The Blowout Cards Forums are where thousands of collectors converge daily to discuss, well, a little bit of everything. Here are five threads about collecting and more that you should check out right now.

What's Buzzing Today: Ken Griffey Jr. and the Hall of Fame vote, NBA legends, 2015 Topps Strata, Panini Immaculate Collection College & redemption replacements.

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For 2015-16 Panini America products that don't get a standalone story here on The Buzz when a final checklist is released, we'll place a link to a PDF of the set's checklist right here.

You'll be able to find all new checklists in PDF form as released by the company and all in one spot. (If traffic stats show us you guys like this format, we'll expand in other directions. If not, Buzz will focus on other stuff.)

Keep reading to see the Panini America checklists posted so far.

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What: 2016 Super Break Game-used Edition (memorabilia)
Arrives: Jan. 15
Box basics: One game-used memorabilia piece per box with some boxes including a bonus autographed model item.

What's buzz-worthy: Super Break's first release of the new year is all about game-used with a piece of memorabilia from top names in baseball, football, basketball and hockey to be found in this limited release.

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The Blowout Cards Forums are where thousands of collectors converge daily to discuss, well, a little bit of everything. Here are five threads about collecting and more that you should check out right now.

What's Buzzing Today: 1/1 showcases, unopened wax stashes, Connor McDavid, big-time retro box breaks & Muhammad Ali.

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Way back in 1999, Elton Brand was a star center for the Duke Blue Devils -- a center from tiny Peekskill, N.Y., who was about to make a big impression as the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft.

Fast-forward to today and the former Chicago Bull is coming out of retirement to join the NBA's worst team -- the Philadelphia 76ers, owners of a 3-33 record -- to help mentor another former Blue Devils star and first-round pick, Jahlil Okafor. Okafor, of course, has had issues off the court this season while also picking up the NBA game quickly. It's a match made in Blue Devils collecting heaven.

"He's not unlike most 20-year-olds you probably know, and he's definitely not at all different than most of his fellow players," Brand wrote in a piece for Sports Illustrated's website. "... if camera phones were around when Brad Miller, Ron Artest and I were Jahlil's age, we might've been banned from the league altogether, never mind suspended for a few games."

So, what about Brand on cardboard?

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Panini America starts off the new year with not one but four new products scheduled to arrive this week -- from four different sports, too. Meanwhile, there's only one other brand on the calendar.

The biggest for most collectors is the arrival of 2015 Panini Contenders football cards with the annual chase for the Rookie Ticket autographs one that's been a mainstay for years. Which ones will be short-prints? Which ones are variations and which ones aren't? We'll find out more beginning Wednesday. Each box includes at least five autographs -- and it looks like some of them might be coaches who have never signed before. Will those be short-prints? Should be interesting to watch.

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The Blowout Cards Forums are where thousands of collectors converge daily to discuss, well, a little bit of everything. Here are five threads about collecting and more that you should check out right now.

What's Buzzing: Multi-player cards, player-worn patches, Court Kings, goals and resolutions for 2016, college football and more on the forum that recently joined the 10-Million Post Club.

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It's a time of change, a time of high-end product exploration and a time of options for many collectors in what we call the sports card industry these days.

Tastes, products and prices continue to evolve as does the business environment that helps bring us our cardboard. For every super-pricey box being made, there are seemingly just as many buyers ready to rip or pick off singles for not-always-so-super prices (but super bargains).

The Buzz has only been around for part of 2015, but Buzz has been here all along as part of the world of collecting. Here are Buzz's picks for 15 cards that helped define 2015.

2015-16 Upper Deck #201 Connor McDavid RC
The impressive prices being paid for what's just a simple piece of cardboard with just gloss and some foil stamping shows that fundamentals never go out of style when there's a big name involved. This time, it's the No. 1 pick Connor McDavid, a Canadian phenom drafted by the Edmonton Oilers. This photo was selected by collectors and it even has a fun sign of 2015 -- the fan showing off a photo on her phone in the background.

