Finally, some protection for the tall boys

I don't know what the fascination is with these oversize cards. Topps has been cranking them out since the 1960s, and Fleer/Skybox got into them in the 1990s as well. They are nearly impossible to store, and forget sorting them with your other cards of the subject! I've had examples of these tall cards in my collection since 1994 at the latest, which is when they began to issue them for NASCAR and the Superman Platinum Series came out. In that time, I've never really had good storage for them. I've had the majority of the NBA examples in pages but that wasn't good- it led to most of them getting curved or worse. I've since taken them back out, but the damage has been done.

Now, finally, there is a good way to store them. I have been looking for cases to hold these cards for years. I've even contacted the case makers to no avail. I even thought about forming a case myself out of sheet metal, but I didn't want to do that in case humidity caused it to rust or something along those lines.

And then, on my last trip into my local card shop, they were there...right in front of me. They must have just gotten them in because there were only one or two missing off the shelf space. I snapped up 12 of them and I may get some more when I go back again because even though I still have 4 untouched, I don't plan to ever stop collecting cards and surely I will get more of these oversize cards in the future.

As you can see, the NBA takes up the majority of them- three full, and the majority of the 1993-94 and 1994-95 Jam Session cards aren't in there yet. The top row is one for NASCAR, one for Star Wars, one for other assorted cars, and one for everything else. Each of the categories of holders has room to expand because I have only completed two of these oversize sets- 1993-94 and 1995-96 Jam Session, ironically neither of which is shown in the photo. An empty container is on the left.

I spent most of yesterday getting the cards rounded up from the various boxes I had them in before, and then I finally integrated my Michael Jordan tribute sets and Starting Lineup cards into my NBA collection proper. For years I considered them separate collections, but now I have them in my NBA collection- with full paper listings and counted as part of my collection. I suspect there may be more out there in my collection somewhere, for years if it wasn't part of my collection officially I didn't really keep track of it...something I regret now. When I find them I will add them in. With the Starting Lineup cards, I may not actually have them. I know I got some of the figures loose without the card. In retrospect I should have held out and gotten sealed examples. After writing Michael Jordan's name in my paper listing over 300 times yesterday, I won't complain if I don't get any new cards of him for a while.

All told, it added 463 different NBA cards to my collection, which puts me only 264 away from 80,000 different. I probably have that many in my un-opened stash already, but I'm not going to rush it. My birthday is fast approaching, in October, so maybe I will fix it so I hit 80,000 on my birthday...but in all actuality I'll probably hit the mark beforehand. I tried to hit a milestone on my birthday last year, and I couldn't read my own handwriting and my number was off, so I hit the mark a week before. Duh!

I also want to end by saying RIP to Indy driver Justin Wilson. He died yesterday as a result of a freak accident at the Pocono race held this past Sunday. (a piece of another car that crashed in front of him fell out of the sky and hit him on the head) I don't have any cards of him in my collection- I don't know if he even got any. If he did, it would have been one of the Greenlight diecast releases. I have only a handfull of them and none of him. I just wanted to say something in his memory.