Christmas 2015 Part 4 - NBA

The fourth and final post recapping my incredible Christmas of 2015! This post will focus on the NBA. As usual, I got more NBA cards than any other topic...but that's bound to happen as there are exponentially far more NBA cards produced than there are NASCAR or non-sports. I like to be a little more cerebral than just showing off new additions...not like I expect to win a Pulitzer for this, but sometimes you just have one of those incredible days that demands this kind of post.

I added 13 new players to my collection, 2 new sets, and completed 2008-09 Topps Tipoff. That was a set that I completed and got new, in the same day! It is a 143 card set, and each pack had at least one serially numbered parallel.

While I started the NASCAR post with relics, I will start the NBA post with autographs...

This was the first card I got on Christmas and one of the best. Klay Thompson, like two of his teammates, rank among my top 5 favorite players in the league right now. He had also been #1 on my list of most wanted NBA Autographs. (Now that I have his, that spot is held by Kevin Durant)

This is now the oldest relic in my NBA collection. NBA relics debuted in 1997-98, but they are still rare and expensive to this day...you can't really get into that set for under $200, which is about $175 more than I am willing to spend on a single card. And one of the superstars? Forget it! The Jordan card still routinely approaches, or exceeds, 4 digits, last I knew. This card is from 1998-99 Upper Deck, the second year of relics. Still rare, but much more reasonable. And, to be honest, there's not a lot of people chasing after Bryant "Big Country" Reeves! 1999-00 was when relics really started to become attainable for people like me, and my first ones all came from that season...but this one is from the lockout shortened 1998-99! Interestingly, my scanner picked up this card with no trouble, while base cards and inserts from 1998-99 UD scan with lines across everything...so bad that I won't even bother scanning them with this scanner.

I actually got several other relics- more of the Dave & Adams' Hit Parades- but they were duplicates.

As I showed in the post I made on actual Christmas Day, I got several Star sets. Most of my 13 new NBA players came from them. Instead of posting them up and forcing you to scroll past all of them, instead I made gifs of each team set which I will post instead.

1983-84 Houston Rockets

1984-85 Indiana Pacers

1984-85 Los Angeles Lakers

1984-85 New York Knicks

1984-85 Super Teams Milwaukee Bucks. These are huge, only 2 fit on the scanner tray at once, instead of 9 standard cards

1985-86 New Jersey Nets

The 2010-11 Season Update was the second NBA box I opened, I had previously gotten two cards from this set, but it was the first time I had opened a pack. I ended up 5 cards short of a base set, but I got 27 duplicates. That's a bit frustrating.

This is the Gold parallel, serially numbered 23 of 24. The gold scans as black, though, making it look just like a base card in scan.

The set includes 5 update cards for both Prestige...

...and Rookies & Stars, which was my sole autograph from the box.

 My mom got me a box of 2011-12 Gold Standard, which is a set I would not buy for myself, as I am a cheapskate. I am showing all the traditional cards I got, but there were three redemptions. Panini supposedly honors expired redemptions (I've already gotten one, from a different set) so if/when they do show up they will appear in a future Hot off the Scanner Tray, which will make it's return soon. I had only one card from this set before Christmas, Elton Brand's base card which I got as a single. Most of the other years of Gold Standard are missing from my collection.

It may not be clearly visible but this is a patch card. 5 of 10 is a pretty low number pull!

These cards are all gold holofoil in person. and look much nicer than the scans show. Every card in the set is serially numbered.

2008-09 Topps Tipoff was the final box I opened. I had not ever gotten even a single card from this set, and I got all of them from the box...as well as a serially numbered parallel in every pack. I love numbered cards, so I was quite happy about that.

Moon, Sharpe, Dorsey and Douglas-Roberts were all new to my collection. As you can see, my scanner puts lines over the black areas at the bottom of each card, and on some other places as well. I am debating weather or not I want to scan them all that way, or wait in the hopes that I eventually get another Epson scanner that scans without the lines, but cannot do foils of any sort. Once again, I'm a cheapskate or else I would have had a new one already.

The other new set I got was 2008-09 SP Rookie Threads. This is actually a parallel of an insert.

The new players added to my collection were:

• Ager, Maurice
• Carter, Butch
• Daye, Austin
• Dorsey, Joey
• Douglas-Roberts, Chris
• Durrant, Devin (a 1-hit wonder)
• Jones, Earl (also a 1-hit wonder)
• Lester, Ronnie
• Moon, Jamario
• Sharpe, Walter
• Spriggs, Larry
• Thomas, Jim
• Waiters, Granville

Thank you for following along on my recap of one of the best Christmases ever!