2015 Year in Review Part 2

I forgot to get the stats when I typed up my 2015 year in review. Since 2014 I've typed every single card I've gotten, in order of getting them, into an Excel chart. I then sort that chart by various columns and use it to figure out which person or set got the most cards. I also use a letter code to denote parallels, inserts, relics, autographs, SN, etc.

Top 15 of 2015 (people):
In 2014 Dale Earnhardt Jr. led the way with most new cards. This year he only had 8 new cards enter my collection. Does not come anywhere near the top 10.

1. Terry Labonte- 70 cards. In the early part of the year I took in a collection of a friend who passed away. He was a big Terry Labonte fan and I added several dozen that day. Enough to put Terry in the #1 spot. He is also my mom's favorite driver. 
2.  Kobe Bryant - 48 cards. Kobe is in pretty much every set, and even has a couple sets just for him. With this being his final season, I expect his cards to dip slightly in the future...although not by a whole lot, as Panini puts retired players in more than half their sets.
3. Elton Brand - 41 cards. Elton is my favorite NBA player of all time, and one of my goals for 2015 was to get more than 11 Elton cards (the total I got in 2014). I'll say that I did! In fact, by the end of January I had broken that number. I have a Page where I show each of the 41 cards here on Cardboard History. 
4. Dale Earnhardt
5. Geoff Bodine
6. Rob Moroso each had 36 new cards. In each case, it was on the strength of several driver specific promo sets issued in the early 1990s.
7. Kevin Durant
8. LeBron James both saw 33 new cards enter my collection. Both are superstars and included in almost every set so this is no surprise.
9. Dwyane Wade- 32. This one surprised me. I am fairly indifferent on Wade. I have nothing against him but the Heat is the only team in the league I dislike. I don't particularly chase his cards as singles, in fact I don't think I've purchased any as a single since 2003 or 2004. I apparently just have a knack for pulling his cards. In fact, new card #1 in 2015 was a card of his.
10. Larry Caudill- 30. Caudill ran a couple of Winston Cup races in the late 1980s, but is mostly known for running short tracks in North Carolina and Goody's Dash. In 1992, there was a 30 card set issued tracking his career, and I added it to my collection in 2015. I only had one card of him before 2015.
11. Chris Paul
12. Kevin Love 28 each. Again, I have a knack for pulling their cards. . Interestingly, with Love, if I am going to pull an insert, there's a good chance it's going to be him. I've actually pulled more inserts of him than base cards! I finally got a parallel of him this year. 
13. Tim Duncan- 27. Duncan is ageless, and shows little sign of slowing down. Although I rarely root for his team, mostly because I am rooting for the other team more, Duncan is actually in my Top 10 all-time favorite players.
14. Vincent Lecavalier- 25 cards. The only non-NBA or NASCAR person on the list. When my friend gave me more than 2000 hockey cards in January 2015, Lecavalier led the way with 25 cards. He is my friend's favorite player so he had a lot of duplicates on hand, which he sent to me. It was enough to make him #1 in my hockey collection, and #14 on the list. 
15. Dirk Nowitzki - 21 cards. Dirk, like Duncan, has been going strong in the NBA since the late 1990s, both of them leading their teams to the NBA finals on multiple occasions, and both of which getting lots of cards...and enough of those cards entered my collection to get them both in the Top 15 of 2015.
    
    I also got 70 checklists during 2015. I love checklist cards and this makes me very happy.

 Top 15 of 2015 (sets)
The top sets is something I find very interesting. The rare sets I do a box of these days usually make the list, and in fact of the top 10 six of them were ones I did boxes of during 2015.

1. 2015-16 Hoops, 323 cards. I love this set. My mom gave me a box for my birthday. 
2. 1993 Maxx Premier Series, 300 cards. This was a factory set which I bought on Ebay. Only available as a factory set. 
3. 2010-11 Panini Season Update, 217 cards. I got this box for Christmas
4. 2014-15 Donruss, 199 cards. I got a box from the Dave & Adam's Black Friday sale. At some point I'll get that post up. 
5. Bon Air Fire Engines, 198 cards. I got these from a fellow blogger and posted about it recently.
6. 2008-09 Topps Tipoff, 190 cards. Another Christmas box, I had none from the set before and now finished it.
7. 2011-12 Past & Present, 160. Another box I got from the DA Black Friday sale.
8. 2012-13 Panini Marquee, 159 cards. Yet another DA Black Friday box. 
9. 1990-91 Pro Set, 151 cards. I received all 151 cards as part of the Greatest Mailday Ever of 1/31/15. Even though I only have stats beginning in 2014, I know for sure that this is the first hockey set to make the top 10, because when 2015 started I had a grand total of 28 hockey cards.
10. 1997-98 Leaf, 150 cards. These arrived on 1/31 as well. Two hockey sets in the top 10!
11. 1989-90 O-Pee-Chee, 148 cards. Make that three NHL sets in a row. 
12. 1980-81 Topps, 145 cards. I count each different panel separately, unlike Beckett. 
13. 2013 Topps 75th Anniversary, 132 cards. I got the box for Christmas.
14. 2015 Topps Journey to the Force Awakens, 127 cards. Thanks to the generous number of parallels and inserts this set ranks #14...and the hobby box I pre-ordered hasn't even arrived yet! 
15. 2015 Topps Chrome Perspectives Jedi vs. Sith, 123 cards. Another box I did.
    
    In total, I had 18 sets add 100 or more new cards during 2015. 

I got:

• 122 autographed cards
• 18 errors
• 1014 inserts
• 14 autographed relics
• 22 parallels of inserts
• 569 promos
• 718 parallels
• 138 relics
• 336 serially numbered cards, including two 1 of 1. There is redundancy, the autographs and relics, etc. that are numbered are counted in both SN and whatever characteristic they have.
  
  A grand total of 13.162 cards, the second most I've gotten in a year in my life. I am truly, truly amazed that I had such a great year. I can't even properly put it into words.