingly, I had no idea even existed until right then.

This set of minis is named "Chugging Along" and features different types of trains.

I love the look of this 15-card set set, everything from the artistic look of the photos to the gear designs in the corners. My favorite element might not be as obvious though. If you look closely at the fancy border treatment to the right of the words freight train, it looks just like a track diagram from a real interlocking tower. Click here for an example.

My favorite card in the set is #CA-10, the freight train. These are the types of trains that I first saw in person as a kid, so I've always been  into modern diesels more than anything.

As far as the backs of these cards go, the fancy border treatment is transferred there, albeit slightly modified. The title font is also prominent here. Otherwise the back is pretty straightforward and simple, which works really well for a set like this.

Rather than doing this one at a time, it was more efficient to just combine the remaining 14 cards into a single image. Plus, this gives you a great look at the set as a  whole. I'm even thinking about putting them into a frame and hanging them on the wall. 

I tied to put these in order of favorite to least favorite, although after the first two on top everything kind of runs together for me. All together there is a nice mix of styles and colors. The antique white background really helps complete the look.

These make a great addition to my growing collection of train cards. Hopefully there will be another set like this from Topps in the future. I'm not sure of any other modern sets that feature trains in such a prominent way. Kind of makes me want to just design my own.

Has anyone else collected this particular set of minis? I'm not in the know with baseball or this Allen & Ginter stuff. Are these non-sport minis popular with collectors?

Tea Cards: Transportation Through the Ages

Tea cards are something that I have next to no knowledge of, so when I received these three cards below as a gift recently, it was really cool to be able to add something new and unique to my card collection. Beyond that, these aren't even hockey cards and actually feature my other main interest, trains, which makes them even cooler.

The three cards below come from a 48-card set called "Transportation Through the Ages" produced by the Brooke Bond tea company. This set was originally issued in 1967 and features many different types of transportation, hence the name.

These are significantly smaller than your traditional 2.5" x 3.5" trading cards. They are approximately 2.75" x 1.5" overall. Also, the corners are rounded, which I tried to emphasize by placing the cards onto a black background for scanning. The border is white, which made the edges and round corners hard to see when initially scanned.

The first card titled "Diesel Locomotive" is #20 in the set. This one features an excellent illustration of a Canadian National (CN) GP30 locomotive. The GP stands for general purpose. These locomotives provided 2,250 horsepower for pulling freight. 

The next card titled "Modern Steam Locomotive" is #19 in the set and features an illustration of a Canadian Pacific Class T1B Selkirk 2-10-4 steam locomotive. The 2-10-4 designation refers to the wheel arrangement. This means there were two leading wheels, ten larger driving wheels, and four smaller trailing wheels. This particular one, #5921, was built by Montreal Locomotive Works in 1938.

The last of the three is titled "Gas Turbine Locomotive" is #21 in the set and features a nice illustration of a Union Pacific locomotive. Number 61 shown here was a second generation unit and delivered in 1954.  These locomotives provided 4,500 horsepower, but did not last all that long on the rails. They were all out of service by 1970.

Below is a scan of the back for the card above. It has the card number and set information at the top, a paragraph about the subject in the middle, and some company information at the bottom. Its neat that they have it printed in both English and French. This was done because they were made for distribution with Tea packets in Canada.

These will go great with my other two sets of railroad trading cards. Special thanks again to the person who sent me these. Gotta love the people in this great hobby!

Topps Stranger Things Season One eBay Lot

Ever since my recent blaster box of Stranger Things season one cards, I've been wanting to complete the base set. There are only 100 cards in the set and I got a good chunk of them from the blaster. I didn't think $20 for another blaster was worth it just to end up with a ton of extras so eBay way my next option. I did some searching and was able to find a nice little lot of 56 cards for just $0.99 plus shipping. 

The only catch was the seller did not include a list of what card #'s were included. I'm sure I could've asked them, but I figured what the heck and put in a bid. Luckily, I ended up winning with that lone bid and I would be that much closer to finishing the set.

Rather than showing all of the cards here, I figured I would pick three of my favorites. They are all of the horizontal variety are shown in numerical order, which also happens to be chronological order as far as the story on the actual show.

