Panini Prize

A while back, I entered a Panini contest that they had posted on their blog. They post contests frequently and I’ve got to say that they are an extremely generous company. Tracy Hackler is all over Twitter and the blog interacting with fan at a level that you don’t see form any of the other card manufacturers out there. Topps can be close, but they go through some long stretches of silence. Upper Deck needs to hire someone more professional to man their social media accounts. That’s all beside the point though.

Panini asked their readers what they liked the most about one of their upcoming football products. I commented because it seems like Panini finally was releasing a set that mastered the autographed manufactured patch. The letters were thick and made of a material that the Sharpie didn’t bleed into. My comment was picked randomly and I was notified that I was a winner while I was laid up after my kidney stone surgery.

Today, while at work, my wife sent me a text to let me know that I had a large envelope from Panini waiting for me at home. I couldn’t wait to get home and open it up. The last time that I won something from Panini, it was a Kobe Bryant autographed card. What would arrive this time?

Panini sent this amazing autographed 8x10 of Heisman Trophy winner and #1 pick Cam Newton which I’m guessing was signed at the rookie premiere. To me, this goes above and beyond what I’d expect to receive as a prize from a contest where I just shared my thoughts on a product. I’ve got to run out and get a frame for it and find a place to hang it in the man cave.

Thanks Panini!

 

Technorati Tags: Cam Newton,Panini,autograph

CSN Giftcard Winner!

CSN Stores $25 Gift Card Giveaway

It’s contest time here at Sports Syzygy. I was recently contacted by CSN Stores and asked if I wanted to give away a gift certificate to my readers. I jumped at the opportunity to give a $25 gift certificate to one of you. Some of you may have previously heard of this site on the Nachos Grande sports card blog.  CSN Stores has over 200 online stores where you can find everything from kids’ swing sets to Pyrex cookware and MLB Fan Products (including boxes of cards). If you want it, there’s a good chance that a store on the CSN website has it.

Here’s the details: To enter the contest, make sure that you are following the blog and then leave a comment that you are a follower of the blog. To earn a bonus entry into the contest, hype up the contest on your blog and post the link to your post in your comment.  Entries will remain open until noon Eastern Standard Time on Sunday, January 30th.  At that point, I’ll head on over to Random.org and shuffle things up three times to get a winner.

• The gift certificate will be emailed to you so make sure that I’ve got your email address.
• This contest is only open to US and Canadian residents.
• Do not comment on CSN Stores’ Facebook page as that violates Facebook policies.

Good Luck!

 

Technorati Tags: CSN Stores,swing sets

Something To Be Thankful For

I know this is a few days late, but I work retail and didn’t have a heck of a lot of free time over Thanksgiving weekend.  I am thankful for those who have followed me to the new blog and are actively participating.  I originally stated that I would have seven winners for the contest, but since there were only eight entries in total… everyone is a winner.

So, BA Benny, night owl, longlivethewho, Fuji, Section 36, joe, Steve D and AdamE, please send me the following information at offy@sportssyzygy.com so that I can get you your prizes:

Favorite Team:
Favorite Player:
Mailing address:

It might take a little while to get things together and sent out, but you should have your winnings before the holidays.

Thanks again for participating!

A Mini Contest

Hey everyone,

I’m looking for a little help in getting readership back up to where it was at the old site.  Between a lack of posts and then changing to the new site, readership has trailed off and I’d like to get it back up again.  This isn’t the type of contest that’s going to bring all kinds of new readers to the blog and that’s not what I’m trying to do there.  That will be another contest for another time.  I’m just looking to make sure that everyone that was reading is still reading and have a little fun whilst sending some stuff out to those people.  (New readers will, of course, be welcomed with open arms and welcome to participate in everything.)

There are six ways to earn entries to this contest.  Everything will be done in this post with the exception final method of entry.

1. Follow the blog.  If you like it, please follow it.  If not, then don’t.  There are plenty of other ways to obtain entries so please don’t feel obligated to click the follow button.
2. Add Sports Syzygy to your Blogroll.  Also, if you notice that your blog isn’t in mine, let me know and I will add it.
3. Feedback on the new site. I know there weren’t huge changes, but what do you think of the new blog.  I’m interested in things like the look, name, theme, etc.
4. Feedback on my box break videos. What do you think of box break videos and how do you like mine in comparison? I’m definitely not looking for blind praise.  How can I make these better.  I dug out an old mic to try and address the issue with my voice being so soft.  I may add a webcam to my Christmas list if people are enjoying these since it will improve the quality greatly over using the built-in iSight cam.
5. Feedback in general. What do I do on this blog that you like?  What do you dislike?  How can I improve things?  Are posts too image heavy?  Do you like/dislike having inline images rather than images between paragraphs?
6. Follow sportssyzygy on Twitter.  I’ll pull the list of followers from there and add them to the mix.