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When Topps Chrome arrived in basketball, it was a bit simpler time than it is today -- so much so that the brand was a retail-only release because the idea of merely Chroming a set perhaps wasn't a sure thing.

Plenty of time has passed since 1996 and in that time so has the career of Los Angeles Laker Kobe Bryant who was a rookie back in 1996-97 Topps Chrome.

The best card in that landmark product is arguably Bryant's Refractor version of his Rookie Card and this copy is the best of the best of the thousands that were pulled and saved since then.

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Another holiday week leads to another abbreviated release schedule for trading cards with just five brands on the tarmac and set to arrive beginning tomorrow.

We've got one from Leaf Trading Cards, one from Cryptozoic, one from Topps and two from Panini America and that's where we'll start off.

This week's NBA release is 2015-16 Panini Court Kings, a rookie-heavy art-style product that will include one autograph and one memorabilia card per 10-card box. It will also include box-toppers. This one will feature on-card autos as well as one Hot Box delivering extras in every 15-box case.

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Basketball Hall of Famer and legendary Harlem Globetrotters showman Meadowlark Lemon has died, the team announced on Monday. He was 83.

Known as "The Clown Prince of Basketball," Lemon was a fixture for the traveling exhibition team beginning in 1954. He's one of just five players to have his number retired by the team and he played more than 7,500 games in the red, white and blue before retiring in the late-1970s. He joined the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2003.

"Meadowlark was the most sensational, awesome, incredible basketball player I’ve ever seen," former Globetrotter Wilt Chamberlain told The New York Times in 1999. "People would say it would be Dr. J or even Jordan. For me, it would be Meadowlark Lemon."

Off the court, he was one of the core players often seen on the Globetrotters' cartoon series, some memorable episodes of Scooby-Doo and, of course, seen on plenty of cardboard.

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Like many collectors, Buzz is a fan of grading and knows that there are many reasons that collectors choose to slab cards. Sometimes it's to enhance the appeal and protect them when selling. Other times it's to protect an investment for the long-term or to protect for sentimental reasons. Or, it might be just for fun or curiosity about a potential grade.

For the first grading diary here on The Buzz, it will be a mix of cards graded for a few reasons.

The Card: 1993 Upper Deck #449 Derek Jeter
The Reason Graded: This was pulled straight from an underpriced factory set and looked very clean except for a tiny spot on the back -- Buzz figured it might push into the high grades even with the gloss issue. These cards are also not easy to pull from wax or sets cleanly because the high-gloss cards often stick together, peeling away specks of paper. Another reason? This is an iconic card that's worth grading if you own a clean one.
The Grade: BGS 9

Reality Check: The SP Jeter rookie is the one people chase, not this one. This one's $20 on eBay -- and perhaps undervalued considering how they grade on the pop report. BGS 9s and higher are really much rarer than people think.

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What: 2015 Leaf SportKings trading cards
Arrives: January 2016
Box basics: One autograph, one memorabilia card, four base cards and one mini per box.

What's buzz-worthy: SportKings returns with a new mix of cards that includes numbered autographed parallels and buyback autographs for stars throughout the sports world (and even a few from elsewhere) on the famed design from the 1930s.

Keep reading for more and a full gallery of images.

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What: 2016 Leaf Best of Basketball
Arrives: February 2016
Box basics: One buyback or redemption card plus one new Leaf card per box.

What's buzz-worthy: The elite basketball cards from the past will be found here in buyback form accented with new creations featuring Hall of Fame-enshrined players.

Keep reading for more.

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If you've watched any NFL games this season, you've likely heard the word "concussion" many times as the league has implemented new tests on players to help prevent future problems by assessing the here and now immediately following a hard hit.

On Christmas Day, a film about the issue of concussions in football called Concussion opens in theaters. You've probably seen the commercials for the film during NFL games.

Will Smith stars as Dr. Bennet Omalu, who discovered the degenerative brain disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. It's a real-life issue that has affected more than 80 former players -- many you've seen on football cards and might have collected. The movie is an important one and Sports Illustrated has Smith on its cover this week to discuss the movie.