The first one titled "The Demogorgon Got Me" is card #2 in the set. This scene takes place as the boys are finishing up their night of Dungeons and Dragons.

The next one titled "Monster in the Road" just happens to be the next card in the set. This scene takes place shortly after the previous one as Will is being chased by the monster.

The last one jumps a bit toward the end of the season. Card #93 in the set titled "Into the Upside Down" focuses on Hopper entering the upside down with Joyce to save Will.

After sorting through everything, it turns out that I only ended up needing 27 of the 56 cards for my set. Oh well, its not the end of the world since I did only spend a few dollars on this lot. Now I just need to track down the remaining base cards to finish the main set.

Box Break: Topps Stranger Things Season One

I know I've caught the collecting bug again when I start branching out into things that are outside the world of hockey cards. I've dabbled in a few non-sports sets in the past (e.g. Lost and Jericho), so I'm always on the lookout for anything trading card related to my favorite television shows. For whatever reason, I really like these kinds of sets.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I was shopping at the local Target and upon inspecting the trading card section, I was pleasantly surprised to see a blaster box of trading cards for my current favorite show: Stranger Things. I know some people aren't all that into this show, but I love it. Season one was great and I think season two was even better. Now I'm anxiously waiting to see what happens when season three is released on July 4th.

I wasn't even aware of this set until now. Apparently, it was released around the end of October 2018, which is interesting because season one of the actual showed debuted on Netflix all the way back in July of 2016. Better late than never I guess.

As I've done with my previous box breaks, I wanted to show the front of the box itself. The bright yellow color is what really made it stand out on the shelf at Target. Beyond that, it has painting like images of the main cast over top of the iconic Stranger Things wordmark.

This retail blaster box comes with 10 packs of 7 cards each, plus one pack with a special commemorative patch card. Not a bad deal getting 71 cards for just $20 if you ask me. Here is a breakdown of the cards available in one of these blasters:

     - Base Set: 100 cards
     - Parallels: Upside Down (#/99), Waffle (#/11), Christmas Lights (#/1)
     - Character Cards: 20 cards
     - Character Stickers: 20 stickers
     - Scene Stickers: 10 stickers
     - Commemorative Patches: 24 cards
     - Parallels: Orange (#/99), Green (#/50), Purple (#/25), Blue (#/10), Gold (#/1)

 

There are some cool autographs and memorabilia available in the hobby boxes, but I'll leave those off of here for now since this was a retail blaster. For more information on the hobby version, click here for a great breakdown from Cardboard Connection.

Before I get to scans of the actual cards I pulled, I thought it would be neat to show the wrappers. These are something that you don't get to see that often when box breaks are posted online. Maybe not the most exciting thing, but still interesting to me.

On the left you have the main packs. The design uses the same yellow as the box, but has a slightly different look to the picture. The black behind the Stranger Things text and the black silhouettes are a nice touch as well. On the right is the pack that contained the one commemorative patch card. Not as exciting as the other one.

Now its time to get into the good stuff. I'll start with the base cards. I was able to knock 57 of these off the list. As far as I can tell, there were no duplicates. They are printed on the old school card stock so they definitely feel like they came right out of the 1980's. There were both horizontal and vertical base cards, which seems a bit odd to me. You would think for a set like this they would've kept everything the same.

Below is an example of one of the vertical designs. This one titled "Signs of a Struggle" is card #12 in the set and focuses on Hopper searching the Byers' shed for any signs of what may have happened to Will. I love the simplicity of the design and the bold colors. Seems like it would fit right in with any other Topps set from the 80's.

If you ask me, the horizontal cards look just a little better. I guess because this is for a television show after all, the horizontal design better accommodates the widescreen shots you would see on TV. The example below is card #46 in the set focusing on the time when Will spells out the word run via the Christmas lights Joyce had strung up on the wall.

The backs of the cards are all the same horizontal design. Below is an example. I really like the simplicity here, nothing seems unnecessary. It has a nice and quick description of the scene shown on the front. The trees on the bottom are a nice touch.

Unfortunately, I wasn't luck enough to pull any of the base card parallels. That's too bad because I really wanted one of the Upside Down (#/99) or Waffle (#/11) parallels. They look pretty sweet from the scans that I've seen on eBay lately. And that's right, I did say waffle. You'd have to be familiar with the show to understand the reasoning for that one.

