My Cardboard History Part 3: 2007-2018

While my first two eras of collecting may be where the majority of my collection was built, this third era, still currently ongoing, is the most dynamic and, in reality, the most fun for me. I'll explain why as I bring this project to a close and complete my personal Cardboard History.

2007

2007 started off well, for my NASCAR card collection, as I had had enough of not knowing, and powered through and finished my paper listing. I had done from 2000-current previously, but anything before 2000 with the exception of 1988 Maxx had not been done. I began this project at the very start of the year, January 1st, and this began my tradition of doing a major project to start each year...although there are some years where I don't have any projects to do. Actual new card wise, 2007 was my worst year for total number of new cards since probably 1989. I only got 244 new cards documented for the entire year! I am sure I got more- how many more I can't say, of course- but from the 2002-04 peak years, there were only 4 months where I documented less new cards than the entire year of 2007. Looking back, now, I realize my problems were exactly that- MY problems, not a problem with my sports or the hobby. I wish I could go back in time and make myself realize then what I know now, but if 2007 was bad, 2008 is absolute rock bottom,

2008 

The year is pretty much a total blank to me. My memories of the year (especially for cards) are pretty much nil- even looking through my photos don't really bring much back for me. In 2008 I was almost totally out of the hobby for the only time in my life. I wasn't thinking about cards. I wasn't looking at cards. I definitely wasn't buying any cards. My NBA listings, once the main focus of my collection, something that were always at hand, that I carted with me (literally!) from Maine to Indiana got relegated to the basement, something that now seems unimaginable.

I got only 14 documented cards during the year, 13 of them on Christmas. Every year my mom gave me the NASCAR Yearbook, which for several years came with a set of cards. If it was not for them, I would have gotten only one documented card for the entire YEAR. I think I did get more- my mom and brother would bring me random packs from Target, but I was so out of the hobby I didn't bother to list them. I only bothered to list one card in March 2008, and I don't know what card it is. It has to be NASCAR because I did not get any NBA cards in 2007 or 2008, that I know for sure. I hadn't gotten any non-sports cards since I purchased a single tin of Revenge of the Sith cards in 2005. I would have to page through my entire paper NASCAR listing to find out what it was.

What possibly may have played a role is that in 2008 I discovered coin collecting and worked that hobby hard. It took up most of my time that year, and played a pretty big role in my life, until 2012. I've been mostly out of it since then, but I still search every bit of change my family gets, and if the opportunity presents itself I will buy something, rarely.

The year in cards is a total loss. But thankfully, the years of 2007 and 2008 were a short lived dip...

2009

The year started out on the same course as 2008. In January and February I didn't get a single documented card, and odds are, that number is accurate. Even when I wasn't documenting I was sometimes getting cards, at least until early 2007. 2008 and the start of 09...the totally empty space in my Excel chart is probably totally accurate. But then...then, my "Card Renaissance" began. It started when my brother brought me a pack of cards from Target. Not just any pack, my first pack of 2009 Element. I had drifted so far away from cards I had no idea the set was coming until I got my first pack. It was totally unlike anything I had seen in NASCAR cards, and I was really a fan of it. It is, truly, the set that got me back hooked into the hobby. Another trip to Target soon yielded more of them. Then...back to Champion for the first time since 2006, a hobby box came home. A box of 2008 Press Pass (flagship) soon followed suit. I was back into NASCAR full time. By now, things had changed and I didn't have the same amount of money available for hobbies as I once did. I couldn't get a box of everything anymore, which meant Target was now my main source for cards. It still is today. I was soon making up for lost time and going wild with NASCAR cards. I was having fun in the hobby again! I did my first major card project in many years, and I began a different project that is still going on to this day. I sorted my NASCAR cards by subject, instead of by set, and typed them all into Excel. I created a chart that would be the "new style" chart. Previously, I had only a listing of how many cards I had of one person. With the new style chart, I actually typed out each card that I had for each person. Luckily, my NASCAR files were stored on a different disk than my NBA files were, so I didn't lose them. The project took me a couple of months but not too many. When I finished that project (actually, I think it was DURING that project), I began the massive project of scanning my entire collection- the project that is still ongoing. I got my first scanner back in 2005, and the very first scan I ever made was of a card, but it was a one-time thing. Now, though, I began the process of scanning my entire collection. At the time, I was doing fronts only, and focusing on the NASCAR segment of my collection, which was all I cared about in 2009. I finished scanning my NASCAR collection in 2011, although still with that asterisk as I finished fronts only...and I did a very poor job of it, but I considered it done at the time.
I also joined the NUTS forum- NASCAR Underground Trading Society. It's an all-NASCAR card board and it's a great place. 
I went from getting 14 documented NASCAR cards in 2008 to 4226 in 2009. I was back in a big way!

