No National for me. Going to be posting here instead.

I really thought this was the year. My 30th Anniversary in the hobby, the first time I got to celebrate an anniversary- I didn't stop to count what year it was in the hobby until #26, meaning I missed 25, darn it. (25 was 2013, the year I came literally 5 minutes short of dying)  It just can't happen. Although the getting there part is solved, thankfully, by us getting a car. Getting in the door, the motel, the fact that I wouldn't be able to buy anything, it just can't happen. Don't get me wrong, having a car and being able to go to the doctor when I need to- which is fairly often if you include the tooth doctor, aka dentist, is a great thing. But we also paid for medicine with quarters today, so, yeah, I don't have the money to go to the National.

I'm not going to lie- I'm depressed. About it. (before it too, but that's a whole other story. And frankly, even if I was able to go, I would still be anyway...)

So instead I'm going to be posting here every day the first 5 days of August. I have a couple of usual features and 1 new one making it's debut.

I also got the largest COMC order I've ever placed- just over 400 cards- that I'd been building for months and months, and was paid, in part, by the sale of some of the duplicates from that case I did. My family mostly gives me money for COMC now for all gift giving occasions, which paid for 95% of the rest of it.

Considering my thoughts on that case, maybe it's better- for Panini- I won't be there to tell them my thoughts. As it is, they don't publish my comments on their blog anymore, even when I compliment what they are doing. They probably see me as a whiner, but in reality, I LIKE what they are doing- they just don't do enough of it. I don't want to start ranting about them again, and as I know, they don't care.

I don't plan to post all the cards I got from COMC this time- I've done that the last few times, it's a lot of work for posts that are basically "hey look at my new stuff". I'll post them up when I need to, of course, and some will be seen in the coming week, naturally.

For now, I'll show one of them though.

 The order contained three printing plates, and this is my first yellow! With this one, I now have one of each color. The other two WILL get posted, but I am not sure it will be this week or not. This is 2017-18 Panini Contenders #37, and that is Klay Thompson, in case you can't tell. I truly love printing plates. and this order, I think, pushed me past 10 of them in my collection, 2 of which I actually pulled myself. I may have cleared that mark already, I've never stopped to count how many I have. (you can bet I will be doing that soon) Yellow is my current second favorite color, behind green, which is not used in plates. So, I'm pretty happy to get a yellow. The other two in the order were Magenta, which is basically pink.

My point is, stay tuned for some content that I think is going to be interesting- and even if nobody else does, I'm going to post them anyway. And if you can go to the National, if you get any NASCAR promos you don't want, please consider trading them to me. I know they will be in the Panini sets. I would also like to get my hands on any NBA or NHL promos they do, but I know there are more people who collect them you may rather trade them to. If you do get there, have fun, most of all. From what I have seen online there's some incredible, spectacular stuff to see, cards and memorabilia that you can't see anywhere else.

Maybe one day I will actually be able to see that stuff with my own eyes. Until/if then (I doubt it will ever happen), I'll be posting here.

Living on the Edge

Today is a pretty momentous day for our family...we picked up the first new family car we've ever had! It's a 2018 Ford Edge Titanium that, this morning, had exactly 6 miles on the odometer! It has 43 now!

We have never, ever had a new car as our family daily driver before, our newest car before this is a 1994 Jeep, which as you know, doesn't move anymore. In fact, we've never even been the 2nd owner in my lifetime!

A huge thank you to my brother for making this happen! Without him, it would not have been possible.

My mom (seen in the front end photo from the test drive) has never gotten to pick out a car in her entire life, and she's been driving since 1971.  That should show you how big a deal this really is!

We've already been to the card shop, in fact, that was the first stop, and these two packs were the first cards to come home in it. (in fact, as I type this, they are still in it, as I forgot to grab them when we got home, but for good reason- we had also made a KFC run! )

For at least the next three years and 45,000 miles, this will be our daily driver...even though we don't actually do that much driving. I have to visit the doctor and dentist this week and now we will be able to with ease. Had to hit the card shop first, though, couldn't do something lousy like that first.

Funny thing...I had my mind pretty much set on a Ford Explorer...got there, didn't like it. I didn't even know the Edge existed...but when I saw it, I knew, pretty much instantly, it was "the one"...and as soon as we all sat in it, I was sure.

This is such a big deal, I didn't even write up a post yesterday about my largest ever COMC order arriving, yes, on a Sunday.

I'm looking forward to it getting dark out so I can see it lit up at night. What a great day it has been!

Sharks Week

This week on TV was the 30th Anniversary of Shark Week...I didn't watch it, as I have not for any of the 29 previous years. (Other than the Hammerhead I could do without sharks).

However...the San Jose Sharks? Them, I like. So, to take a bite out of writer's block, I present to you, my chums, every San Jose Sharks card I've scanned in the past week.

What, you say this post doesn't live up to your expectations? Well, bite me!

Christmas in July? Not quite, but...

at exactly 3:33 PM today, I finished scanning all the cards I got for Christmas 2017, which was quite a few! Exactly 1012 cards, my 9th largest documented day for getting new cards in my life, in fact. It's been a lot of work to get them all scanned- but it's not like I'm complaining. I genuinely enjoy scanning, for the most part. (Mirror foils and Finests, not so much). I also did not work on them non-stop either. Pretty much every new card I've gotten in 2018 has taken precedence, plus I did some others just because I get burned out quickly on doing the same set over and over. Not to mention, I basically took all of February and March off from scanning, only doing what I needed to do for my Card of the Day project, essentially.

This was the final card to get scanned:

 That is 2016-17 Panini Threads #183, of Ron Baker, who was undrafted but ended up playing his way onto the roster during Summer League, and has become a regular rotation player for the Knicks- most notably breaking his face when he tried to stop an Anthony Davis dunk and his face made contact with Davis's elbow. (Baker is 6 foot 4, Davis is 7 feet!)

I got three hobby boxes for Christmas last year, 2016-17 Upper Deck 2 NHL, 2016-17 Panini Threads NBA and 2017-18 Upper Deck 1 NHL, a handful of blasters, plus some other cards. It was a very good day!

This is the first time I've actually worked on and completed the Christmas cards since...hmm, I guess 2011. By Christmas 2012 I was already active on the Trading Card Database, and once I began posting there, I was setting aside everything that already was scanned on there to go back to later, after I got my entire collection on there. That later is now, because I finished that project of getting my entire collection up on there in December, actually on Christmas Eve!

But, it gets even better!

Since I've gotten everything on the Database, it's given me the free time to work on whatever I feel like scanning. I've been using a lot of that time to work on new stuff. Partially because it's just easily accessible, partially because I'm making the conscious effort to stay caught up with new cards as I get them. I have pretty much gotten all of the 2017-18 NBA cards scanned- I have a couple I can't do, because they need to be done as a full page unit, until my COMC order arrives, which should be next week. It will be the first time since I got back into the NBA in 2012-13 that I will have finished scanning everything before the next season starts! Part of the reason I got back in was because of all the fun I had listing my collection on the Database. It's all connected. Since I only began scanning in 2009, this will be the first time EVER it happens for the NBA! It has happened for NASCAR before, but not since 2015 when there was only one set issued. I have it going for 2018 but I have only about 4 packs' worth for the season so it has been easy.

I will have the entire 2017-18 NHL season in my collection scanned before the new 18-19 cards begin arriving, as I'm almost there as well! We just pre-ordered an 18-19 MVP box. I have about 100 OPC cards, which require two scanners (the scanner that works for the fronts can't handle the old school brown backs as a unit) but I should be able to finish them before the box arrives.

Of course, when the COMC box arrives, there are 17-18 cards from both the NBA and NHL in the box, which I will prioritize for scanning. I've been building the order for so long I don't even remember what's in there. I don't THINK there are any 2018 NASCAR cards in there, but I can't say that for sure.

Hopefully I will be able to keep this going in future years...I don't know how much I will be getting going forward, especially in the NBA, as they are cutting back on real sets and focusing solely on 5-cards-for-$400 memorabilia delivery systems, which I refuse to buy on principle, let alone that I can't afford them. (I pick off whatever is cheapest on COMC though, usually, just to have the set represented in my collection). Time will tell.  As soon as I hit publish on this post, I'm going to start scanning the fronts of the O-Pee-Chee cards that need scans, because that scanner is plugged in. I will probably finish them tomorrow. The scanning won't end, as by my estimation I still have more than 50,000 cards needing scans.

Although all this probably doesn't seem like a big deal to anyone, it's pretty exciting for me. Doesn't quite make up for the fact that I wasn't feeling good enough to go with my model club on their field trip to the USS Slater floating museum, but it is an accomplishment.

New NHL Players added to my collection in June 2018

I'm trying a new concept here, not sure if this is the final format I will use, but I'll see how it goes. I was sort of doing something similar in the past, but I'm doing it a little differently now. Unlike the last time, I am not going to attempt biographical information, nor will I limit each post to ten people. This is, in theory, going to be a month-by-month look going forward, of the new people I add each month. I can't guarantee I will remember to do it each month, and there may be some months I don't add anyone- there's also the possibility that I will get so many new people that I get overwhelmed, which is what put an end to the project last time.
Because I am so very OCD, they will appear in this post in the actual order they joined my collection.