For the character cards, I ended up with three: Steve Harrington, Mike Wheeler and The Monster. Here's a look at The Monster, which is card #20 of the 20 card insert set. 

For the character stickers, I ended up with eight of the twenty: Scott Clarke, Will Byers, Dustin Henderson, Benny Hammond, Ted Wheeler, Barbara Holland, Jonathan Byers and Eleven. These are a pretty simple design, but look great with the bold color combination. These kind of remind me of Topps hockey cards from back in the 60's and 70's.

For the scene stickers, I ended up with two of the ten: Goin' for a Ride (Will Byers) and Determined Dustin. These are neat because the have the film reel look to them and definitely stick out with all the red. The only thing is that it does not have any kind of description on the back, just the basic set information and sticker number.

I saved the best for last. Each blaster box comes with one commemorative patch card, also known as a manufactured patch. I know some people hate these things and I would tend to agree for anything like this taking the place of a piece of actual game-used memorabilia as a "hit" for a given pack or box. However, in this case I think these are great. It almost feels like and added bonus for a blaster like this.

These are actually pretty cool to see in person. They are nice and thick and the patches look great. This one with Mike Wheeler has a Hawkins Middle School patch. The blue and white provide a nice contrast to the rest of the card design so the patch really stands out.

All in all, this was a fun break. I got some new card for one of my favorite shows and since I haven't seen the first season in a while now, it was nice to look through the set and see some key moments from the show. Now I just need to complete the base set.

Also, from what I've read, it sounds like Topps will be producing another set like this for season two. Definitely going to looking at getting at least a blaster of that as well.

Anyone else into Stranger Things, the show or the trading card set from Topps?

Outside the Box: Movie Posters

It's been a while now since I've done one of these posts, but I am once again borrowing the "outside the box" idea from My Hockey Card Obsession. I've mentioned before that I have other interests outside hockey cards and one of those is the reason for today's post. 

I love my card collection and all, but 99% of it is stored out of sight in my basement, whether it be in boxes or binders, so it isn't something I see immediately when I enter the man cave. That's where having something to hang on the walls comes in handy. I've got a couple of interior walls in my man cave that are perfect for hanging something, so I figured why not buy some full size posters of some of my favorite movies? 

I've always thought movie posters were cool, but never really thought of buying any for myself until recently. There are a ton of them available on sites like eBay and Amazon. I decided to start with two of my favorite movies: Cloverfield and 10 Cloverfield Lane. They are both full size (27" x 40") and double sided so they can be properly back lit.

Cloverfield (2008) is a found footage monster movie produced by J.J. Abrams and directed by Matt Reeves. Today is actually the 10th anniversary of its release. I thought it was a great movie when I saw it in the theater back then and still enjoy watching it at home every now and then. The other cool thing about this movie is the viral marketing campaign that went along with it. While I didn't follow it in real time, because I didn't know about it until long after the fact, it was still fun to read about.

The poster itself is pretty sweet with the headless Statue of Liberty. If you've seen the movie or even just the trailer then you can see the significance of this. I like that it is not cluttered up with a lot of text, there is just the title and the release date.

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) is the second film in the Cloverfield universe, or Cloververse. It was produced by J.J. Abrams and directed by Dan Trachtenberg. It's not a direct sequel to the original, but has been described as a blood relative by the creators. It is actually a great thriller with a bit of a twist at the end. This movie also had a great viral marketing campaign which I actually followed along in real time.

The post for this one is pretty cool too, but does have a bit more text all over it. I really like how they used the L from the word lane to represent the bunker where most of the movie takes place. Its also pretty neat how that same line works as the I in Cloverfield.

Neither of these were all that expensive, both were less than $20 including shipping. The frames to display them in actually cost more than the posters themselves.

Now that I have these two I'm thinking about buying a few more. The next one on my list is another J.J. Abrams project: Super 8. That was another one with a great viral marketing campaign, which helps establish a much stronger personal interest in a such a film.

Does anyone else collect movies posters? What do you think of these two and what are some of your favorites? 