Sorting by subject. I wish I took more photos, this is the only one I took when I had them ALL out in stacks for each person. I worked progressively, doing a wave, then moving back and putting new stacks where I had been sitting, until I eventually ran out of floor space or cards. I can't remember which came first. You can see, near my foot, where one of the waves changed as the cards are going the other direction. Each stack is a different person.

A card from 2009 Element. It doesn't really hold up, but it was unique and cool at the time, and what I needed. The card number appeared on both front and back.

2010

The year started like 2009 ended- big on NASCAR. Nothing else mattered. At this point I wasn't even watching the NBA. Either 2009-10 or 2010-11, I didn't watch a single game. Possibly both. I don't remember. My mom continued to watch the NBA when I wasn't watching, and that's going to be important later. For some reason, I don't even really know why, at Target I decided to take a chance on some Star Wars cards. Since I am so OCD with my records, even though I let it lapse somewhat,  I can tell you exactly when it was- September 6th. They were great! It was a pack of the Empire Strikes Back 3Di cards, which are all lenticular and the scene moves as you move them. Empire Strikes Back was always my favorite movie of the series, and as I mentioned in part one, I really started with Star Wars cards. But for so long if it wasn't NBA or NASCAR, I wasn't interested. Now...now I was interested. 2010 was the "Year of the Non-Sports" That year I went big into the world of non-sports cards and to be honest, they have been my favorite segment of the hobby ever since, even though they get the least amount of dedicated posts. I got out my old binders of non-sports cards- they were still in binders, after I learned how bad pages were for cards in 2000 and took the rest of them out. I hadn't looked at them since probably 1997 or 1998 but I got them out, scanned them and made paper listings. I was now actively collecting non-sports and this became my focus in the hobby even more than NASCAR, although I still collected them. Even though I didn't restart with non-sports until September, I got almost as many non-sports cards in 2009 than I did NASCAR. As an added bonus, since there is less demand for them, they aren't as expensive as sports cards are. During 2010 I was mostly working on Star Wars cards, as I had ignored them for so long I had a lot to catch up on, but I also "discovered" the military cards that existed. I bought a box of each of the 3 series of Topps Desert Storm cards and the Pro Set Desert Storm set and opened a pack a day until I ran out of them. It was a lot of fun...and it was really just scratching the surface. Since the last time I had collected Non-Sports cards, I had "discovered" history. While it was always my favorite subject in school, I eventually found out true history (Most of what they taught us in school is an outright fabrication) and discovered how much I loved history, especially ancient history.
Somewhat randomly, in December, my mom brought me a single pack of 2009-10 Panini (flagship), my first pack of NBA cards and my first NBA addition since 2006. I don't know exactly why, I suspect she remembered how much joy and excitement the hobby and sport once brought me, now missing from my life, but the time was not yet right.

They look better in hand...trust me.