To make things a little easier on me, try to put as many of the first five entries into one post as you can.  This will be open until next Sunday at the very least so you’ve got plenty of time.  Just post that you’ve completed the first two, if you have, and then put your feedback in that same post.

I’m going to have a random drawing for each of the methods of entry as well as one big final drawing from all of the entries.  You can only win once to ensure that things get spread around as much as possible.  There wouldn’t be any benefit to winning multiple times anyway.  Each of the seven winners will receive a nice stack of cards consisting of their favorite player(s) and team(s).  I’ve been busting a lot of stuff lately and need to send some of it away.  There may be some fun surprises in there as well.  Once this contest is done, I’ll be posting a lot of trade bait from what’s left over so stay tuned for that.

P.S. For those of you with basketball card blogs, if you could mention this blog to some of the other hoops bloggers out there it would be greatly appreciated.  With less people interested, the hoops stuff piles up ever more than the baseball stuff.  I’ve got all kinds of fun stuff there to trade and send off to better homes.

Thanks to everyone!

What Did I Pull?

Ok, here's a chance to get a bit of a spoiler for an upcoming box break.

Wrestling fans, take a look at the 2010 Topps WWE Checklist.  Excluding parallels and super rare pulls such as printing plates, I feel like I pulled the best card possible in the product.  Take a look at the checklist and guess which card you think that may be.

Late to the Party

My weekends have been ever busier than my work weeks due to trying to get a ton of stuff done at home when I have some free time.  I could take a week off and still not get everything done.  Luckily, I will be able to take a week off in February.  I hope to get the mancaveattic finished during that week.  Until then, here's my entry into the awesome giveaway going on over at Georgia Mindset.  I'd love to be able to open another box of Chrome to see what a real box looks like instead of a box of reject cards like the one that I got.  Good luck to all of you who enter.

Contest prize results

I apologize again for the delay on this part of the contest.  I wanted to give people ample time to get back to me and then I got busy.  Wickedliquids was added as a second chance entry because he was second on the list.  I also reduced the list back to four because I never heard from SamL and he wasn’t logged in with a Blogger account so I had no means of contacting him.  Two weeks was plenty of time for people to get in touch with me.  Without further ado, here we go:

	1st choice	2nd choice
FanOfReds	Redus auto	Norworth cards
handcollated	Redus auto	Norworth cards
Drew	Sanchez /50	Redus auto
wickedliquids	Sanchez /50	Pollack auto /25

So, there will be two randomizations done.  To change things up, I’ll be using the flip a coin feature on Random.org and will assign heads and tails by the order in which the choices were submitted to me.

For the first flip, FanOfReds will be heads and handcollated will be tails.  The winner of the flip gets the Redus auto and the other person gets the pair of Norworth cards.


The first flip came up heads and the Redus auto goes to FanOfReds. 

For the second flip, Drew is heads and wickedliquids is tails.  The winner of the flip gets the Sanchez card.  If wickedliquids doesn’t win the flip, he receives the Pollack auto.  If Drew doesn’t win the flip he’ll have to contact me with another choice for a prize since his second choice was already selected as a first pick twice.

The second flip came up tails which means he receives the Sanchez card.

All four of you please contact me with your mailing addresses and Drew please also let me know which of the unclaimed prizes you’d like to have sent to you.

Contest Results

I’ll keep updating this post with the results as I finish off the randomizations.  There’s a bit of typing for each of those so they might take a while.  If you are listed as a winner, please contact me with your first and second (and even a third if you’d like) choices from the prize pool.

Contest 1: Guess the Number

I guess I made the range of numbers to guess from a little large, but there was a reason for that.  I wanted to try and give people a chance to figure out the number that I had selected.  I was always a big fan of the contests that The Mojo Hand where there was some brain work involved and that’s what I was trying to do here.

I’m a huge fan of the TV show Lost and the number 108 is big in the mythology of that show.  That’s why the contest was to select a number from 1 – 108.  The number that I selected had to do with the Lost cast member who has posted in this bog, Jorge Garcia.  I won’t go into spoilers in case someone is behind in their viewing, but the nature of the numbers has been revealed this season and the number 8 from “The List” of numbers (4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42) is associated with Garcia’s character, Hugo Reyes.  So, the number to guess was number 8.  The only problem is that no one guessed that number.  So, in an executive decision, I’m going to give entries to the two people who bookended the number.  Drew guessed 7 (which was also later guessed by BA Benny on the second guess post) and SamL guessed 9.  Congratulations, you are the first two winners.  Start thinking of your choices.

