Set Completion: 1994 Power

I was in such a burnout mode last year that I didn't write up a Set Completion post for any of the 6 sets I completed in 2019. The burnout is now over, I'm back...and I have already completed two sets in 2020! The first you saw about in the Christmas Part 3 post, but now a set is getting it's own post, and hopefully I will keep that up...I may go back and retroactively write posts for the sets I completed in 2019, and perhaps even older, someday...but not now.

Set: 1994 Power
Set Size: 150 Cards
Began Collecting: 1994, when the set was issued. Exact date unknown.
Completed: January 18th, 2020 (26 years), from a hobby box I found at a model car show
Full Checklist and Gallery: 1994 Power
Thoughts: Although 1994 is my favorite season ever for NASCAR cards, I would actually consider Power to be my 18th favorite set out of 19 major sets issued for the year. (Only Skybox is lower, and that is because it's tall-boy sized and the smallest set of the year at only 26 cards) The design is just simply not all that great, and the majority of the car photos are either digitally altered, partially covered, or both... The checklist of the set confused the heck out of me as a 10 year old- the first 73 cards in the set have prefixes on the number, and I figured they were some sort of insert or parallel. Not the case, it was just weird. I had so few of them when new that I didn't figure it out then...I'm not sure when I finally did, but by time I made the paper listing for the set in 2007 I had it figured out...The set has a very rare Dale Earnhardt Hologram that is serially numbered, but I do not have it...the only copy on COMC is listed at $1000 although a lot of that is due to the case it's in....the set has one full parallel, Gold Cup '94, which was one per pack...I have 44 of 150. There was also a partial parallel of Prisms for the car cards at the end of the set, which was retail only...I have 4 of 20. This was the last release ever from the Pro Set company. Being typical Pro Set, there are two major errors in the set: T.W. Taylor is shown on one of Mike Wallace's cards (Taylor did not get a card in the set) and Barney Hall's card back is printed upside down. on both the base and Gold Cup cards.
Favorite memory of the set: Honestly, I don't have a lot of memories of it. I think I only got four packs worth when new, and I have filled in some more since then, over the years...but I think my favorite memory may actually be when I opened the box I bought while watching the snow fall on the day I completed the set.
Last card needed: #118, Jimmy Spencer, of Junior Johnson & Associates.

Kobe

Shocking, sad news out of the NBA today...Kobe Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash. Man, Kobe was an icon of my generation. The 1996 draft was the first I saw, one of the best ever, and Kobe was probably the best player in that class.

There's not much more I can say that hasn't been said by others already. He was just a special talent. I know he may not have been perfect, didn't always do the right thing...but that doesn't mean he isn't an icon.

After he retired, he dedicated much of his time to coaching youth sports, and that's what he was doing today...flying with his 13 year old daughter to a game, which she was to have played in and he to have coached...hearing that the other people on the helicopter was a teammate of his daughter and one of her parents, and the pilot. None of them survived.

Just last night, LeBron passed him for third all time in NBA scoring. His last social media post was congratulating LeBron.

Kobe was only 41 years old. Names and ages of the other people on the helicopter have not been revealed yet.

So many sports people have been killed in small plane crashes, just since I began watching them...it's terrible. And people wonder why I won't fly....it's partly because I keep seeing people I know of getting killed.

Kobe cards rank 2 out of my top 5 greatest pulls ever...

 This scan is not very good...I didn't know what I was doing when I started out...I pulled this card on Christmas Day, 2000. It was only the second jersey piece I had ever pulled myself, the first coming earlier that day. And it was autographed as well...

I don't remember when I pulled this one, although I'm sure I have the info on paper. The AutoFocus set from UD Glass is printed on thick clear plastic.

I'm still in shock over this...RIP Kobe, Gigi and the other three people who we don't yet know the names of.

Randomish Rangers from COMC

I like to sort by various subjects on COMC and just pick off cheap cards I don't have yet, and one of my topics to search for is Rangers. Of course, I don't just pick up anything- I pick out cards I'm unlikely to get any other way.

