Birthday Cards (Of course I got cards for my birthday!)

Today is my birthday. My family makes a bigger deal out of it than I do to be honest, especially after I almost didn't have anymore back in 2013. (I turned 31 today, in case you are wondering). I always ask for cards, and usually nothing but cards. (This year I asked for some specific comics but didn't get any- I'll be getting them myself next month). My brother didn't get me cards, but he gave me something I have needed for a long time. A 2TB external hard drive. As I've already filled up 16 or so flash drives with my photography I REALLY needed one, and will begin exploring that after I hit publish on this post. I have been talking about getting one of these for over a year but I could never bring myself to spend the money on it when there were cards staring at me on the shelf.

And the cards, I got cards. Mom gave me nothing but cards, and I'm going to show some highlights now..

I'm just going to jump to the major milestone I mentioned in the last post- I knew I would hit 80,000 different NBA cards today. I sure did- I now stand at 80,025. It took me 19 years and 9 months to reach this milestone.
Here it is...from 2012-13 Hoops, Spark Plugs #6, Anderson Varejao

For some reason my scanner doesn't like 2012-13 Hoops so it puts lines on it. Close enough!  I actually got two new Varejaos today, I also got the Above and Beyond parallel from 2012-13 Panini Brilliance, but those mirror foil cards are not a whole lot of fun to scan so I am putting it off (LOL)

My birthday was not solely NBA...I know lately my posts have been more NBA-centric than anything else, but the NBA takes up literally 85% of my collection, so I have the most to post about. With no new NASCAR cards since last December also not helping. But there are lots of older NASCAR cards I don't have yet, and Mom got me an autograph, a relic, and an autographed relic, which scanned MUCH better than I expected it to!

Normally my scanner cannot handle any sort of depth, and Press Pass put the relics deep down into very thick cards. This time, my scanner picked it up perfectly. I don't get it, but I'm thrilled I don't have to use my other scanner than can do depth, but is badly damaged and means I have to practically recreate the scan. Off the top of my head this is only my 5th autographed relic for NASCAR. It's on-card, as well.

I got a blaster box of 2014-15 Threads. Each blaster box has two wood Rookie cards, and they are cool...

They are almost as thick as a relic, and the front of the card is truly a piece of wood. I only had two before today, from my single blaster I got when the set first came out.

Another cool card from Threads is the Team Threads cards. These are a hallmark of the Panini Threads brand, and they are pretty much the same from year to year- why mess with success? This year, the Rookie cards in this style are part of the base set, which is a first. I got Aaron Gordon from this blaster. It's only my second from the subset.

 

I really hope Panini does the Threads set again in 2015-16. They took 2013-14 off from the set, and I hope they don't again.

The relic from my blaster was Russ Smith. Russ was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies after the card was issued, but the jersey piece is from the New Orleans Pelicans- my very first jersey piece from the Pelicans! I now have a relic from every team in the league under their current name except the Charlotte Hornets, which used to be the Bobcats. (I have relics from the first Hornets, which are now...the Pelicans!) Every year there is always one rookie I get more cards of than any other- and even though I can't get as many cards as I once did, Russ Smith is still that one from 2014-15.

I also got a blaster of 2014-15 Excalibur. I really didn't like this set when I first saw it, but it's really grown on me. It's so easy to scan, it includes action shots from the season it was issued in, and it included a bunch of players who I didn't have in my collection- and I got two of them today!

 Bogdanovic is from my favorite team. Papanikolaou was not anywhere near as hard to write in my listing than I expected it to be :)

I also got my first Michael Carter-Williams on the Bucks card. Excalibur is the only set that includes images post-trade deadline. I am a fan of MCW.

My relic from the box...happened to be Chris Andersen. One of my least favorite players in the league. Still, I want to collect as many cards as possible, and that includes people I'm not huge fans of. I'm still happy to have it, as it's not a duplicate.
But the scan, though...I don't get it. There is not a lot of depth to this card, yet my scanner blurred the relic. I don't know how to explain that.

 I finally got a good scan of the Crusade insert! I have 7 of them now, three each from two blasters and one from a single pack, but the first 4 didn't scan well at all. Today, they did. I've always loved the refractor Prizm technology, and am glad every time I pull one, or three. Nash is my least favorite of the three players I got today, but scanned the best. (The others are Tim Duncan and Taj Gibson).

I can't let it go without saying how it irked me that Panini included Nash- who had retired by time the set was issued, the only retired player in the base set- yet refused to include Elton Brand in the last two YEARS worth of sets.

Overall, I got 56 new NBA cards, and 3 new NASCAR- although to be honest Mom couldn't wait and gave me the Nemechek auto on Friday :) I also opened a couple of packs of my stash of Journey to the Force Awakens but I have not scanned any of them yet. I have had an excellent birthday so far, and it's not over yet.

I also got a record number of birthday wishes on Facebook- last I checked, before I started typing this post, I was at 237...and this post took a very long time because my internet connection keeps going out every two to four minutes or so, causing me to fight with it and try to get it back again- which has taken a lot of fun out of posting.

We also had some snow, which is the second earliest I can recall!