New People March 2026

 March was a crazy month. I had a very painful surgery as I've written about which put me out of action for a couple weeks. I still managed to scan 1465 cards, which is the most I've done in a month since January of 2025. I was really enjoying the scanning process when I was able to. 

140 new people were scanned this month. A pretty good mix of every topic except racing- none were new from there. The G-League cards I got for my birthday in October, but just got scanned, added a lot of people making their first appearance. 

Ever since I started the Alphabetical Directory, now 7 years and 4 months ago (!), letters M and S have been in a battle for the lead with most people scanned. M hit 1400 people this month, with 1404. S fell JUST short, with 1399 people, but B actually took the lead, with 1406 people! I believe this is the first time B has ever held the lead although I'd have to go back and reread all the monthly recap posts to be sure. 

Letter H became only the fourth letter to have 1000 people scanned this month as well, coming in at 1009. 

47 new people joined my collection, with the majority of them coming from two stacks of football cards I was given, and the Topps Now Olympic cards, of which 19 of 21 arrived during the month of March. They just barely didn't fit into one screencap so some names are repeated here. 

3000th Knicks card scanned!

 During the month of March I scanned the 3000th Knicks card in my collection. It's not the 3000th, but the 3000th scanned. That's a pretty cool milestone and I wanted to get a post out of it. Although I have not finished this month's upload yet, they join the Celtics, Bulls, Warriors and Lakers as the only teams to hit that mark...although there's a pretty high likelihood that 5 to 10 more teams may reach that mark by the end of 2026, maybe as soon as April. 

This was the 3000th scanned:

and this was 3000th actually uploaded:

I would like to have the Knicks take the top spot in my collection tally but there are just so many more cards available for the Bulls and Lakers that I doubt it will ever happen. 

don't do what I did

 For literally years now, my dentist has been telling me to get my wisdom teeth out. I didn't want to do that. My thought process was "I'm going to keep my teeth for as long as possible" 

BIG mistake. My bottom left wisdom tooth broke off over the course of a few months and there was no pain at first so I figured the problem solved itself. 

I could not possibly have been more wrong. In February it got infected. I got medicine and it had stopped hurting, I had an appointment with the dental surgeon and I had him take out the other one that WAS hurting, on the right side. That one healed really quickly and essentially painlessly. I didn't need an ice pack and by day 3 I didn't even need pain medicine for it. 

Then the bottom left one got infected again, I took more medicine and had the appointment for March 16th to get it out. At that point I was actually looking forward to it because the two infections really were bad. 

Then I got it done...and it is the worst thing I've ever experienced. Because it was broken down to the gumline, he couldn't just grab it and pull it out. He had to use a drill to dig out all of the pieces, and it was excruciating. I've broken multiple bones including crushing part of my back, I've stabbed myself, I've drilled myself, I've burned myself...a couple years back they started doing a root canal before the numbing agent took affect...NONE of that compared to this. I've been living in constant pain 24/7/365 for 20+ years and this was by far the worst. 

It's been over a week now and it's not fully healed. There is still pain, although it's gotten to the point where I'm not bothering to take pain medicine anymore, I'm used to some pain. I can't guarantee I won't take some later though. 

My point is, if you need to have a tooth removed, do it BEFORE it breaks off. 

To make this somewhat relevant to Cardboard History, here are the three cards I have that are most tooth themed. Racing cards in 1996-97 got weird and in 1997 there was an entire shark themed set for some reason. These were the autograph cards from the set. 

a brief tale of redemption

 Back on February 4th, I purchased a box of 2024-25 Credentials from my local hobby shop. Each box promised one autograph but mine was in the form of a redemption. I entered the number into the Upper Deck website and waited for the card to arrive. Yesterday, it did. 

This is only my second hockey redemption since I began collecting the sport actively in January 2017. This is my 9th card of Gauthier but first autograph. It is only my 2nd Anaheim Ducks autograph also. 

Since I mostly do lower-end cards it's pretty rare for me to pull a redemption or an autograph in hockey. Looking at my collection records, it appears that I hadn't pulled a hockey autograph since March 2024, almost two years. 

While I am a set collector at heart and a fan of parallels (which this one is, by the way) it's still a nice feeling to pull something special for your collection. 

New People February 2026

 February was a weird month. I really enjoyed scanning and I did a lot of it - 1237 cards in total. This is despite the fact that I took roughly a week off surrounding the wisdom tooth removal which I had done on the 11th. 

