Cardboard History

Monday, January 26, 2026

I can't see clearly now, the card's opaque

I'm currently dealing with an infected wisdom tooth that broke off. Extreme pain, even for me, someone who has lived in pain 24/7/365 for a couple of decades now. It has not been pleasant for me here lately.

After a trip to the dentist, I stopped at my local card shop and bought myself a "pick me up"...a box of 2024-25 Clear Cut, which is one single card in a box. For $85. Totally unlike anything I usually buy, and not something I do often.

The main draw of this set is that the cards are clear, which is why it's called Clear Cut. Except when they are not. The UD Canvas insert is not, and that is of course what I pulled, which I am sure you have figured out by now.

This happens to be the Red Ink parallel, which is numbered to the player's jersey number.

It's a nice enough card, but after tax it was $90. Not a card I would expect to pay $90 for. At least it's my first Kraken autograph, and it's not a player I dislike...I don't really know enough about him to know if I would dislike him. I did see his first career game, which is kind of cool.

It will probably be a long time before I do something crazy like this again.

Wednesday, January 21, 2026

Scanning the unscannable

The difficulty in scanning chrome and mirror foil cards is well known. Ever since I began the process of scanning my entire collection back in 2009 they have been sucking the fun out of the project, completely taken away my enjoyment of chrome style cards, and have been basically soul crushing.

Not anymore. I've figured out a way to make them still annoying but palatable.

I knew that laying them directly on the scanner leads to darker scans, and I knew that scanning inside a holder of some sort worked better- but trapped dust. So I got to thinking and I tried holding them above the scanner tray. It worked, but my fingers blocked off part of the scan. The idea was sound but the execution not so much. Thinking even more, I remembered that I had a suction cup in a light up ghost I use for Halloween decorations. It worked!

I was a little nervous about putting a suction cup onto the cards, but I tested it with some damaged duplicates and it didn't hurt them at all.

It works very well. These scans are not perfect but better than if I had scanned them directly on the tray. To be sure, I scanned them the normal way too.

The Zuccarello and Clingan scanned much better, the Ingram about the same and the Henderson is slightly better in the new way.

It also works with Chrome cards

It doesn't work as well with the Select cards because they have a lot of curve in them, but it's still better than straight on the tray.

There are some drawbacks. I can only do one card at a time, instead of 9, and my arm got tired holding it steady and I had to reject a few scans due to my hand moving and them not being perfectly square. I feel like the tradeoff is worth it though. Some of the Chrome cards are so badly naturally curved that I couldn't do them using this process at all, they will still have to be done the old way, on the glass with the lid closed. Still, having to do some that way instead of all is a massive improvement.

I have also found it's best to work with the light off and to take them up as soon as the scanner finishes the card itself, not waiting for the scanner to get all the way to the end of the tray. The light reflects on the cards if you do that. That's much more of a problem with the curved Chrome style cards than it was on the mirror foil cards that were not curved.

Just to test it I also tried it on a card that is not full mirror foil but has a foil aspect.

That's a big difference! Interestingly, I also tested it on silver and gold foil but it doesn't make anywhere near as much difference as it does with color foil, like the blue here. I don't think the difference is enough to make it worth the extra effort, honestly. Those I think I will still scan the traditional way.

One thing I should mention- I think this will not work with every scanner. I have a high end scanner that can handle depth, where some scanners only scan what's touching the screen. I don't think they will work. I can't remember for sure but I think mine is a CCD type. I don't remember what that stands for either.

So, while they are still not very fun, it IS a lot better than it once was.

Thursday, January 15, 2026

Cheese, please

If you are on Facebook with me, you know that cheese is my favorite food. I can eat it at every meal, and usually do. You would also know that I am very much lactose intolerant, so I spend a lot of time in pain and nauseous. I just can't give up my favorite food. So, when I was perusing COMC by Rangers over a year ago now, I knew I MUST have this card as soon as I saw it!

Die cut in the shape of cheese, it was a must have. I don't know if this was epack only or pack issued, as I didn't do any of this set (they didn't use the etched foil that Metal should be, just mirror foil, boo) but I could definitely see myself chasing this insert just for the design. A quick check of the Database shows this is a 30 card set, and there's a Gold parallel SN to 50. Those parallels might be tough but I am definitely going to try and get more of these.

I can't think of any other cheese themed cards, but I will have to get them too if they exist.

Mmm, cheese.🧀

Saturday, January 3, 2026

Starting the year off with a bang! Completing a set I've been working on since 1994 + Card show report

2026 is off to a great start in the hobby and it's only three days old! I have already done two things I've never done before, despite being in the hobby non-stop since 1988.

