You ever get a good idea for a post title and then build a post around it? Well, that's what happened here. I was cropping some Washington Bullets cards and the title came to me.
I only got to see 1 and a half seasons of Washington Bullets basketball before they rebranded to the Wizards, saying that Bullets was a negative connotation. For many years it was the only stick-and-ball sport name change I had ever seen, until the New Orleans Hornets became the Pelicans and the Charlotte Bobcats became the Hornets version 2. The Hornets version 1 became the Pelicans in 2013 for the 2013-14 season so it really wasn't all THAT long but it seemed longer in my head, until I did the math when making this post.
While the Sonics became the Thunder in 2008, I was not watching basketball at that time. I now realize that it was more of a me problem, but I had walked away from the sport in 2006 and didn't return in 2012. Something I now regret immensely.
Here are the Bullets cards that I scanned today that led to this post.
1992-93 Fleer #231. It was the back of this card specifically that I was working on when I got the post title idea. Since I have everything typed into Excel, I can actually make the post reflect the title. I have 16 Bullets base cards from 1992-93 Fleer, one of my all time favorite sets, and this is the 16th to be scanned, filling the last hole! In addition, I have two promos (From the Drake's Cakes set) and one insert of the Bullets, and they are both scanned already as well. There are two inserts and 4 promos I do not yet have in my collection, maybe some day.1993-94 Upper Deck #285. For some reason a LOT of my 1993-94 Upper Deck cards are in poorer condition, with a lot of surface scratches. That is the risk you run when you build your collection via repacks, I suppose. But it has led a lot of cards to be put into the "replace before scanning" box. Let's see how this set breaks out. There are 17 base cards for the Bullets in this set, which is interesting. The 1992-93 Fleer set is 444 cards, while 1993-94 Upper Deck is 510- one of the largest sets ever made. Two of the cards are subset cards, which means the players got two cards in the set, only 13 players got cards. Calbert Cheaney got 3 cards in the base set and there is a team card. Despite being a larger set than 1992-93 Fleer, it didn't do as good a job covering the team. Pervis is the 13th base card I've scanned of the Bullets from this set, along with one insert. I have 4 inserts for the team from this set, I think. It's a little harder to figure out since Excel sorting is a little challenging to do when there are offshoot sets (Upper Deck Special Edition and Upper Deck 3-D ProView, plus the Italian and Spanish versions of the set in this case) which it sorts alphabetically. Larry Stewart, Kevin Duckworth and Don MacLean are the three players still awaiting scans. I know that the Stewart card was damaged in the flood of 2015, almost all my cards of him were. It might be too far gone to pull a scan out of.
The third, and actually final card for today, is this Juwan Howard card from 1996-97 Ultra. My all-time favorite NBA set. Despite being my favorite set of all time, it's fairly small at 300 cards and I have not actually completed it yet. I know I could easily go out and buy what I am missing- but that doesn't bring as much satisfaction of getting them naturally. I only have 9 Bullets cards from the base set, as well as two parallels and two inserts. This is only my 6th Bullets card scanned from the base set, and is the second of two subset cards. Interestingly, Juwan's regular player card is one that has not been scanned yet. I have scanned both insets (both Chris Webber) and both of the Gold Medallions I have from the Bullets. Besides Juwan's regular card, Rod Strickland and Ben Wallace still await scans. I do have Ben's Gold Medallion scanned. I figured I would check before I hit post, and I discovered that the 9 cards I have is actually all of them in the base set. There are 4 inserts I don't have, and 16 parallels. I have none of the Platinum Medallions for the Bullets and only the two Golds of Tracy Murray and Ben Wallace.
So this random thought that led to a post ended up teaching me things- that I now have all the 1992-93 Bullets scanned, that I have all the Bullets from 1996-97 Ultra, and although I didn't mention it in the post previously, I found and corrected an error in my excel listing. (I had somehow credited a Charlotte Hornets card from 1992-93 Fleer to the Bullets)
Speaking of filling holes- my records show that I have 1151 Washington Bullets cards. With these three I have now scanned 869 of them. Still a long way to go scanning, although I'm working at it often. Not that I necessarily want to finish any time soon, because I really enjoy it and have no idea what I'm going to do for fun when I finish.