2015 Panini Americana

Due to probably some deep-seated personality disorder, I actually like Panini (formerly Donruss) Americana. I don't go out of my way to buy it but if I see it on the self, I'll buy a blaster or at least a few packs. I don't remember seeing it last year but Target had a single box of packs this year so I bought some.

Really, I shouldn't buy any of this stuff because the subjects are generally B of C-list celebrities I've, at best, hardly ever heard of. A couple of years ago they featured a lot of astronauts which was pretty great.  There are 78 cards in the base set, and, sad to say, most of the names fail to ring a bell. The cards themselves are pretty good looking and there are some big starts in there. Like, who doesn't know this guy?

I rarely watch un-scripted TV shows, but we got hooked on ABC's show "Wipeout", so I also know this person.

But this guy was unfamiliar until I read his bio.

This is who the character Steve Urkel, from the TV show "Family Matters" grew up to be. I never watched "Family Matters" but even in those pre-Internet days it was impossible to not know who he was.

This lady is supposed to be a professional wrestler.

I never was much of a fan of professional wrestling but I thought wrestlers looked more like this.

The base set comes in 5 flavors: plain, black, blue, green and red. I pulled 2 red cards, one of Ms. Marie.

The red border goes nicely with her hair. I don't know about the other colors, the the red has a foil thing going on. I pulled two of the red parallels.

As I mentioned above, there are 78 cards in the base set, plus 4 parallels. Overall, counting parallels of the base set and parallels of different insert cards, there are about 85 inserts to pull from this set.  It seems like every pack should have at least one insert but I only got 5 inserts in the 6 packs I bought.

Look carefully, these are two different inserts. The top one is "Certified Albums", the other is "Certified Singles". The two sets have identical checklists of 6 cards each. Lucky me I got the same person from each set. I'll admit that I had no idea who she was but I have heard of Destiny's Child. At least they used a different photo for each set. These have 5 parallels each, one of them autographed.

And finally,

This insert is die-cut, has 6 cards and they are all jockeys. I actually already had a card of Ms Sutherland, from 2012 Goodwin's Champions.

If you've made it this far, a couple of final points.

 I had a little difficulty finding the checklists for this set. Neither beckett.com nor tradingcarddb.com had it. I guess it's a brand new issue. I went on Panini's site and found what I needed but they did not make it easy.

Second, the front of the pack has the statement "Ages 9+". Would a 9-year-old be interested in any of these cards?

It also says "No Purchase Necessary - See Back For Details". On the back is says you can get a chance to win an insert card by sending them a 3x5 card in a #10 envelope. I've seen this on other cards. Has anyone ever tried this and gotten a card back?

The back also says that non-base cards are inserted, on average, in every other pack, so I guess I got lucky.

If you want a chance to win a card, and you're a Canadian (except if you're from Quebec, you're just out of luck), you have to solve a mathematical skill test. The test is: 754+855/285x239-581. Yikes! You'll have to take your shoes off for that.  Good luck Canadians! Here's how Google parses it.