My first addition of the year came from a card show, and my first new card of the year completed a set!

Back in 1994, the local grocery store carried cards. When my mom would go grocery shopping she would bring me cards and a large portion of the that time it was packs of 1994 Marvel Universe. Despite being a lifelong DC fan, I loved that set. I still do. Over time I got most of the set, and I was down to one card missing. At last month's show, I purchased some other Marvel cards from one of the dealers and he was sure he had the card I needed to complete the set. We exchanged emails and sure enough he did. So, I HAD to go to the show this month, and it was PACKED. I've never seen the Fishkill show this crowded, I couldn't even get down all the aisles or see every dealer. But, I made my way to him, and he had it set aside for me under the table. Finally, after 32 years, I have all 200 cards from the 1994 Marvel Universe set in my collection!

Dr. Strange, #55, was the final card I needed to complete the set. It's a weird feeling to not have to look for cards from this set anymore. Well, not base cards anyway. There are still inserts I'm chasing but those are secondary.

That wasn't all I added today though.

The entire top row came from the same dealer, as well as a bunch of baseball I needed for a trade I'm working on the Database. I will never turn down parallels from 1996-97 Bowman's Best, either. I didn't even check to see if I need them but I'm pretty sure I do.

One of my regular dealer stops yielded all these cards. I have more Kenyon Martin autographs than any other player I think, but that doesn't stop me from adding more. The Kevin Love is SN 001/125.

I don't really like the Recon set, but I do want to have at least one example of every set in my collection, and it's a Knicks card, so I went for it. My final purchase of the day was this stash of 1969-70 and 70-71 Topps. It's unusual to find these in bulk, even more unusual to find Hall of Famers at reasonable prices. The top photo (and the League Leaders card) cost me $20, while the bottom photo was $20 more. The end cards of the set are a bit rarer so not all that surprising they would cost a bit more. These came from the same dealer I got the 1972-73 Topps from at the show in November and also had purchased the Bowman's Best from earlier in the show, he also runs the show. I will be working his tables more until I run out of vintage NBA to add. I don't harbor any illusions of completing either of these sets, but I can get pretty close. No way I'll ever be able to afford/justify the Kareem or Maravich rookie cards but I might be able to get the rest, especially as I'm not too worried about condition on cards that predate my birth.

Overall, this was probably my fastest time in and out of a card show- about an hour- but it sure was productive! Completing that set has been something I've been actively trying to do for what feels like forever so it's really nice to finally pull it off. Honestly, if I had just gotten that card and the cards I needed to fulfill that baseball trade I would have been happy, everything else is just a bonus.

Friday, January 2, 2026

December 2025 New People

December was, unsurprisingly, a big month. It always is, as Christmas is traditionally the biggest day of the year for me card wise. 2025 was no different. But more than just Christmas, I also bought a couple of boxes during the Black Friday sales that arrived in December, and they were FILLED with new people. I got three Non-sports boxes and a PWHL blaster, in which almost every single player was new. I also did plenty of scanning, including starting to scan some of my Christmas additions.

I scanned 393 cards in December and of them, 67 were new people never before scanned...and there's some HUGE names in here in non-sports. Benjamin Franklin. William Shakespeare. Annie Oakley. The list goes on. I LOVE non-sports cards but don't have access to too many of them, and most modern cards are movie and TV based, which do not generally give cards to people, so the historical sets from Pieces of the Past are really important to my collection. Of note- the John Dickinson card is 1/1. He is currently the only person in my collection who is represented by only a 1/1 card and no others. He was pretty important to the early history of Pennsylvania and Maryland and one of only a handful of signers of the Constitution to fight in the Revolution.

New people added was even more full.

123 new people came out of 1252 new cards in the month, more than half of them coming on Christmas day. More than a few appear in the new people scanned as well. Both new people and total new cards was actually less than November but more than half of all my 2025 additions came to me in the last two months of the year. 2899 of 4770 over the last two months, 1871 in the first 10 months combined. That's unusual, December almost always sees a bump but most years are higher throughout the first 10 months. I'm not complaining, just keeping track and I find it very interesting.

I will be curious to see what 2026 holds. I have no specific goals for the year, whatever happens happens but I will be keeping this series of posts going because like I said, I find it interesting.

Wednesday, December 31, 2025

In Memorium 2025

Time for the annual look back at the people in my collection who have passed away during the year. Unfortunately there is another new record, with 68 people appearing on the list. Last year held the previous record with 63 people.