July 2014 - Puck Junk

K–Mart stores in Illinois are selling full boxes of older Panini Hockey Stickers at heavily discounted prices.I purchased a box of 2008-09 Panini Hockey Stickers for $21.99 plus tax at a Super K-Mart in Bradley, IL yesterday. A box contains 50 packs. Each pack has five stickers. Packs originally sold for 89 cents, so at $22 a box I basically got these at half price. Although I acquired an album a long time ago, I never did bother to build this set. I figured now was a good time to do so.

Unlike other sets, though, there are no jersey cards, autographs or other “hits” to hope for. My only hope was at building a complete set. Continue reading “Box Break: 2008-09 Panini Stickers”

2013-14 Panini Contenders Hockey came out last week, but I didn’t really notice until yesterday. Admittedly, I have not reviewed much Panini stuff this year. What drew me to Contenders is the fact that a $20 retail blaster box has two autographs. Sure, it only has 20 cards total, but come on — two ‘graphs for $20 isn’t bad.

So I had to give Contenders a try. Actually, I had to give it two tries, since my local Target had two blasters left, and I didn’t want to pick one and then wonder if the other blaster had the better autographs.

I will let you be the judge of which blaster had the better autographs. Continue reading “Two-Box Blaster Break: 2013-14 Panini Contenders Hockey”