2011

This year was actually a big drop down from the year before. I don't really remember why, because I was still enjoying the hobby, I just wasn't adding as many new cards. I spent a lot of time documenting my collection, but I brought in only 853 new cards the entire year. Still way more than 2008, but less than 2010 or any year since. I do know I was not really collecting NASCAR this year. I had saved up for a box of 2010 Legends, which was about $150, more than I am really comfortable spending at this time...and it was filled with modern drivers who are in every single set, and about 1/3 of the set wasn't even NASCAR at all! Don't get me wrong, I collect modern NASCAR and other forms of racing, but to call a set Legends and just be the same basic stuff as every other set, just higher priced...that annoyed me. I mostly stayed away from Press Pass for all of 2011, which, I found out later, was a mistake, as their 2011 flagship- which actually came out before Christmas 2010- was one of the few times Press Pass got even close to doing it right.
It was in 2011, after finishing the fronts of my NASCAR and Non-Sports collection, that I really began to scan my NBA collection. It was the first time I had looked at any of them since 2006. My memories of the sets were in many cases gone. Stuff I once knew without a second thought was totally lost to me. And even more, my collection files being totally gone would prove to be no help. After they were lost totally I just gave up, and I realize now that was a BIG contributing factor in why I left the NBA. I would describe the loss of everything I had done as "soul crushing".  I discovered the Trading Card Database in 2011, although at the time I was using it solely for checklist purposes. When I scanned something, and couldn't remember what year it was, I would go to the Database to figure out what year/set it went to. That would be all I would use it for in 2011.
I do have two milestones on the year- in September, on our annual family trip to Lake George, I discovered a shop that was only there for about a year but had a lot of great cards. I got some NBA cards, and since I was working on scanning them, and had begun watching the games again if there was nothing better on, I got a couple discounted packs at Target. At the time I remember saying, "I think I will get some again but only when they get put into the discount bin at Target". How wrong I was.
The bigger milestone, however, was that I got my first tobacco card in 2011. The mystique of tobacco cards was well known to me, but it seemed like they were forever out of reach. I never thought I would be able to get even one...but I did. Many more would follow, and now I've even completed a Tobacco set, something that I honestly didn't even THINK about as it didn't seem like something that would be possible.

I sorted my NBA cards in 2011, the ones I could find, for the first time since 2004. It was great to see them again. I sorted them by letter and wrote down, on three sheets of typing paper, (by hand), everyone in my collection, in the start of the effort to rebuild my lost files.

halfway through

All of them that I could find! Note that the paper listings I've mentioned are visible in the top left corner.

2012

In 2012, three big things happened, and they are all related. During the year, I was collecting non-sports primarily, and NASCAR again on a lower scale then I did in 2009 and 10. I wasn't collecting the NBA on a regular basis, but that was going to change. The 2011 NBA Finals are what got me back in. Jason Kidd was always my mom's favorite player, and that was the year he won his championship with the Mavericks. I watched the Finals with her, and I really enjoyed it...it was a lot of fun to watch again. I was soon watching again on a regular basis, and it was in September 2012 that I began to collect for real again. The 2012-13 Hoops set had come out at the end of August and were on the shelves at Target for 44 cards for under $5. I couldn't resist that. I didn't. I was soon hooked again, and it wasn't long before I was collecting the NBA on a regular basis, and watching the games as often as possible on TV. I distinctly remember, during the pre-season, sitting on my bed listing a pack of cards while watching a Knicks game, in my newly rescued from the basement card listing, and thinking to myself that things felt "right" again.
Around the same time this was happening, I discovered that you could track your collection on the Trading Card Database! I began doing that on October 5th that year, helpfully the Database tells you this information. It took me about a month to enter my entire collection, and while I was doing that, especially in the NASCAR section which I had all my card fronts scanned, when I came across a set with 0.0% scanned, I posted one or two. But since I had done fronts only, I couldn't post the backs. That just didn't look good and I was soon scanning fronts and backs alike. It adds a lot of time to the scanning process, but it's worth it- best to do it right the first time. I've mentioned several times how I had to go back and do the card backs- and I'm sort of done. I've done all the ones that need to be done to the Database, but the ones that were already done by somebody else have been pushed off to after I finish scanning everything that needs to be scanned on both sides. I don't know when I will get back to them, but it's not likely to be this decade!
I discovered, in 2012, that I had actually missed some sets from the time period where I thought I had gotten every NBA set into my collection. I discovered this when I bought a repack and out came a card from a set I had never seen before! (2005-06 Topps 1952 Style)
By the end of 2012, the Trading Card Database had become my favorite website, and the one I spend the most time on- even more than Facebook or my very own website that I have maintained since 2004. That is still true to this day.
January 2012 is the most recent month where I did not get a single new card. I've gotten  at least 46 new cards every month since then, usually more. In fact, other than August 2014 I've gotten into the triple digits every month.

 By being away from the NBA, I missed my opportunity to collect Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, Russell Westbrook and others' rookie cards, which are now well out of my price range. Leaving the NBA is now one of my biggest regrets of my life, and my collection from the 2006-07 through 2010-11 season is still very poor.

