- Joined
- May 8, 2002
- Posts
- 1,172,134
- Reaction score
- 59
You must be registered for see images attach
We have a lot to talk about this week. McDonald’s World Cup cups, the actual World Cup… and more.
Since prediction markets are hot right now, I am going down a list of cool stuff and giving percent chances things will happen. Let’s dive in!!
1. Chance Pauline Astier is a Sophie Cunningham-style phenomenon by the end of this WNBA season (74%)
ATTENTION EVERYONE: We have a new official Favorite WNBA Player here at Mail Day, and her name is Pauline Astier. And, of course, as it was with Cam Schlittler and everyone else we fall in card-love with here… she has no official rookie card.
You must be registered for see images attach
There’s a Slam Deck card from 2023 – the set that became famous for having Victor Wembanyama’s non-SI For Kids “rookie” card. And there are a couple Panini Instants that can lay claim to being her “rookie” – but nothing in any sets yet. This isn’t the fault of Panini, just to be clear! Astier is an undrafted rookie who signed with the Liberty in May. That’s a tough turnaround.
However, Panini can take some blame for their absurd shipping prices (I recently paid $14.99 to ship a $19.99 card order) when trying to buy what will likely ultimately be a worthless Instant card after Astier starts popping up in sets (or – and we’re looking very strongly at Leaf and SI For Kids – she appears somewhere else in a non-Instant product).
Still, I’m buying this card because you don’t see a lot of UDFA rookies get the nickname “NASTIER” (say it with a proper French accent) while shooting 60% from the field and 50% from 3. Plus, she’s second in rookie scoring behind only Olivia Miles, the favorite to win rookie of the year but… stuff happens!
Yes she only has 36k followers on Instagram – and we famously measure card value here by the hundreds of thousands, not tens – but that number will rise as she gains more fame scoring in bunches while Sabrina Ionescu is out (and possibly after Ionescu’s return).
Get whatever autographs or memorabilia you can; she is in New York – literally walking around, with French hoops teammates:
You must be registered for see images attach
It’s only a matter of time until she’s doing more high-profile campaigns and sponsorships/appearances – perhaps some World Cup-themed things as France advances to the NY/NJ games?
2. Chance McDonald’s sells out of World Cup cups (0%); Chance I buy several of them anyway (100%); Chance that extras will be sold off in a month or so for $2 each (45%)
We took a giant “L” on thinking the K-Pop Demon Hunters cards would be hot commodities. I’m calling it an aberration – the movie’s hype window had passed about five months before, McDonald’s adults want nostalgia (like the 2024 summer cups frenzy) and not kid-themed trading cards that touted a QR code for access to something nobody asked for or understood. But I will die on this hill: they were cool cards, with thoughtful designs. They probably should have been in Happy Meals and not the Adult Meals, however. Same as the McDonaldland tins.
Enter the World Cup cups.
You must be registered for see images attach
Once again, a very cool concept and execution. The cups look kind of meh on social media and commercials, but holding one you get the quality and heft of it. I bought one last week and got a Beckham cup – it’s my current house water cup. This has utility even if it will never have collectible-ness. I just wish they’d sell them for $2 instead of making me buy a $13 meal, so I’ll just go to eBay or wait for the sell-off to get more. I want Grimace, dammit!!
3. Chance an upstart World Cup squad produces a breakout cards star (12%)
I know… we love to find some obscure cards here in that $4 range with high hopes of them becoming $100! But the World Cup isn’t the place for it to happen. Remember four years ago when Croatia and Morocco made unlikely runs? The high scorers on those teams were Andrej Kramaric and Youssef En-Nesyri, respectively. You can get a Kramaric autographed /75 card for $16 right now. And you can essentially buy a rainbow of En-Nesyri for less than $50. Collectors already have their favorites, these World Cup teams are stacked with stars we already know, and breakout World Cup players are going to be tough to come by.
4. Chance you can get a Chevy Chase autographed Griswold hockey jersey cheap because it’s summer (64%)
Trust me on this one. Get it now for the Griswold fan in your life, put it in a box for six months, and you have a Christmas gift at probably half the price it will cost you when the movie is front and center in everyone’s minds in December.
5. Chance I will buy a box of Frosted Flakes because it says “COLLECTIBLE” really big on the box (3%)
I really want to respect the idea of toys being in cereal again, and I probably should buy a box in support of it, but I will put it this way – if anyone in my house liked any of these cereals, I would choose the collectible box over one without. But Toy Story 5 seems to be trying a little too hard with the tie-ins and it does nothing for me — and definitely not enough to buy a box of cereal I don’t need. I have to save money for Panini shipping!
5a. Chance I will never click on a “cereal influencer” video again (1000000000%)
I’m not going to link any here because I want to project them all into the sun at once and not give them Yahoo clicks…but holy crap. They all do the same stupid thing where they tap on the cereal's name at the top of the box with their finger in some weird ASMR way, then follow what looks like the same general insincere “script” for posts that are clearly ads but not marked as them. I will ride forever with Markie Devo; the rest of these people can suffer cardboard cuts for the rest of their lives.
You must be registered for see images attach
6. Chance the Marilyn Monroe bedsheet cards will go mainstream and triple in value (5%)
If they haven’t now (they’re from 1993), they probably never will. But I’ll be damned if I didn’t buy one. Big hugs to the Non-Sports Card Nonsense Group on Facebook (that and birthdays are the only things keeping me on the platform) for the heads up on these. Marilyn Monroe “owned/used” bedsheets. CERTIFIED BY BECKETT!! What more do you need in this world?
Continue reading...