Contest 2: Random Comment

There were 31 entrants. They were all entered into Random.org and randomized once, I positioned my mouse, turned off the monitor and clicked the randomize button three more times before turning my monitor back on.  This is what I saw:

 
Congratulations FanOfReds!  You are the third entrant into the prize pool.  Let me know which prizes you are interested in.

Contest 3: Secret Entry

The means for entering this part of the contest wasn’t exactly secret, but I didn’t spell it out in the contest instructions either.  The key was the line “it shouldn’t be too difficult to follow.”  All of the people following this blog will be entered into Random.org, randomized three times just like in the previous part of the contest and out will come a winner.  After removing my wife, there were 36 entrants (in spite of the fact that Blogger says I have 38 followers, there are only 37 that show up.)  Drum roll please…

Congratulations Wax Wombat!  You are the 4th entrant into the prize pool.  Let me know your selections.

Contest 4: Site Pimping

The final contest carries the best odds of winning for those who entered.  I know that publicizing a contest seems to be the last thing that you want to do at times since it means more entries and lessens the chance of you winning, but in helping the site’s readership you help guarantee that there will be future contests such as this one.  So, thank you to those who promoted these contests.  There were 10 of you and after randomizing one final time…

Congratulations handcollated!  You are the 5th and final entrant into the prize pool.

That’s all for this one folks.  Thanks to everyone who entered.  As I dig through the cards that I’ve had in storage and if there’s any future sponsorship, I hope to have many more future contests.  I hope this one was fun for those who participated.  I know that I had fun reading the random comments in the random comment entry thread.

Guess again

Since it is early Saturday morning and no one has yet to guess the secret number, I’m going to let everyone who has guessed take a second guess.  I’ll also give you a couple of hints as to how I selected the number.  First off, look at the range of numbers that I had people pick from.  The high number in that range in significant.  How is it significant?  That number, in relation to a recent brush with fame I had on the blog, is the key to the secret number.

Make sure to make your guesses back on the original post and remember to be logged in.

Good luck!

Contest 4: Site Pimping

I’m not a huge fan of doing this, but it is a good way to get the blog out there to more people.  More readers means the ability to do more contests.  If you’d like to publicize these contests on your blog, post a link to it here and you’ll gain an entry into contest 4 where the winner will be selected once again by random.org.  Make sure that you are logged in when you post your reply.

Thanks!

Contest 3: Secret Entry

For contest three, I’m not going to tell you how to enter.  There will be a condition and at the end of the week, all those who meet that condition will be entered into a random.org drawing for the third spot.  Once I explain it all, it shouldn’t be too difficult to follow.

Contest 2: Random Comment

This contest is simple.  Just leave a comment below.  One comment per person please and make sure that you are logged in when you comment.  I’ll enter all of the commenters into Random.org and it’ll spit out the winner.

Have at it!

Contest 1: Guess the number

Guess a number between 1 – 108.  The first person to guess the number correctly wins.  One guess per person and make sure to remember to log into Google/Blogger/Gmail when you leave your comment.

Guess away!

TRISTAR Contest

This post got a little delayed due to flooded basement related craziness, but here it is.  I’ll be putting up 4 posts with different contests within them.  Enter as many as you’d like, but make sure that you are logged into Google/Blogger/Gmail when you make a reply.  There will be 6 prizes available in this contest.  Each of the four winners will submit a first and second choice for their prize selection from the prize pool.  If you are the only person to select one of the prizes as your first choice then it’s yours.  If you miss out on your first choice then it goes to your second choice.  If someone happened to miss out on their first and second choices they can pick from what’s remaining.  The prizes?

For Obak fans, a pair of numbered minis:

Jack Norworth wrote “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”  The regular-sized card is numbered 16/25 and the mini is numbered 14/25.

Also from Obak, we’ve got a Gary Redus autograph numbered 008/200.  Redus hit .462 at Billings in 1978 which is the highest average for a season in MiLB history.

For my TRISTAR sponsored box break, we’ve got the Tony Sanchez gold parallel of the red background variant.  This card is numbered 15/50.  Sanchez was the #4 overall draft pick by the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Next up is another card from the TRISTAR sponsored break.  This Allen Pollock autograph is the green parallel and it is numbered 23/25.  Pollock was the 17th overall draft pick and was selected by the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Next up are a couple of cards for wrestling fans.  The first is an autographed memorabilia card of Sheik Abdul Bashir.  It contains piece of an Agal worn in a TNA Event, Hard Justice to be exact.  This card is numbered 73/99.

The final card is another wrestling card.  This Abyss autograph is numbered 02/50.  Abyss is currently getting a huge push in TNA and tag teamed with Hulk Hogan against Ric Flair and AJ Styles.  Abyss will face Styles at the next Pay Per View for a shot at the TNA Championship.








There you go, good luck everyone!  These contests will remain open until Midnight PST next Saturday the 20th.  I’ll announce the winners on Sunday.