2013

This year is when things start to go from bad to worse, but card wise are pretty good. My health has never been good. I've mentioned that before in this series. On April 26th, 2013, I came literally 5 minutes short of dying. I had become diabetic, and hadn't known it. It turned into Ketoacidosis which, if untreated, is deadly. I wasn't treating it, because I was convinced it was just food poisoning, as the symptoms start out similarly, and they started right after I drank my once-annual Mountain Dew. As I distrust doctors, I refused to seek treatment. Eventually, my mom ignored me and called an ambulance. Several days in the hospital later, I got to go home and have a new start on life. In fact, I celebrate May 1st as sort of a second birthday. I don't really have any card milestones for this year, but not dying is plenty good enough for me! Ever since then my mom and brother give me birthday presents on both October 18th, my actual birthday, and May 1st, when I got the chance to begin living again.We're still trying to come up with a good name to call that day. Second Birthday and Glad You're Not Dead Day are the leading candidates, but we are open to suggestions.

In January 2013, I began to recreate the NBA collection files I had lost years before. (Luckily, I thought to type the date into the Excel file!) But instead of just the total number of cards I had for each person...I'm making it more detailed, better in every way. Now, I'm keeping the page with the totals, but I'm also typing out exactly which card I have for every person. I had created the file when I got my computer back in 2003, but I didn't really do much with it. I typed in some of the letter T but that's all I did. Then I forgot about it, on the hard drive of my original computer, for years. The last time I looked at it was probably in October 2003 when I first got my first computer. I found it when I was checking to see if I could salvage anything off my first hard drive. (I still have the computer, and it still works, but not well). This was it, everything else was gone. Today I'm still using the same file that I created way back in '03, although there's a LOT more on it then there ever was before- and I have 5 copies of it! (Hard drive, at least two different flash drives, Google Drive, Amazon Drive!)  I duplicate all my Excel file in those places...so finally, I have learned.
Here's a screencap I took of the file just on December 30th. I have refined it over time and it's still in progress, as I've mentioned. I just added the team notation in 2017.

From December 26-31 I sorted my NBA collection again, this time for posting to the Database. I pulled aside all my completed sets, my serial numbered, autographed and relic cards, and some I wanted to do before others. It took me most of 2014 to work on them. I won't do a major sorting again until I finish scanning everything.

Yeah, I really should have moved my photography lights.

2014

The year was pretty good for me card wise, but there's not much that stands out. The year is memorable, but not in a good way, because my mom was in the hospital for more than a month...she had been having health problems for several years and it all came to a head that year. It's still not great for either of us, but thankfully we both have been steadily improving since then, or even just staying put...it was a scary couple of years and the things that happened in those two years will affect my family forever.

The card highlight of the year is the founding of Cardboard History! I had begun reading the card blogs in either late 2013 or early 2014. I don't remember exactly when I started or who's was the first blog I had read, (I think it was Gavin) but I was enjoying what I was reading, and thought to myself, "I should do this too!" so I did. And I'm still here. Still posting. My follow through and project completion rates are poor so I'm actually kind of surprised that I'm still going- and that anyone's reading my writing- but I'm still enjoying doing it, and it's nice to be able to get stuff down before my swiss cheese memory loses it.
I picked out the color scheme the first day and have kept it the same ever since. It works for me so I don't see any need to change it.

In 2014 I began documenting the exact order I got every single card. I originally did it on paper but due to too many mistakes, the lack of fun it had become and the pain it was causing me physically to do it, I switched to doing it solely on Excel.
Here's a screenshot of that...it, too has been refined, as in mid 2017 I began keeping track of where I got the cards, not just the order they arrived in. I did this because so many people were sending me cards, I wanted to see where they were coming from.

2015

January 2015 may have been the busiest, craziest month of my life in the hobby. It started out with Press Pass going out of business, then I got sick, then I lost a favorite family member to cancer, then I pulled off my largest trade ever, which saw over 1000 cards change hands, then I got sick again, then, finally, on the very last day of the month, I got three boxes of cards which saw two friends send me more than 3000 cards- the most I've ever gotten in one day- the majority of them hockey. My friend Ricky, who sent me 27 pounds worth of cards, is a big hockey fan and wanted me to start collecting as well. It kind of worked, although not just yet, but more on that soon. It was so many cards it was almost overwhelming. I had 28 hockey cards when I woke up that day, I had more than 2800 when I went to bed! I got 3644 new cards that day, covering every sport and non-sports. I also got my first O-Pee-Chee brand card that day as well.
Here's the picture I took before I broke into the boxes that arrived that day...all these boxes shown were stuffed with cards.

