Christmas Cards from Chris and Kari

A couple of posts ago, Chris of The Collector mentioned that he had sent me a PIF, but I hadn't seen it yet...it finally showed up, on the 19th...he mailed it on November 23rd! It was in perfect condition, but it would have been faster if we had just set out on foot, as Chris isn't that far away from me, haha.

Inside was a great bunch of cards, and this...

OK, that's cool! I knew he wasn't my Secret Santa because that showed up within a week of Jon sending out the names and addresses!

 From 1978-79 O-Pee-Chee, only my 5th card from this set.

 My first and second cards from 1979-80 O-Pee-Chee!

 Chris Stewart from 2013-14 Black Diamond

 A new Henrik Lundqvist from 2015-16 MVP!

 From 16-17 O-Pee-Chee

And my very first card from the 2019-20 O-Pee-Chee set! I missed this year's OPC totally...I didn't think I was going to be able to get any of them, so this is a very welcome card. Kyle Connor was the first NHL autograph I ever pulled back in the 2016-17 season, and he's become one of the most important players on the Jets.

The last card I needed was this awesomely diamond cut parallel from 1993-94 Topps! It's pretty unusual to see a cutting error on a parallel...this may be the first in my entire error collection, I can't think of any others off the top of my head! Also, 1994 is very late for a Diamond cut. I think it may be my newest Diamond Cut card as well. Unfortunately, it scanned with a bit of a yellow tinge that it doesn't have in real life, sometimes my new scanner does that for some reason.

I'm not sure which card is my favorite here. Two new sets, a new card of my favorite player, and an error that stands out as unusual! Thanks Chris!

I was going to post about this mailing when I posted about the cards I got for Christmas (I know there will be some because I bought some for myself, but my family never disappoints me) but since I was doing a post about an unexpected Christmas gift, I must mention a very pleasant surprise I got from Kari, aka Karsal, on the Trading Card Database. He sent me more than 150 cards (stickers) from a car set I never even knew existed, but would have had on my wantlist had I known it existed. It's from 1994, and made by a company called Service Line, and is called Auto 2000. It's a European set, obvious because it features European cars heavily, but it has vehicles from all around the world. There's not a lot of love for 1990s cars in the hobby (or anywhere else) so these were really fun to get. Here's just a small sampling:

 A Fiat concept car, #1 in the set.

 In the USA, the NSX was marketed as an Acura, and it's my favorite Japanese car ever.

 A station wagon card! Mercedes-Benz was one of the last to offer a true wagon in the USA. I believe Buick and Subaru both have one now, but that's it.

Believe it or not, this is the second card I have of a Dodge Caravan/Chrysler Town & Country/Plymouth Voyager! This is the European model, so it's called a Chrysler Voyager, which is unusual to me. It carries the Plymouth name, has the Chrysler Pentastar, and the Dodge grill...how different!

 Range Rovers were a status symbol then, and still are.

There are several concept cars scattered throughout the set.

Quite a few are Panini style puzzle cards, most of which I now have both of. This Volkswagen Concept 1, which became the New Beetle in 1998, is one where I only got one half. I decided to show this one instead of one where I have both halves because I don't want to struggle with combining them into one image, LOL!

These really are awesome, and the ones I don't have now ARE on my wantlist! He also sent along the first actual Christmas Card my family got this year, and I will show that on Christmas Day when I do my annual Christmas post.  Thank you Kari!