 This is a promo for 197-98 Zenith, and it's also my first card from the set. COMC stated "corner ding" but they neglected to mention that it had a big spot of adhesive on the front, which looked like price tag residue. Luckily, I was able to save it. The corner ding is unnoticeable and not as bad as some that they don't say anything about.

 2001-02 Topps Chrome Refractor, only my second card from the set. {I got two more Refractors from the set in my Christmas order, and they got posted first!}

 I love the clear cards in Ice. Since 2005-06 has the rookie cards of Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin and Henrik Lundqvist, I have about 0% chance of ever getting to open a box of them, so I'm picking up the clear rookies on COMC when they pop up cheaply.

 I did a random search for Promo and these came up (also where I found the LaFontaine). Never had seen them before. So, I added it to my collection. It's a 2012-13 Universal/GTS promo.

 epack exclusive Compendium. If we could buy compendium as a real set, it would be my favorite of every year, because it gives every player a card...which is what it should be.

 I don't even remember how I found this one, but it's my first card from 2018-19 SPx and I think my 2nd of Andersson.

 I don't really like these gold foiled parallels from Upper Deck, which are epack Exclusive, but I still pick them up from time to time. Usually only for Rangers, Golden Knights or a select few favorite players. They tend to be very cheap on COMC.

While I was looking for the Zuccarello Green parallel I posted in my Hockey Favorites post, I saw Kreider there for about 30 cents and added him as well.

Hitting the Favorites- Non-Sports

It's so much easier to find cards for my favorite athletes. Type in their name, and hundreds of options are available. My favorite non-sports subjects? Not so much. In fact, this is the first time I've ever been able to get enough in one shipment to be able to make a post about them!

My love for squirrels is well known. But they are hard to find on cards! Or anything else for that matter. Most of the squirrel memorabilia you can find are related to red squirrels, which I couldn't identify with because we only ever had grays. Well, that is different, as we have had two reds visiting the yard recently, and so, I can happily add Red Squirrel cards to my collection now! (granted, it didn't stop me from doing so before, either, but I wasn't as happy about it)

 1939 Player's Animals of the Countryside

 1958 Brooke Bond British Wildlife

 1964 Hitchman's Dairies Animals of the World

 1982 Grandee British Mammals

1990 Brooke Bond A Journey Downstream

 1994 Brooke Bond Going Wild

2018 Wacky Packages Go to the Movies Sci-Fi Film Stickers

7 new squirrel cards! Can't beat that...in fact, it nearly doubles my collection because I had only 4 before getting this box! Except for the 1939 Player's set, all the others are brand new sets to my collection...and this is the first Wacky Packages card I've ever bought. As a general rule, I don't like them...but this one I did. Maybe someday I'll even pick up the parallels. Funny thing is, I have no idea when I'm going to post this, but I am writing it just days after visiting the American Museum of Natural History, and seeing lots of actual Jurassic remnants!

My other favorite topic, cars, was much harder to find. I do periodic searches for El Caminos (none new, I have all I know of already) and Edsels. I thought I had them all...but I didn't. I was quite surprised to find a new card of an Edsel for sale on COMC.

From 1962's B.T. Limited Modern Motor Cars, this card actually cost me more than any other that I got in this COMC order I think, at 4 dollars and change. There are two other back versions but the front image is exactly alike so I am not too inclined to buy the other two...not at that price. All three versions were being sold by the same seller.

One of the backs in in French and I think the two English versions may have been translated...certainly not written by anyone who knows anything about Edsels. Aside from referring to it as a Ford Edsel, which is so wrong- it'd be like calling a Cadillac a Chevrolet! Both made by General Motors but totally different- it also refers to the Ranger model as a "Rouger". And interestingly enough, the text refers to the car as if it's brand new, when in reality, the brand had been killed by the time this card was issued. And we know the card is properly dated because the set does include 1960s cars. Quite an oddity.

With this card, I now have 4 of the 7 known to me cards of the Edsel brand. While my completion percentage has gone down with the discovery of three new cards, I am in actuality very happy to be able to add another to my collection.