On February 5th, the anniversary of when I lost my dad to cancer, I lost part of my card collection to a flood, losing some of the Star Wars cards that started my collection back in 1988 and several boxes worth of NBA cards. It was the most devastating loss any of my hobbies have ever taken and I've still not been able to replace them all. Doubt I ever will...and even if I do, I'm not going to be able to forget seeing the damaged cards, so the thought of them has been ruined forever.
I pulled off a lot of trades this year, and thanks to the gifts and trades, and the fact that I documented everything, not just NBA, when the dust settled 2015 was the second largest total of new additions in my life, 13,160 cards.


2016

This year was a lot like 2015, although less cards came into my collection. One of the files that I had and lost was a breakdown of my serially numbered, autographed and game used NBA collection. I recreated this in 2016, and of course it now includes the cards I'd added since the original file was lost. It ended up taking me a lot less time than I expected. That seemed like a major hurdle in my head but I was able to finish it in something like three days. I figured it would take a few months.
In June 2016 my remote hard drive crashed and took some stuff with it. Some scans and a couple of Excel files that I had forgotten to back up elsewhere, which, of course, were some of the ones that had the most work put in them...naturally, right? I still have not recreated them, although it's mostly just transcribing my paper listing so I could.
A friend sent me a totally unexpected large box of NASCAR cards and it ended up taking the #1 spot for most new NASCAR cards in one day. Gavin of Baseball Card Breakdown also sent me a huge box of stuff and I got more than 2800 new cards from him that day! I never "broke down" the box though because most of the cards were naked ladies, which I do collect in card form but can't really post about. I did write up some of an intended post but never finished it.
I've gotten more than 1000 new cards in a single day six times, and four of them came in the January 2015-April 2017 time frame. (The other two were in 2002, as noted)
In November 2016, due to a post on the Trading Card Database, I began to watch NHL hockey on a regular basis...the Golden Knights team logo/name was announced, and I wanted to see it, so I put on NHL Network. As I was working on cards, I left it on, and I got hooked on the sport by the end of that day.
I hit the 1000 card mark for both football and baseball during the year, as well as 3000 for NHL.
I launched my secondary Nothing But Nets blog.
I sold a card for the first time in 2016, on COMC. I had been a very hard line non-seller, but I had so much fun buying stuff on COMC, I decided to send some in as well. If it brought me so much fun, perhaps it could bring somebody else that feeling, instead of sitting in my duplicate boxes? 

2017

This is the Year of the NHL. I became a fan, like I said, in November 2016, but I kept it secret. I saw my first game in it's entirety on January 1st, 2017, the outdoor game between Chicago and St. Louis. I kept it a secret because I wanted to be sure that I was really sure that this was going to be a part of my life, and it was...for sure, it was. I revealed that I had become an NHL fan on Cardboard History on January 14th and began buying NHL cards on January 15th. I even kept it secret from my family, which was highly unlike me and I knew I couldn't keep it up long. By the Stanley Cup Finals I had gotten my mom into it as well, although not as much as I am, she only watches with me, unlike the NBA and NASCAR which she will watch without me as well. For now anyway, LOL.
The fellow NHL collectors in the hobby have been very generous to me. They (you!) have sent me thousands of cards during 2017, and I appreciate every single one of them!
To be honest, I actually watched more and got more NHL cards than NBA during 2017, and the NHL has already surpassed NASCAR as my #2 sport...something I didn't think would ever happen. The NBA had taken it over for #1 probably by the end of the 2012-13 season. I suppose absence made the heart grow fonder, as they say.
In January, I finally made paper listings for the cards that came with diecast cars, and integrated them into my NASCAR collection. Previously I had considered them a separate collection. They were also the last cards I did not have a count on which allowed me to determine the actual number of cards in my collection, although I'm 100% sure it's not entirely accurate, I treat it as if it is. 
I did get another huge box of NASCAR cards from a friend and got 1079 new cards on April 26th- 4 years to the day since I almost died of Keto. (a total coincidence)
I decided in 2017 to count the International cards and Panini stickers as part of my NBA collection, previously I counted them as a separate collection, or didn't count them at all. When I mentioned that I counted them "last year" in a recent post I misspoke. It was last SEASON but this YEAR. My life revolves around cards so much that I often refer to NBA (and now NHL) seasons as "This year" or "last year" regardless of what the calendar says.

