Month in Review - January 2015

I thought I would debut a new feature today, a look back at the previous month in my hobby. And of course, take a look at some cards that I have not posted yet.

January was an overall unpleasant month in real life, but the cards were great, of course. Not even counting the huge epic mailday I posted about yesterday, I had already gotten 699 new cards in the month- and more than half of them came from trades, which is always a good thing.

I have been constantly tinkering with Cardboard History itself, adding many new features in January, including a Blogroll, my Top 10 Wants, links to my tradelist and semi-complete wantlists, I figured out the Tagging feature, and I added several pages to the top, where you can follow along as I add new cards of my favorite player in the NBA, and view a listing, with links to the gallery, of all my completed sets. I have some more things I want to add, just need to make the time.

I returned to Ebay, for the first time since 2009. Back then they went to where you MUST pay with Paypal, which I do not have. Sometime recently they allowed you to pay without Paypal, so I made 4 purchases. One NBA card, two NASCAR cards and one Non-Sports card. The NBA card I chose is visible on my Elton Brand chart, #3 on the list.

I hit NBA card #77,000 on January 1st. I knew I was getting close, so I pulled from my stash of mixed boxes until I hit the exact mark, and stopped there, for that day. I'm actually doing better with adding to them than I thought I would, it's not like the peak years where I was adding 1000 new cards a week, but I think I appreciate the cards more now. I even take the time to read the backs, something I didn't do when I was getting that many new ones- I didn't have the time to do that back then, I could barely keep up with keeping my Excel chart up to date...which I ended up losing to a floppy disk corrupting. That happened sometime in 2005, and it still stings...but, I am working on (slowly) recreating it, and even better than it was before.

I added 8 new people to my collection in January, 6 NBA and 2 NASCAR. (I only keep track of these two sports- but I got hundreds, if not thousands, of new people in baseball, football and especially hockey yesterday) 3 of the NBA players are rookies who I got in Prizm, which came out in January. My brother treated me to a shopping bag full of Rack Packs, some of which I have not yet opened. Of the 6, 3 of them are One Hit Wonders! Besides Scott Meents, who got a post in One Hit Wonders, and Rex Hughes, who was detailed in "My Largest Trade Ever", the other is Mark Hendrickson, who played briefly with the 76ers in 1996-97. He only got one NBA card, although he does have college cards in my collection, those don't count towards the NBA collection. For NASCAR, I picked up a card of former Miss Sprint Cup/current broadcaster Monica Palumbo off Ebay, and then I found a website that was selling the 1991 Track Pack Yesterday's Heroes set for a great price, and added Jim Roper, who won the first ever NASCAR race- but only ever got one card.

I only added two sets, not counting the massive amount I got yesterday. That would be 2014-15 Prizm, and this one- now my oldest card in my collection, from 1909. This was the non-sport card I picked up off Ebay. Kind of amazing, but I was able to get this 106 year old card for under $6. And it's a squirrel, so you really can't go wrong!

It appears this card predates the concept of numbering cards.

I opened one box in January 2015. Press Pass Cup Chase. I don't usually like to spend that kind of money on myself, but being the last Press Pass set ever- and the last NASCAR set for the forseeable future- I had to. I loved it, and it got it's own post last month.

I also nabbed this relic parallel on Ebay. I was quite surprised but pleased to pay less than the serially numbered print run for this one. I should have taken a better photo without the glare, but I mainly wanted the show off the green foil and the 07/10 SN.

 

Here's the Jim Roper card I mentioned earlier and a really great looking insert from 2012-13 Crusade...also named Crusade. (I hate when card companies do that). Tim Hardaway Sr.'s not my favorite player, but I have always loved the refractor technology. This came out of the mixed boxes I love so much.

 

I found out this card existed during the month of January, and added it to my collection as well. It was exclusive to Club Maxx in 1991. They also did a handful of them in 1992, of which I have the Elliott from that year as well.
From the front it almost looks like a normal card...

But it's not, though!

I found a dealer that sells cards by the pound, so my mom treated me to 10 pounds of cards. It's been a little disappointing, though, as they are mostly all duplicates- and all but 2 cards have been from the 1989-90 through 1994-95 era, of which I have most of them already- and nearly every single card has been damaged. More than 90%. I've gotten more than 20 copies of the 1992-93 Hoops Chris Ford card, however. When I finish all the inner boxes, I will line them all up and take a photo. I have gotten a few new cards, but of the two inner boxes, of 6, I've gotten less than 30 new cards. I don't plan to buy any more from them. (If I could find newer cards, like 2005-06 and later, like this, I would do it, as I don't have many from that era, comparatively)
I did get this great error, though. I love error cards...you can somewhat see the kind of damage most of the cards have from the photo though. Scuffs, bad corners, dents throughout.

And then....there's this. I never have any luck with redemptions. I usually send them and get nothing back. (Fleer still owes me some) Not this time!

Only my second triple autograph in my collection. First NASCAR. Those are on-card, too, not stickers. That doesn't matter too much to me, but I know a lot of other collectors care.

And before anyone asks....it's not for sale! It's my third Newman autograph, but first for Tony and Danica.

As always, thanks for reading! I'll post the grand total of cards added in January when I finish going through all the new ones I got yesterday...but that's not going to be for a few days more!