All Aboard: Railroad Collector Cards Series #2

Thanks to another eBay purchase I now have the second set of All Aboard railroad collector cards from back in the early 90's. These just arrived yesterday and this set is a great follow up to the first one. This appears to be the last of these sets so it might be a while before my two main hobbies can cross paths like this again.  

Same as with the first set, I bought two sealed copies and opened one of them. These are also limited to 10,000 total sets, I have #1256 and #1272. The pair set me back around $8 so not a bad deal considering there were some sellers asking a lot more than that.  

The cards in this set are again all horizontal with a simple design that focuses on the actual photos of the trains. This set has 50 cards instead of the 46 that were in series 1. Not sure why they would have changed that, but I'll take it.

Since this set focuses on the northeast, none of my favorite railroads were focused here so I'm just going to show off some cards by picking the best looking photos. The first one features an awesome bridge shot of six Central Vermont GP9's near Claremont, NH.

Here is a look at one of the card backs. Just like series one, each card has a short write up about the photo on the front. In this case, the border design is carried over from the front of the card giving it a simple look. The ghosted image is the same for all cards.

Back to the fronts, we have another great bridge shot, this time with four Grant Trunk locomotives pulling a mixed freight train through Hartford, VT.

Up next is yet another bridge shot, I guess I really like these. This Boston & Main train features an interesting consist of locomotives, all of which happen to be different colors.

Here we have another Boston & Main train, just not on a bridge. This is a great shot of another mixed freight being led by an interesting consist of locomotives. I like that there really isn't anything but nature in the background of this shot. 

 

Finally, we have this one featuring the Bangor & Aroostook railroad and their sharp red, grey and black paint scheme. This train is bringing pulpwood to a paper mill in East Millinocket, ME. This is another one with a great blue sky in the background.

So that's it for my latest non-hockey purchase. I really like these cards and wish there were more sets like this for the trains of today. I'm not sure if there is anything like this today, anyone seen anything recently? I could always come up with my own custom set too.

All Aboard: Railroad Collector Cards Series #1

It's not every day that I get to combine my two main hobbies into one blog post, but thanks to my latest eBay purchase of a set of railroad collector cards from the now defunct All Aboard Collector cards company, I can do that here today.  

This is a set of 46 cards released in 1991 that focuses on railroads from the Great Lakes region.  It is limited to just 10,000 total sets and I was lucky enough to get two sealed sets for about $5 including shipping. I'm keeping one sealed and I opened the other so I could check out all of the awesome train photos from the past.

The cards are all horizontal and feature a pretty simple design, which is nice because it keeps the focus on the actual photographs of the trains. The card stock they are printed on is slightly thinner and flimsier than most of my hockey cards. They're also actually not exactly 2.5" x 3.5" overall, they come in just a tiny bit longer and narrower.

The first card I am going to show depicts my favorite railroad, the Detroit & Mackinac, which was a short line based in north eastern Michigan. They were sold off in 1992 and became a different railroad, so it's neat to have a card that shows them in their prime.

The card backs also pretty simple, but they do have a pretty good write up about the photo on the front. What's neat about the main locomotive in this picture, No. 469, is that I actually have a picture of myself standing on the front of it when I was about five years old.

Since all of the backs are the same, I thought I would share some of the cards that stood out to me when sorting through the 46 card set. This one features two GP40-2's in the rather colorful Chessie System paint scheme.

The next one features two F7A's and a GP9 in the rather bland Penn Central paint scheme. This one stood out because of the dark engines against the bright blue sky, which make for a nice photo. This was taken in Jackson, MI back in May of 1976.

Here's another nice looking photo, this time featuring Amtrak's "Empire Builder" train passing through Wisconsin back in May of 1990. The locomotives shown leading this train are both F40PH's in Amtrak's phase III paint scheme.

Up next is a cool shot of DeKalb County Co-Op's Baldwin switcher locomotive shown in Waterloo, Indiana back in July of 1983. What stood out in this picture was the nice green field and flowers shown in the foreground.

This next one stood out because of the railroad crossing sign that takes up the right hand side of the photo. These things are usually white so it was interesting to see one in yellow. The other thing that caught my eye was the orange DT&I paint scheme on the locomotive.

This one is not as flashy, but has a cool scene of several Green Bay & Western locomotives pulling a train through a wooded area. What's nice about this photo is the lack of man-made structures in the background or foreground.

Finally we have this one showing two Soo Line F7A's awaiting their assignment in Manistique, Michigan during August of 1968. These locomotives always stood out to me with their bright red noses and white bodies with bold black lettering.

So there's something you don't see on here every day. What do you guys think? Any other train enthusiasts out there that have seen or already own this set? I think they're great and now I need to get myself a couple copies of the series #2 that was released after this set.

Cardboard Creations: Country Stars

Between my recent Frontmen II custom set and stumbling across some Panini country music cards on eBay, I decided to go ahead and make myself a set of card featuring some of my favorite country artists. I've been into country music since I was a kid back in the 90's so this seemed like another fun way to work in some of my other interests here.

I used the same basic template as the Frontmen sets, but made some tweaks here and there. Considering these went from just an idea to a completed concept in less than a day, I'm pretty happy with the results. My favorite new feature for this set has to be the marquee lights that follow the borders on the top and bottom. 

I even worked in a little hockey with a new version of the Predators shoulder patch logo. I figured with it being a guitar pick and all, it would work perfectly here. I just changed the colors and the initials at the bottom are for the name of this set. The first one of this new set features my favorite new country artist Luke Combs.

The other really neat feature that I randomly added at the last minute is the faded silhouette of the Nashville skyline at the bottom. Since I was not using that area for a band logo this time, I needed to do something and this seem like a cool idea. 

Here are the rest of them together: 

I really like how these turned out. I have one other music themed set idea I'm working on so hopefully I'll be able to get that posted here sometime soon. I do in fact plan on posting about hockey cards again, I just really got into designing these things for the moment.

Cardboard Creations: Frontmen II

One of the things I really enjoyed back when I was blogging about cards more frequently was creating my own custom card designs. Even through the last few breaks I've taken from collecting, I was working on several custom sets. At this point its actually been more than four years since I last posted a custom design here on the blog. 

You might think I would jump back into this with a hockey set, but that is not the case as you can probably tell from the title of this post. It is in fact an update on the "Frontmen" set I posted all the way back in August of 2011. Click here to see that post for reference. Basically its a set featuring the lead singers from some of my favorite rock bands.

Since the focus of the set is the same as last time, I decided to keep the design relatively the same. I experimented with some radically different designs, but in the end settled on something that was similar to the first set, but not exactly the same.

As with most of my Cardboard Creations posts, I will show a larger version of a single card then all nine together. I chose to show this one of Rick DeJesus because his group Adelitas Way is by far my current favorite band. They've been putting out albums since 2011 and have a great overall sound as a modern hard rock band. Here's a look at the card:

I wanted to keep the same basic details as the first version, so I have the name of the set at the top along with the little singer silhouettes, the name below that, then the picture and the city name below that. At the bottom is the name and/or logo for the band. The biggest differences are the font and the background texture.

Here are the rest of them together:

While this isn't a hockey design, going through the process of finishing it combined with a look back at some of my other sets has me wanting to do more on the hockey side of things. Hopefully I will be able to put a few things together in the near future. I've already got some ideas, so we'll see what happens.

Box Break: Inkworks Jericho Season One

It seems like forever since I've done a box break. After taking a look back, I realized the last time was over three years ago. Anyway, for whatever reason I've been interested in my small collection of entertainment cards again recently. That made me do some searching online for more sets I could get into. Then I happened to stumble across the listing on eBay for this box and decided to go for it since Jericho is one of my favorite shows. I got a great deal and this only set me back $20 including shipping.

If you are not familiar with Jericho, click here for more information. Basically its a post-apocalyptic action-drama that focuses on a small Kansas town in the aftermath of a nuclear attack on the US. It ran for two seasons on CBS from 2006-2008. 

This set was produced by the now defunct Inkworks company back in 2007. There are 72 cards in the main set along with some insets, autographs and memorabilia cards. This box has 6 cards per pack and 36 packs. On average there should be one autograph and one Pieceworks card per box. Here is a look at the box top:

I'll start things off with the title card. This is card #1 in the set and the front has a generic promo shot of the main cast of the show. I really like the font on the word Jericho as well as the textures and color fade from top to bottom.