Very late in the year I created a couple of new charts that I plan to maintain going forward. I added teams to my listing by player, as shown above, and I created a chart to track my collection by team, year and overall. I copy and paste the info from one sheet to another so it doesn't take as much time and effort as it may sound. It will take me a while due to volume of cards, but eventually I will break even. When it's done it will give me a completely searchable and sortable document for my entire collection. But, I will only type cards into my files once they have been scanned, so it's going to be a long while before it's done...or I should say caught up because it won't ever truly be done.

Even later in the year, December 21st, I finished posting scans of my collection on the Trading Card Database. This is what I've spent most of my time doing since October 2012 and since I finished, I'm kind of rudderless at the moment, lol. But I have plans of card related things to do that will keep me going for years.

I hit 10,000 different people in my collection during 2017, thanks to actively collecting hockey.

In 2017 I officially admitted that my main focus has changed. I have always been a set collector. Building sets makes me happy. It's pretty much impossible, now, though. There are basically only one or if lucky two sets each year that are actually buildable per sport. The rest are not, which is depressing. However, my "Names Project" - what I call my project to get at least one card of every single person to get one in my sports- has been really exhilarating  and rewarding. It has given me the ability to feel more like a historian, than just a simple collector, and I have learned from it as well. It would not have been possible without the Trading Card Database. To make the list, I literally clicked on every name I wasn't 100% sure on to see if they were actually in my sports. I couldn't just use the list of names, because college players are not part of the project (NBA) or drag racing, Indy car, etc for NASCAR, although I do collect them as well. The scope of the project is NASCAR only, or NBA only. I have not made a list for the NHL yet...that's going to be a major task. I don't plan to do it for a couple of years, yet, because there are still so many people I don't have yet. I had already cleared the 80,000 card mark for the NBA and 30,000 for NASCAR before I made the lists. The NHL hasn't even gotten 10,000 cards into my collection yet. I will, eventually, but I'm going to wait until the time where every single pack doesn't provide a new player, which is kind of the situation I'm in now, and was unquestionably a few months ago. I also don't know the NHL as well yet, where I have the ins and outs of my other two major sports pretty well known. I don't even have all the current Rangers in my collection yet, for example. That is not to say I won't complete sets when I can. I usually complete Hoops every year, but that's about it. I completed one 2016 NASCAR set but all of the 2017 sets are unlikely to ever be completed. I have not completed a single NHL set yet, and not sure I will any time soon, thanks to the short printed Young Guns in the UD flagship. I will still, of course, keep my collection records by set. Any other way is just wrong, in my head, haha. My focus started to shift more towards this in 2016 (I created the charts in 2015, I think. I don't know for sure because it wasn't tied to a new card entering my collection) but in 2017 I finally realized that this is what I want to focus on.

2018 and Beyond

I am celebrating my 30th anniversary in the hobby this year, and I have one plan to make it totally unique and special- as you saw on the 1st, I am going to try and get at least one new card every single day of the year!  I think I will be able to pull this off, because I've been stashing cards for this project since 2015! Yeah, I think ahead sometimes...
I have not counted the cards I've got stashed, (looking through them would make them count for that day, after all) but I have a bunch, and some of them are football and baseball and sumo wrestling from Angus and Ryan, respectively. plus I have some NBA, NHL, NASCAR, and non-sports stashed as well. I actually tried to do this project in 2015, but I messed it up. I got through all of January but then in February I pulled out not one but two days worth which I was sure were new but turned out to be duplicates, and I was so sure I didn't check for almost a week, thus killing the project. Since I realized that I was nearing my 30th anniversary in the hobby, I decided to just work on building a stash of cards for 2018.

I don't plan to ever stop collecting again, like I essentially did in 2008. I realize now that leaving the NBA as I did was more because of me, not the faults I found with the NBA, and I now consider it one of the biggest mistakes I've made in my life- and I've made many. It's hurting me now because I missed out on the rookie cards of Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, Russell Westbrook, James Harden and others. Now they have gone out of my price range for the most part and I'll probably never have them. Even the basic Topps and Upper Deck cards are beyond me now, especially for Steph.

