A Case! And trying something new.

I don't dream about much. I know that I can't accomplish what I want to do, I can't fulfill the one dream that's been with me my whole life- classic car ownership.

Card collecting dreams are easier to realize but there was one that I thought would be always out of reach...opening an entire case. I look at case prices and see that they are usually in the 4 digits. I can't do that. But then...Dave & Adam's had a big anniversary sale, and there was a case of this year's Revolution- $180. It was a lot of money to shell out in one go, but I did it...I may never have the opportunity again and I'd socked away $200 just in case a case ever came below that, which was my self-imposed threshold. The case arrived on May 7th, after I had done my card of the day...so every day this week, I am going to be doing a box out of the case.

Unfortunately for me, there's a reason it was so cheap...it's the retail version, which has only one parallel to choose from, the Chinese New Year, which is one per pack, and no inserts. I have zero chance to get any autographs, relics or serially numbered cards, which is kind of a let down...but I should complete the set, and get more than halfway to the Chinese New Year parallel, so there's that. Also, during this case, I should hit 90,000 different NBA cards. Actually, that should come tomorrow, when I'm writing this, but today when I'm scheduling this post for. After the first 4 boxes I'm 19 cards away.

Not be able to get anything numbered HAS put a damper on my enjoyment, but even so, I'm still absolutely thrilled about being able to do a case. And now, writing this when I'm halfway through, I am starting to appreciate it even more...with 4 boxes down I'm at only 82% of the 150 card set. I'm getting so many duplicates I'm not sure I will be able to complete it...the rookies are one per pack and I still need quite a few. In box #4 I pulled three duplicates of the Chinese New Year parallels as well. We'll see how it goes. If I can pull the Donovan Mitchell CNY I will probably work on completing the parallel via COMC but his is too expensive for me to buy as a single. So we'll see. Here's a couple of brief highlights, with more thoughts and scans to come after I've finished the case...

 As is kind of usual for Panini, the veterans and rookies use a totally different design. The Ball is the first card from the set in my collection, and the Brook Lopez is my first card of his with the Lakers. The cards are incredibly bright any shiny- what looks like texture in the background is all different foils and reflective, sparkly stuff. They look much nicer in hand, and I'm going to see if I can get a photo to better capture that when I write up my post-case thoughts.

There are only two players in the set not yet in my collection, and after four boxes, I've seen only one of them.

Bogdan Bogdanovic has been long-awaited for making the jump to the NBA, having been drafted back in 2014. He is not related to Bojan Bogdanovic, who has been in the NBA since 2014-15, with the Nets, Wizards and Pacers, despite the very similar names. I found this card in the very first box I did. The one I have not seen yet is Suns rookie Mike James (the second or possibly third different Mike James in NBA history)

The Chinese New Year parallels, or CNY, fall one per pack, always the 4th of 5 cards in the pack, and every third pack is a rookie parallel. They have a different pattern and the foil is red, where as on base cards it's copper. (both pretty much scan black, though) They too look much brighter and impressive in person. It works best with bright colors and the Celtics green is my favorite look on this pattern. 

 Here's a rookie version:

 While it shouldn't be too hard to tell the two versions apart, here's a side-by-side comparison of the two versions. Base is on the left, CNY on the right.

There's something like 9 more parallel patterns that are available in hobby, but I won't be getting any of them any time soon.

Now, the new thing I'm trying. I can't set up my card listing because right now I'm working on building models, and they use the same space. My skills have mysteriously returned after leaving just as mysteriously in 2010. So, I did the first three boxes with no paper listing. How was I going to keep track of the cards, when I was getting them?

So I made this chart...

 I'm filling in the dates that I get the cards, as you can see if you click on it, I have done the first four boxes at the time of this screencap.

I really like the way this looks, even with only 4 different dates available to choose from. The base cards are in black on the left, the Chinese New Year parallels on the right. I didn't bother to label them because after this week I won't need the chart anymore. Or maybe I will...I like it so much I'm considering making matching charts for all of my collection. I've been keeping track of the dates I got (most) cards since 1998, but I don't have that backed up anywhere, until 2014 when I started entering that info into Excel. And even then, it's backed up only in the order that I got the cards, not by set. So if something happened to my paper listing, all that info currently would be lost. (It's already gotten wet once, although only a very small portion of it)

I need to think about it, though. Do I want to expand out to include the subject of the card? (Usually a person, but not always...further info like SN data? Go full out and list everything, including teams?). That would add a SIGNIFICANT amount of time to the work to get it all onto Excel. I have not decided yet how I will handle it.