Cardboard History History of Cardboard 1920-1929

The Roaring Twenties, which, in just a short while, will be 100 years ago. (Can you tell I wrote this in December 2019?) Trading cards would be affected by the Great Depression but not all that much...more on that next time. Art Deco styling ruled supreme and classical styling underwent a resurgence in popularity, led by the coinage designs of Augustus Saint Gaudens.

1920

1920 Neilson's Automobiles

1921

1921 Gallaher's Animals and Birds of Commercial Value

1922

1922 Lambert & Butler's Motorcars

1923

1923 Mitchell's Famous Crosses

1924

1924 Player's Natural History

1925

1925 Wills's Life in the Tree Tops

1926

1926 Wills's Did You Know?

1927

1927 Wills's Engineering Wonders

1928

1928 Player's Products of the World

1929

1929 Player's Hidden Beauties

The second half of the 1920s are a gaping hole in an otherwise nicely progressing tobacco card collection. That is also the time period in which the NHL got cards for the first time, however, I don't expect to ever be able to afford any of them. The card representing 1929 was my first traditional tobacco sized card, a gift from a member of the now-defunct Non-Sports Card Forum. Unfortunately I do not remember who sent it to me. Updating my original caption: 1920, 1925, 1926, 1927 and 1928 were all part of the COMC Christmas present from my brother. Since I wrote up this series, I knew what years were missing, and was able to target them. That's also why I've held off on posting any more of this series, since I knew that I had quite a few coming to me. The 1920 Neilson's Automobiles is now my oldest car card...the first car cards date to 1911, at least that I'm aware of. Getting closer! It's a little bit rougher than I usually like to buy, but this set is exceptionally rare...the only reference I could find to it at all was the single card that was available on COMC, which is this one.

10 years to scan, 9 days to post. (Update! Cardboard History won!)

At 7:23 AM on Thursday morning, January 9th, I completed transitioning the sports by season and non-sports by subject over to the Cardboard History Gallery. I started around 2 AM on January 1st, and honestly, it didn't take me as long to do as I expected. I figured it would take me most of January to do, considering how many scans I uploaded. But this is good. I had been storing all my scans on my original Fotki in this format since I began scanning in 2009, and it's how my scans have always been stored in my archive as well...so it was a simple matter to upload them to the new one. Since I launched the Gallery on October 18th, 2018, it has taken up a lot of my time, and it's been taking it up for longer than that- the prep work took me over a year before I was ready to launch.

Now all my card stuff is in one place.*

You can browse sports by person, team, set or season. Non-Sports is available by subject, person (if applicable) and set...automotive by brand...Non-Sports by year is still yet to come. After such a big project I want a little break before I tackle that aspect. For the sports that don't have their own section, they can be browsed by person, season and set...but not by year or team. Not enough to make it worth it.

Please take a look at the Cardboard History Gallery. I've put so much effort into it...it's not just tracking my collection, it's a resource that can be used as well. With 464,934 scans posted...and there will be more by the time you read this...it's my own personal collection database, but I've made it so anyone can see it.

* I have yet to transition the Error Gallery over yet.

I have also put a clickable logo for the Gallery on the right side of my page. It's right below the archive of previous posts. Now it's easier than ever to go and look at what I've done.

Update: Shortly after this post went live, the Trading Card Database awards were revealed, and Cardboard History won Blog of the Year for the 3rd time in the 4 years of the award. I'm shocked, as I consider 2019 to be a down year in Cardboard History's....history.

I also won Most Congenial, for some reason 😉

Thanks to whomever voted for me!

Christmas Part 3: $100 for COMC. 3 off my Top 10 and lots of hockey!

Here's the final Christmas post of 2019, although, yes, we are more than halfway through January 2020. Hey, it takes time to get this stuff shipped, scanned, and posted.

My brother gave me $100 to spend on COMC this Christmas, and I did very well on it...I think I did. Something I hadn't done in a while was check my Top 10 most wanted list...remember that list on the sidebar of Cardboard History that's only had 9 cards on it for a while now because I got one of them and couldn't pick what to replace it? Well, I got three more!!