I used the time I was recovering from that to FINALLY sort and post the Busch and Truck series cards into albums for each team on Cardboard History Gallery, something I've been wanting to do for a while but hadn't put aside any time for it. Now, finally, more than 7 years after I launched it, the Cardboard History Gallery is fully built! Now from here on, it's just maintaining with what I scan each month. 

For being the shortest month of the year, I scanned a LOT of new people...130. Of the 130 new people, 47 are women, which may be a record. I began scanning the PWHL cards and I finished the 2025 Donruss WNBA blaster I bought, which provided the majority of the women. 

Among the bigger names were Megan Keller, Olympic Golden Gold scorer, Marie-Philip Poulin and Nyara Sabally, the last New York Liberty player I was missing from my collection that got included in the 2025 Donruss checklist. 

I added 572 new cards in February, with almost 400 of them coming via trade on the Database. Most of them were people previously in my collection, but there were some new people too. 

I actually scanned almost all of them, too. Five of the hockey players arrived via trade on February 28th and I just didn't have time to scan them, and the Olympics athletes I was waiting until I had enough of the Topps Now cards to scan a full page of just them, and enough have arrived that that is now possible, so expect to see them in the March update. 

Black History Month Hockey Spotlight: Dustin Byfuglien

 As I mentioned in my previous post I only had one player I could get a full post out of, and that is Dustin Byfuglien. In case anyone is unfamiliar with him, his last name is pronounced "Bufflin"

He had a moment in my first full season watching that sticks in my mind. His Jets were playing the Golden Knights and there was a scuffle on the ice. "Big Buff" as he was known grabbed one Golden Knight by the back of their jersey by the name banner in each hand, and lifted them up and away from the fight. It was awesome, LOL. His career ended shortly after I began watching due to a recurring ankle injury, and last I knew he was competing on the professional fishing circuit, which doesn't get cards as far as I know. 

I currently have 27 cards of him in my collection, of which 20 have been scanned. This is all of them. 

2006-07 Upper Deck Rookie Class #37

2008-09 Black Diamond #16

2010-11 Zenith #63

2012-13 Upper Deck #196

2014-15 Artifacts #18

2014-15 MVP #276

2014-15 Ultra #200

2016-17 Upper Deck #195

2016-17 Upper Deck UD Game Jersey

2017-18 Ice #29

2017-18 MVP #110. This set had pronunciation guides on the card back which is how I learned how to say his name.

2017-18 O-Pee Chee Platinum #72

2017-18 Panini Stickers #436

2017-18 Upper Deck #444

2018-19 MVP #152

2018-19 MVP Factory Set #152

2018-19 Upper Deck #192

2018-19 Upper Deck UD Canvas #C89

2019-20 MVP #55

2019-20 MVP Green Script #55

I actually have a card of him I just got in January that may get scanned before the end of February but it requires to be scanned with other cards of the same material. I may not get to it until next month. 

I don't think I have any other players with more than 3 cards that I can build posts for, unfortunately. I like doing these posts and updates, so I'll have to see what I can come up with for next year. 

Black History Month Hockey Spotlight 2026 Update

 As I've written a few times, my new card additions was well down in 2025. My lowest year of additions in some time. So I don't know how much any of my collections of the players I've spotlighted has grown...I'll be finding out as I go along writing this post. 

P.K. Subban- last year 47 cards. This year 47 cards. I have not added a new P.K. card to my collection since May 2023.

Jarome Iginla - last year 44 cards, this year 46 cards. I added two cards, both on the same day, in November. 

2016-17 MVP is the only one I've scanned yet. 

Ryan Reaves - last year 13 cards, this year 17, a large jump. 

This is however again the only one I've scanned. This was an epack exclusive set, unfortunately. Ultra is getting a real release this season, which I am looking forward to. Ultra was my favorite stick and ball sport brand.

Anthony Duclair- last year 21 cards, this year 22. 

His 2024-25 O-Pee-Chee base card is the only one I added.

K'Andre Miller- last year 6, this year 8. I have not scanned either new card. The Rangers gave him to the Hurricanes for nothing so I'm pretty sad about that. 

Quinton Byfield- last year 14 cards, this year 18, a four card increase.

I didn't scan any of the 4 new cards, but I did get one scanned that I hadn't scanned yet last year

His 2024-25 MVP base card.

Grant Fuhr- last year 27 cards, this year 27, I have not added a new one since August 2024.

Devante Smith-Pelly- last year 4 cards, this year 4 cards. I have not added a new card of him since April 2020. 

I think I only have one more person I can get a full post out of, which I will write and publish soon.