I would not be too surprised if I someday consider 2017 to be the start of my 4th era, as the NHL takes more prominence in my collection. After more than 20 years collecting the NBA and NASCAR I doubt I will ever get the card totals up near my NBA and NASCAR collections are, but maybe I will be lucky or win the lottery or something. On the other hand, thanks to my fellow collectors and the better representation on cardboard the NHL gets, already I've got the NHL to within 300 or so different people as I have in my NBA collection. I began 2017 with exactly 3000 NHL cards and I end the year with more than 9000, all but about 1500-2000 of the new additions being gifts. I have certainly spent more time on the NHL than anything else! Actually, they could pass NASCAR, as the NHL gets multiple sets each year that have more cards than all of NASCAR's yearly output combined. The NHL era has definitely begun, but hopefully I will be able to more properly balance my sports and non-sports pursuits, instead of ignoring most everything else like I did when I was younger. I'm not sure if it is the start of my 4th era or if my 3rd era is jut getting better...when I consider it the best already. And I do consider this my best era, even though it started weakly. I've been able to balance multiple topics- I am collecting 4 sports regularly (counting the Olympics as one sport topic) as well as the various non-sports topics I collect. The internet has greatly increased my enjoyment of the hobby- The Trading Card Database, the blogs, including my own, COMC, my Excel charts...not to mention the scanning and labeling project, which I greatly enjoy...all have increased my enjoyment. And it's hard to quantify, but I appreciate the cards more now. In era #2 in particular, I was all about the addition. Now, I'm all about the appreciation, whether it be the cards I've had since I was a kid to the latest new addition I added to my collection. In era #2 I generally didn't even read the cards. All my time was spent trying to keep up with documenting my new additions, both in my paper listing and on the now-lost original Excel file, while it existed. Now, I can't say I read them all, but I read a lot more than I used to, which was essentially none.

I'm getting closer to finishing scanning my collection, and when I finish scanning them is when I type them into my charts, and it will be so nice to finish recreating my long-lost files. It's going to be essentially lost for 15 or more years, although I've been slowly recreating it as I scan. When I get near the end of a project, I start to get really antsy and want to just power through and finish it. I've been feeling that antsiness now since early 2017, although I know I realistically won't finish until 2021 or later. By the way, I'm the world's worst estimator, I originally predicted that I would finish in 2016. Not even close! I hit the halfway mark on my NBA collection in 2016, not completion!

I have no more major projects planned. I have my paper listing where I want it to be, although I have not finished the NHL listing totally yet, I have nothing left to count, nothing major that needs attention. I'm actually kind of disappointed by that as I like starting out the year with a big project, and finishing off a major project to start the year is a nice feeling- even if some of my "major projects" lately have taken three days or less. (I wrote this paragraph in July. Since then, I've come up with the chart to track teams, years and overall, which I hadn't even thought of then. It turns out I DO have a major project I can work on, and I plan to! I have never had a count of how many cards I have from each team or season, so that will be a first- but I'm looking at years before I have that number, maybe even a decade)

I AM a little worried about what I'm going to do when I finish scanning everything. That has been pretty much my whole life for several years now and looks to be for several more years to come. I already thought of a couple more Excel files I can create, but that won't be quite the same. I do know when I finish scanning everything I will be resorting my NBA collection into sets for the first time since 2004. That is something I am looking forward to, and if I can, I may schedule that into a "year start" project. My NHL cards will get sorted by set for the first time ever then as well, which should be fun. By then, hopefully, I will know them like I know my NBA collection, because after all by then I will have been very actively collecting them for probably 5 years or more. Probably more, based on my track record of estimating things. When I truly run out of cards, I have my stamps, comics and magazines that need scanning, so my scanner won't be getting rest any time soon.

Of course, when I finally get everything sorted back by set, I will recount, taking notes as I go, and hopefully come up with an even more accurate number for my collection. And since I'll be letting Excel do the actual work, hopefully this time it will be accurate, unlike now, where I have three separate counts I've made, and none of them match!

Hopefully, 10 years from now when I hit my 40th anniversary in the hobby, we'll still be here, the internet will still be around and I'll still be here to post an update to this series. It'll be nice to look back on it and see just how my predictions pan out. Knowing how I am with predicting how long this takes me, I probably will still be working on scanning my collection...

Thanks for reading!