20 Thousand Hockey Cards

I hit a major milestone on the 19th, and didn't even realize it at first! Yes, the title gives it away...20 thousand different hockey cards....that's unbelievable to me. And, I know I've said this before, but I have my fellow collectors to thank for more than half of them! Case in point? The 20,000th card was a gift from SumoMenkoMan, who sent me a factory sealed box of the set in either 2018 or maybe even late 2017, I can't remember. Due to my year-long burnout that lasted all of 2019, I have not actually touched the box they were in for over a year...err, I should say, had not. I very much have now!

I'm kind of in disbelief because this is so amazing. I've only been officially collecting hockey cards since January 2017. That's not a long time by any means...yet I've already built a pretty amazing collection, by my standards. And I have no intention of stopping any time soon...granted, I did have 3000 cards already when I started collecting (exactly 3000) which also came from friends.

The milestone card ended up coming from 1991-92 Pro Set Platinum. It's not my favorite set, due to the lack of the player's name on the front and the font used for the player's name on the back...but it's still a fine set and I'm well on my way to completing it...hopefully when I finish the box Ryan sent I'll finish Series 2. I'm currently at 140 of 300 cards but I've only opened about 6 to 8 packs out of the 36 packs in the box, so I've got a lot more coming. Interestingly, when my friend sent me the nearly 3000 hockey cards in 2015, he sent a bunch of series 1 but only 2 cards from series 2...so the box Ryan sent me will turn out to be almost all new! The set was kind of innovative, though...it's tied as the first borderless set and the first glossy, UV coated set. And may be the first set to not have names on the front, I don't know for sure. Certainly the first in decades. I'm not very familiar with sets from the 1960s and back.

I have been thinking for a while now that at some point the NHL will someday hold the #1 spot in my collection. It's a long time off, but maybe not that long at the rate I'm going! What's even more amazing is that I've hit a new NHL milestone every single month of 2020 so far...and I might be able to keep that up, considering the size of the stash I still have from Ryan, Shane, and the stash I built up for the Card of the Day project that gave me the burnout. I'm going through them slowly so I don't overwhelm myself but it is a key reason that I've gotten a new milestone every month, since I've dipped into the stash at least once every month, so far. In case you're wondering, to take the top spot the NHL will need to increase by 73,000+ cards. Considering how many more hockey cards are available than NBA, I am quite sure it will happen, especially as I'm spending much more time and energy on the NHL currently.

This is that milestone card: