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Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Breaking 2015 Panini Americana: Box Two

Ten packs, five cards each. As mentioned previously, these were contest winnings from Panini!

Let's get into this, shall we? How about Allen & Ginter Gint-a-Cuffs scoring style (completely arbitrary scoring, of course), hmm? One of these days I'll be able to buy a box of Ginter and participate in the real contest.

Pack 1

 I didn't know who DJ Kool is until relatively recently, when I heard this song:
Awesome. +3 for being a great song. (3)
I've known who Shannon Elizabeth is since American Pie, but being a Kevin Smith fan, her role in Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back is better. +5 for shiny catsuit-wearing criminals. (8)
 I really dislike the blue parallels (but still, limited, so +2). And I don't know anything about Tony Orlando. -4 for being a Yankee (seriously, he's from New York). (6)
 We saw Jenkins before, and I still don't know anything about him. -2 for being a talento, +2 for the insert. (6)
Cody Simpson is much more modern than Tony Orlando up there, but I don't know anything about him. Skimming his Wikipedia page, he isn't exactly talented as a musician. -1 for lack of talent. (5)

A strong start, but some weak pulls at the end.

Pack 2

 Erkel! This card makes this pack great from the start. +2 for high pants. (7)
 I like comedians, and Kevin Hart isn't that bad. +2 for being funny. (9)
 Another one of those blue parallels (+2). Joan Collins has been seen before, though, and I don't really care much for her movies. (11)
 Ginger Rogers has appeared in a lot of Americana sets, but they thankfully seem to change up the pictures pretty often. +2 for the insert, +4 for timeless beauty. (17)
Sure, Roger Moore isn't the best James Bond out there, but he isn't the worst. I like a lot of the Bond movies he was in. +007 (24).

That's a better pack.

Pack 3

 I think I've seen more parodies of Sly than actual Stallone film time. +1 for mumbling. (25)
 This is a sweet autograph! Autographs are +7, and with the Erkel multiplier it's +14! (39)
As I mentioned before, Bernsen played Roger Dorn in Major League. So +3 for being a third baseman. And this is a blue, so +2, for a total of +5. (44)
 Common is a rapper. That's all I know. I don't know any of his music, and I haven't seen any of the movies he's been in. Well, I saw Dave Chappelle's Block Party, but he didn't act in that. +2 for being an insert. (46)
A common Common. -5 for being meta. (41)

Pack 4

 Spy Kids was so freakin' cool! +3 for being involved in childhood espionage. (44)
 Pacino may be a legend, but he's a Yankee. -4 for being a Yankee, and -2 for shouting. (38)
 We saw Lakshmi yesterday. Another talento. +2 for blue, -2 for being pointless. (38)
 When you have only about 50 cards in a box, you'd expect to not see the same subject twice. But after two boxes there are some people who have now appeared three times! +2 for being an insert. (40)
I'm torn on Rourke. Sure, he's been in good movies, but look at that picture - I feel like he's trying too hard to be cool now. -2 for trying too hard to be like Robert Downey Jr. (38)

We took a hit on that pack..

Pack 5

 No clue, no points. (38)
 +3 for working with the Fresh Prince. (41)
 -2 for an insert not belonging in this release.  (43)
 +2 for being an insert, +2 for Lillian Gish, +1 for having Bette Davis's eyes. (48)
-5 for being from Jersey - it's worse than being a Yankee. And -1 for being on a dumb reality show. (42)

Pack 6

 My scanner didn't like this card. +2 for not being married to Mariah Carey anymore. (44)
 +2 for the insert, and +2 for being a classic beauty. (48)
 +2 for blue. (50)
 +2 for being an insert, and +1 for having Bette Davis eyes. (53)
Biz Markie was in that music video I posted near the top. +1 for that. (54)

Pack 7

 +1 for being a guest voice on The Cleveland Show. (55)
 -4 for being a Yankee. (51)
 -2. Stupid horses. (49)
 +2 for being an insert, +2 for Lana Turner being a classic beauty, and +5 for Ingrid Bergman being in Casablanca, a Hitchcock film, and more. (58)
+10 for being a rgular on a TV show I watched religiously. (68)

Pack 8

 +3 for being in a great TV show that had lots of baseball in it. (71)
 +3 for the "hit" insert, +3 for being (Ms.) Tasty, and +3 for defeating evil. (80)
 +2 for the blue. +6 for having six number one singles. (88)
 +2 for the insert, +10 because 10 Fast and the Furious movies are supposed to be made, and +3 for playing a lesbian spy in a good movie. (103)
+5 for being a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and +10 because there are at least that many songs Run DMC has made that I like. (118)

Pack 9

 -2 for being talentless on a pointless reality show. (116)
 +3 for being a part of the three-lady group Destiny's Child. And surviving Beyonce's departure. (119)
 +2 for blue. +2 for an actual action shot. +6.66 for shouting at the devil. (129.66)
 +2 for the insert, +5 for being such a cool song, -5 for ripping off Queen and David Bowie, and +1 for coming clean. (122.66)
+2 for being in Teachers, and +5 for sticking her arm elbow deep in dino doodoo  in the original Jurassic Park. (129.66)

Pack 10

 +2 for breaking up with Ryan Phillippe (131.66)
 +15 for being Rev Run, +7 for the autograph (153.66)
 +2 for the blue (155.66)
 +2 for insert, +2 for being a really fun song, -1 for not being that song about the cat (158.66)
+2 for making a career as a female athlete (160.66)

The Relics

As before, the relic cards won't fit through my scanner so I had to photograph them. So what were my two hits?
 This is a nice Hope Solo dual relic numbered out of 99! +2 for being a successful female athlete, +8 for being a better-than-normal relic, and +10 for being a hit I want to keep (180.66)
And this Mickey Rooney relic just takes the cake! It's numbered out of 49 and it has three relics! +25 for the relic, +5 for being someone I met in person, and +10 for being a hit I want to keep. (220.66)

The Score

Well, I didn't score points on the first box, but I'm sure it would have had, at best, half of the points of this box! And with a score of 220.66 I'd win Gint-A-Cuffs. But I wasn't playing that game. I was playing my own game.

The Thoughts

I will repeat what I said before - opening Americana is lots of fun. But like pretty much every box out there today, it's not worth buying because any hit singles I want will be much cheaper just hunting for on the secondary market. If I were a case buster, and could put together sets and have good shots at the big money hits to pay for the case, that'd be another thing.

I do want to say thank you to Panini. I like a lot of what they do - sometimes more so than Topps. And like I said in my last post, the inserts here are great.

3 comments:

  1. Joan Collins was Edith Keeler in "The City On The Edge Of Forever" - one of the best Star Trek episodes ever. And Roger Moore's cameo in "The Curse Of The Pink Panther" (credited as "Turk Thrust II") was the best thing about that movie - maybe the only good thing about it.

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  2. As a lifelong resident of upstate New York, I'm not sure about that scoring system, but I did enjoy following the box break. The set design looks more like circa 1991 than 2015.

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  3. NPB Card Guy: Neither of those have I seen. I'm not really into Star Trek (don't hate it, just don't love it).

    Billy: I will mention that the "Yankee" deduction was for New York City, not the whole state. I'm glad you liked my post. That's a good point about the design - it feels like an early Score issue.

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