Hot off the Scanner Tray "week" 12

It's been a while since I've posted one of these. First, I went offline while I was waiting to see the Force Awakens. Then, I was working solely on the cards I got for Christmas not one but two weeks in a row, which I couldn't really post in a HOST because they were getting a post dedicated solely to them. I also took some time off for scanning to do some typing, as related in my Goals for 2016 post.

Ironically, this first one is a redemption I received from Panini, and it's likely going to get posted before I post the box break the redemption card came from! (I took advantage of the Dave & Adam's Black Friday sales this past year for the first time). The redemption had expired over a year ago, but Panini still honored it. While my relationship with Panini has been somewhat adversarial at times, this is nothing but admiration (of their handling of redemption cards) I've been in this hobby for 28 years now, and this is something Panini has done better than anyone else in that time.

Thanks to this card, I now have the autographs of 4 of the Warriors starters. I am only missing Andrew Bogut. I also have Festus Ezeli's autograph as well. The Warriors are my current favorite team to watch...although now that Elton Brand is out of retirement I will probably not get to see them as much.

I nabbed this one on Ebay. Hilton Armstrong is a hometown hero, from Peekskill, NY. While Peekskill is not my hometown, my family has been there since the 1600s, in fact they helped found the town. He's not in the League anymore, but he was for several years. I didn't know he was from Peekskill until last year, however. This is only my 4th card of him, and that's counting a college card, which I normally don't do. The card has a pretty nasty bend in it, with multiple creases, which I didn't notice until it arrived. It was clearly visible in the ebay photo, so that's my fault for not paying enough attention. The card cost me less than $2 so I can't really complain. And not only that...

...the seller of the Hilton Armstrong card included 4 bonus cards. They are all football, all from the same set. I never turn down free cards no matter what the subject is! I've actually heard of both of these guys, which is not too common for me with football. (Who HASN'T seen Odell Beckham Jr.'s famous catch?) I just read an article about Cam Newton in Sports Illustrated recently, as well. He's also shown up courtside at several NBA games this season also.

I bought a blaster box of Hoops in the hopes that I'd be able to complete the base set. I am not doing well in that regard...I am still 20 cards short, about half of them rookies, which fall 1 per pack. I am still missing the big names, as well- no Porzingis, Towns, Russell, or others yet. I have gotten some more of the inserts and a couple of parallels, and I have gotten some of the cards I didn't get with my box, so it was not a waste of money....and I have not finished opening it yet. I will have to check and see if my local Target has put out a Knicks team set. I know they have been issued, but they did not stock the 2014-15 team set...possibly because a 2012-13 one still occasionally comes out of the stock room. I do want that Porzingis card.

After I finished typing up all my relic/autograph/SN cards, as related in my last post, I finished filling up the plastic cases and typed a round into my Excel chart. After I fill each of the 42 plastic cases, I sort them by person and then type them into my Excel chart. It normally takes me about a week to do this and this time was slowed by a health problem that caused me an immense amount of paint for several days.

Here are the cases all filled. One thing that I like about the cases- and why I photograph them every time- is seeing the edges of the cards. Here, you can see a batch of 2014-15 Donruss (third case from the left, third row down) and the box of 2015-16 Hoops my mom gave me for my birthday- and ended up being the set I got the most cards from in all of 2015- in the 3rd, 4th and 5th caes in the next to last row.

Another view. I began filling the cases on 9/28/15.

Sorted by first letter of last name. I then sorted each letter by person, and then typed them into Excel, but I didn't photograph any of that.

The cases now empty, waiting to be filled again. In this batch I did exactly 5400 cards, although the number is slightly inflated because I also got out the oversized cards and the cards trapped in the plastic cases Topps favored from 2001-02 through at least 2005-06. It generally takes me a long time to fill the cases- since I started keeping track of when I finished each batch of cases, I've never done more than two in one year. However, I only started keeping track in 2013.

Furthermore, the next batch I do will put me at halfway in scanning my NBA collection. Halfway is 41,281 cards. I have scanned and entered 39,530 right now, and each completed round of cases is always at least 5000 cards, so I will hit it at some point soon...probably by the time of the Daytona 500 but I won't have any way to know when or which card it is. And, of course, each new NBA card I get changes the number that is halfway.

There won't be any HOST for a couple of weeks....I will be starting a very special project this week that will preclude posting it.