The back has some generic info about the show and a promo shot of the four members of the Green family. It also lists the producers and creators of the show, which I thought was a nice touch. The texture and color fade is similar to the front.

Here is a look at the checklist. The front is an image of the flag for the new Allied States of America from season two. It's obviously based on the real United States flag. The stripes were made vertical to represent the new fictional nation going in a new direction.

The back lists all of the cards in the main set, which is comprised of three subsets: characters, episodes, and behind the scenes. There are only 72 cards in all, so not the biggest set, but enough to nicely capture the first season of Jericho.

The first of the character cards is Jake Green, who is played by Skeet Ulrich. The front has a nice almost half body image that fills out the center of the card nicely. The overall design is a bit of a departure from the title card, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I like how there are some nice straight lines and then some eroded lines, it gives the overall card a balanced look while not being too gaudy.

The back of the card is similar to the front with the same color scheme and parts of the same perimeter design. There is a new picture on the back along with a brief write up on the character. Not a bad looking design at all if you ask me.

After the character cards, there are 44 cards focusing on the episodes of season one. Each of the 22 episodes has two cards. This one is the first card for the pilot episode. These cards look much more like the header card, which is a good thing. I like the horizontal setup since the images are taken right from the show.

One interesting thing to note about the back of this card is the opening Morse code listed below the paragraph. Each episode starts with the word "Jericho" displayed on the screen and the only audio playing is Morse code, which means something specific to each episode. In this case for the pilot, "JERICHO PILOT" was the message.

After the episode cards, there were seven of these Behind the Scenes cards. These cards have some additional information about the show that wasn't necessarily in one of the episodes. This one focuses on the cities that were bombed during the initial attack.

The design of these cards is somewhere between the character cards and the episode cards. definitely not a bad overall look to them. The back of the card lists all the cities from the first attack. Looks like there's a few hockey cities on there.

Now onto the inserts. There are several types of inserts available. The first one is the box loader card. There are three of these available. I got the second card in the set that features the Green family of Jericho. This one was really foily so it didn't scan the best.

The back of the card was not foil, so it looks much better in the scan. This one has a nice write up on the Green family who are the primary characters in season one.

Then there was the "Survivors" set and I was able to get two of these: this one featuring Robert Hawkins and another featuring Dale Turner and Gracie Leigh. These are also really foily so the scan looks pretty bad. I do like the design of the front though.

These cards focus more on the actors than the characters, as evident by the write up on the back of this one. That's ok though, I think mixing in this kind of information is a great idea for a set about a TV show, which wouldn't be what it is without the actors.

The last insert set called "Fallout" is a cool one that is made up of a nine-card portrait. I got three of the nine, so I have a ways to go. These are also foily so the scan isn't the greatest.

The back of the card shows the entire portrait, which would look awesome all together in a nine pocket page. It also has a short write up about the scene depicted.

As far as true "hits" this product has autographs and Pieceworks memorabilia cards. The stated odds were one of each per box on average, so I had my hopes up for at least one of each. Well, I did get of each and couldn't be happier. I'm just really glad I didn't hit one of the autograph cards that were only available via redemption since Inkworks has been out of business for years now.

Up first is a hard-signed auto of Sprague Grayden, who plays Heather Lisinski on the show. It's a good looking card with a nice promo shot of Grayden and a nice blank space for a signature. Even her signature is nice looking, which is always a good thing.

Last but not least is my one Pieceworks card from the box: a dual costume card of Ashley Scott who plays Emily Sullivan on the show. There are pieces of her top and jeans specifically from the second episode of the show's first season.

I love that card because its awesome to have a piece of memorabilia from a specific episode. Any time I watch that episode now, I can enjoy the fact that I have a small part of it in my collection. This is much more appealing to me than your everyday hockey jersey card, unless it mentioned exactly which games the jersey was worn in. I know sometimes on rare occasions they do, but not all the time.

So that's it for my second entertainment card box break. I have to say I really enjoyed this one as Jericho is one of my favorite shows. I did end up with a complete base set as promised, so I can mark this one complete. Now I would like to maybe work on the insert sets and possibly the autos and memorabilia sets.