Since I began watching and collecting the NHL, it has become a major factor in my life, a part of every single day. Of course, it was only natural for me to extend out my projects of getting everybody represented on cards into my collection to my newfound passion. The projects have been very successful in both NBA and NASCAR, and it didn't take me long to decide to do it for the NHL as well.
As of right now, I do not plan to do posts like this for the NBA or NASCAR, because I will cover the people in the ongoing Encyclopedias, however, I do not have enough cards scanned, or enough knowledge yet, to attempt an NHL Encyclopedia.

Here's a look at the new people I added to my collection during June, 2018.

2017-18 Upper Deck UD Portraits #P-77

2017-18 Upper Deck #312

2017-18 Parkhurst #291

2017-18 Upper Deck #269

2017-18 Upper Deck UD Portraits #P-99

Zykov is alphabetically the 2nd-to-last person in my NHL collection.

2017-18 Upper Deck #498

2017-18 O-Pee-Chee #646

2017-18 Upper Deck UD Portraits #P-76

2017-18 Upper Deck #460

2017-18 Upper Deck UD Portraits #P-89

1973-74 O-Pee-Chee Dark Back #167

This is also my first card from 1973-74 OPC.

2008-09 Artifacts #90

2014-15 Artifacts #26

2017-18 Upper Deck UD Portraits #P-61

2017-18 O-Pee-Chee Platinum Rainbow #157

2017-18 O-Pee-Chee Platinum #186

2017-18 Upper Deck #253

2017-18 Upper Deck #458

2017-18 Upper Deck Rookie Materials #RM-IB

2017-18 Upper Deck #497

2011-12 Upper Deck #325

The vast majority of the new players came from this year's Upper Deck Series 2...which is not all that surprising, as I bought a hobby box earlier in the month. I have actually not opened all the packs out of it yet, so there could still be more new people to come from it.

21 new people, 14 of whom came from 17-18 UD.

cards as i now see them...in my hand

recently, jim, the legendary gcrl, from cards as i see them reached out to me for my address and a short time later a package arrived that can be described only as eclectic. let's take a look at some of the contents...

a big highlight were these 10 cards from 2018 donruss, the only real nascar set from each season, but i didn't get a whole lot of it this year. this is essentially only my 4th pack, i think. the terry labonte is an insert, too. they are not in number order, just in the order i scanned them in. the christopher bell card is only my second or third of him, he's going to go far in the sport.

getting the non-sports cards that topps puts in baseball sets is always a challenge for me, i never think to look for them on comc because i just go straight to the sports i actively collect, and by time i remember i'm out of money. this card is much appreciated and will appear ahead in my card of the day wrapup for july.

is the hot dog actually visible here, or just the slop they piled on it? we ended up with 16 hot dogs left over from our family reunion, all three members of my immediate family will get multiple meals out of that!

 there was some baseball...

 some football...

 some hockey...

 some basketball...

 and even some college football in the mix!

i have recently really embraced the multi-sport sets. for most of my life i considered them a waste. not part of my actual collection because they weren't specifically nba sets, which is all i cared about for the most part. now, though, i have come around on them and really enjoy them. they shined in this package, but i am not going to show most of them because i need them for another post which you will see in the first week of august (i hope) but here are a couple i can show now...

a whole bunch of minis from 2014 golden age. i just picked up the standard size ausbie back in january of this year, have not even scanned it yet. the minis were a mixture of mono blue and green backs. the dom dimaggio card is the first time any dimaggios appear in my collection.

9 out of the 10 1990 collegiate collection michigan state promos made an appearance. not coincidentally the 10th card that wasn't here is a certain mr. garvey.

 i had not even heard of the leaf best of sports brand before. it's a pretty nice set, actually, and i really hate that leaf is being shut out of the market by the exclusive licenses. they do pretty good work actually.

i think my favorite card in the mailer may be this one...

although i have not really talked about it much on cardboard history, (there aren't many cards that fit the bill) architecture and old buildings is a major interest of mine. and winter is my favorite season. if you look closely this photo was taken during a snowstorm, there is snow falling. it's hard to see but look at the door and the two barrels, there are a few snowflakes visible there. and the snow is still on the trees too, which does not last long after a storm.  this card is for the farmers museum in cooperstown, someplace i very well may go at some point in the next couple of years.

another card from the same insert joined this one:

 a very pretty lake. this actually reminds me a lot of lake george, my favorite place in the entire world, but this is lake otsego. it's about 3 hours west and a little south of lake george. lg's got higher hills and mountains though. i love the fact that i live in this part of the country, the lush greenery is everything i could ask for.

this was a really fantastic mailer, jim, i thank you. and there will be some more cards in a future post like i mentioned...in fact at least two future posts counting the card of the day. i don't have anything that fits your collections to send as a thank you but i will see what i can come up with.

jim's trademark is that he never, ever uses capital letters in his posts. i tried to do that here too but it's second nature to me to hit that shift key, in a few instances i found myself backspacing, and one or two may have slipped in. it's harder than it may seem to do that!