Is it the first time a celebrity has appeared on the cover of the highly collectable sports magazine?

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The Blowout Cards Forums are where thousands of collectors converge daily to discuss, well, a little bit of everything. Here are five threads about collecting and more that you should check out right now.

What's Buzzing: High-end brands like Panini Immaculate and Panini Eminence, keeping vs. flipping, Chris Bosh's Hall of Fame chances and golf greats find a spot in this one.

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When collectors crack into boxes of 2015 Panini Immaculate Collection College beginning tomorrow, they could find one of the more unique memorabilia cards made in a long time.

It's a card of baseball Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn from his days as a player at San Diego State.

What makes it different, though? The card appears to include a swatch from the Aztecs jersey seen above.

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After a heavy week of releases and some delays this month, this week is a bit lighter -- but that doesn't mean it doesn't have its highlights among the four brands set to arrive.

We have three baseball sets on the schedule and the return of Bowman's Best along with the launch of Topps Strata as a standalone brand. Throw in a USA Baseball set on the schedule and one high-end college brand from Panini America (keep reading) and that's it for the week.

The format for 2015 Bowman's Best will be similar to Finest with two mini-boxes each yielding two autographs (four autos per in every master box). The format for 2015 Topps Strata is all hits -- every box includes one autograph and one Relic and that's it for the acetate-layered cards.

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What: 2015-16 Panini Select basketball cards
Arrives: March 3, 2016
Box basics: Three autographs or memorabilia cards per 12-pack box

What's buzz-worthy: Select returns for another season with on-card autographs and prime memorabilia pieces along with a rainbow of Prizmatic color and insert sets featuring the NBA's top stars and top rookies all in three types of base sets.

Keep reading for more and a full gallery of images.

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What: 2015-16 Donruss basketball cards
Arrives: February 2016
Box basics: Three autograph or memorabilia cards per 24-pack box

What's buzz-worthy: The wave of retro-styled modern Donruss cards returns to the NBA and, just like its baseball counterpart, it includes plenty of inserts, plenty of base cards and more hits than the typical lower-end brand. This year's release also will be more limited than last season.

Keep reading for more and a full gallery of images.

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The Blowout Cards Forums are where thousands of collectors converge daily to discuss, well, a little bit of everything. Here are five threads about collecting and more that you should check out right now.

What's Buzzing: Breaks of 2015 Topps Archives Signature Series & 2015 Topps Dynasty along with the mysterious greening Chrome cards from the past.

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From time to time, we'll highlight some crazy pulls from breaks done via BlowoutTV -- you know, the stuff that's truly buzz-worthy. 

Just pulled: A 2014-15 Panini Eminence Stephen Curry championship tag auto 2/2
The box? It can be found right here.

Want to watch the entire video?

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The most-expensive box in Panini America history arrives on Wednesday in the form of 2014-15 Panini Eminence basketball cards.

It's a $5,900 box with as many as 10 cards inside -- all very limited and autographed.

Panini revealed the checklist for this one on Tuesday so we can all try to answer the million-dollar question ... just what's inside this one?

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If you haven't felt the awakening yet, you will by Friday.

That's the day that Star Wars: The Force Awakens arrives and that's also the day that the galaxy right here right now gets a new set of Star Wars cards -- one that includes full scenes from the film and the most-important thing of them all.

Autographs from the new faces of the franchise. (If you thought Star Wars was a force on cardboard before, you haven't seen anything yet. Guaranteed.)

In fact, Friday's release of 2015 Topps Star Wars: The Force Awakens is merely a first series of cards. In fact, it won't even be the only Star Wars set of the week ...

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What: 2015 Onyx Icons Collection autographed baseballs
Arrives: Dec. 24
Box basics: One signed baseball per box (three boxes per mini case and 12 boxes per master case)

What's buzz-worthy: This one includes icons from not just baseball but the entire sports world -- and beyond -- with all of them signing baseballs for the final Onyx Authenticated release of 2015.

Keep reading for more and a full listing of signers.

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