With this card I am now one away from completing the two Skybox Simpsons sets! There is a copy of the last card I need on COMC, but I'm not spending $3.25 on Jimbo Jones.  I've waited since 1994, as I got most of them when new. I'll continue to wait until I find one at a good price.

The last two cards I needed for 1992 ARCA Flash! I bought a factory sealed factory set way back in 2009, but instead of getting the complete set, I got two duplicates and was shorted two cards. These instantly went to the top of my most wanted list, and have remained there ever since. I don't remember the last time I checked COMC, but since then somebody broke up a set and listed them on COMC. I am thrilled to finally have these! Now I need to restructure my Top 10 most wanted list.

After finding those three, I decided I wanted to get a bunch of hockey cards, because that's what I'm really into now. Those are going to follow below...all of them. I hit the UD Exclusives hard, inspired by pulling one on Christmas day...and I did a search for Refractor under hockey and had some fun there, too. These aren't really sorted...just the order I scanned them in, as I uploaded off the original files, before I renamed them.

 Also my first card of him

 my first card of him too

 The Atomic Refractors are so cool.

 This was the first card out of the box, and it's my first card of him too.

 My first card of Glass.

 My first card from 1999-00 O-Pee-Chee Chrome

 The right half of this card is clear plastic.

 I mentioned this card in the Hitting the Favorites post

 Trevor Carrick is the only minor league player in the post who it's NOT my first card of.

 Tanner Glass scored the first playoff goal I ever saw in the sport's history.

 Both my first card of Bean and of last year's Ultimate Collection

 My first card of last year's Trilogy

 Great photo on this card.

 can you tell I favor the Rangers?

 Six Platinum Medallions from 2014-15 Ultra. I previously had gotten Mike Fisher's card, not bad to have 7 cards from a set with less than 100 copies extant.

 Love the clear green plastic portion here!

 A full page of 2017-18 UD Exclusives!

 The Green parallels in this year's MVP are some of my favorites. Only available through e-pack, which I don't do, I'm picking them off on COMC. I now have 11 of them and 9 more waiting to be shipped.

I ended up finding a run of Justin Williams UD Exclusives...I got his cards from 2016-17 (this one) through 2018-19 in this order.

 Although not the first shown, this was actually my first card from 2019-20 Parkhurst. My local stores didn't bother to stock it so I've essentially missed it for the third year in a row :( I picked off a few cheap inserts on COMC at least.

I like to scan this year's MVP as full pages, and after Christmas day I came up with 5 cards...needing nine, I grabbed 4 in this order. Fabbro and Grundstrom were just cheap cards I needed towards the set, while Lundqvist and Pacioretty represent my favorite teams. Seeing these scanned also means the first asterisk about scanning my Christmas cards is now done!

Three from this year's Parkies insert from Parkhurst. My first Trouba Rangers card. Parkhurst has photos from this season, the first set to do that, I think. Sure wish I could have gotten some.
Finally, the last card before I shipped the order:

Another card in my 3-decade quest to complete the Platinum parallel of 2009 Press Pass. (think about it, I started in 2009, then the 2010s, now the 2020s). I try to add at least one with each COMC order...I'm now up to 29 out of 220, or 13.2% according to the Database. I believe this parallel holds the record for most cards out of a SN parallel of any set in my collection although I'm not 100% sure. It certainly holds the NASCAR record...Update! It occurred to me to check the Database and this is my overall record! It had been tied with 1998-99 SPx Finite Spectrum NBA with 28 cards but now moves past it!

That wasn't all the cards I got, but the rest are for my Cardboard History History of Cardboard series...now that I wrote that all out, I knew what I was missing and targeted them...stay tuned to see them in that series!
This was, interestingly, the first COMC order I've ever made without a single NBA card in it. If there's any more indication needed that I am now in my "NHL era", I'm not sure what would be a better illustration.

A big thanks to my brother for the gift! I was able to stretch the $100 to almost 100 cards, and all are great cards that I'm thrilled to have...of course, that's the whole point in buying them!