Case Disgrace

I've been dreaming a doing a case for years. I never thought I'd be able to afford one, as I noted a few days ago, and I finally found one I could...and it leaves me disappointed and angry.

I finished the case yesterday and the final box did not give me a single new card...I finished the case missing 5 cards, yet I got a stack of 203 duplicates, 25 Chinese New Year duplicates, and the base dupes would have been higher but I also got 36 off-center errors.

These are the DUPLICATES I got!

The set is only 150 cards! How inept can Panini be that they make such a tiny set yet you end up missing cards, but with more duplicates than are in the set, out of a case?

That's a disgrace.

That's Panini.

I know I could easily go buy the missing 5 cards on COMC...I'm sure I'll end up doing just that. But it really ticks me the heck off that I have to spend even more money to finish off this set that Panini was too inept/clueless to do right. It's already cost me $200 with shipping, a lot for me to lay out at one time. I mean, I knew I was going to get a lot of duplicates, but I expected to get the entire base set, too, as it is only 150 cards! If that had happened, I would have been pretty happy with this case. this recap post would have been a lot different because my opinion would have been a lot different.

And speaking of the short checklist, there are some names left off that are baffling...Manu Ginobili? Nope. Jaylen Brown? Nope. Joel Embiid? Nope. Wait, really? Yes, really, the set is missing Joel Embiid...for the 76ers, only Dario Saric, Ben Simmons, JJ Redick and Markelle Fultz got a card. Saric, Simmons and Fultz getting cards makes sense. But choosing Redick over Embiid? How could they make that choice? Redick is a good player, but he's not a superstar. Embiid IS.

It's time to start petitioning the NBA Player's Union and Michelle Roberts to end the exclusive license with Panini. Not take away their license, but to end the exclusivity. (other than the small sets and the fact that you keep getting the same cards, in the same order, I actually like most of Panini's sets) I'm going to be contacting the NBPA to do just that. It probably won't matter, because I don't think they wouldn't have made an exclusive license in the first place if they cared about collectors, but it will make me feel better to lodge an actual complaint. Maybe they don't pay much attention as long as the checks keep showing up?

You know, I'm not sure what's the point of dreaming about anything is anymore...even when it comes true, it just leads to anger and frustration and lots of disappointment.
I have had three big dreams, and this was one of them...it turned out to bring nothing but anger and frustration. My main dream is to own a classic car, and that's caused more pain than anything else- and the worst part is, next year it would have come true naturally but that's getting ripped out from under me, with the loss of the family Jeep. The last one I have left is to go to the National Sports Collector's Convention, and that will probably never happen...but even if it did, I'm at the point where I expect it will probably just be a big pile of disappointment if I ever do.

Story of my life.

I suppose in time the anger will subside, and I will be happy that I added 145 base and 71 Chinese New Year parallels to my collection, when I didn't have a single card from the set previously. (I got less new cards than duplicates, another disgrace) but that time isn't going to be soon. There's too much anger to get past that right now. I'm so angry I don't even want to scan the rest of the cards right now!

These are the cards I am missing from the base set. #116, 121, 126, 131 and 147. I'm hoping I can trade for them instead of having to spend even more money to get them, as I noted above.