A detailed look at some highlights of cards I got for Christmas

 Christmas was awesome, that's already well documented. But it took me a while to get some of the cards scanned, and by time I did it was December 30th, and I already had posts scheduled for the next few days, which due to some things I didn't have control over I ended up posting both on the 31st, so now you finally see some Christmas card highlights...although if you read my Top 12 Cards of the year post you already saw one of them. 

I will cover them in the order I opened them, because that's the sort of thing I do. 

As a refresher, here's what I got for Christmas...

First up was a blaster of 2016 Torque, which had my favorite card that you already saw.

This card is awesome! Two pieces of sheet metal, my favorite memorabilia type, and both are three colors! This confirms that Keselowski's car WAS pearl white as well, something that there was much discussion about on the modeling forum I run. And it's SN to 99 copies. 

The Horsepower Heroes Joey Logano insert and the Red Darrell Waltrip parallel both needed scans for the Database so they got done this year...or last year by the time this gets published. 

Moving to the 2017 blaster, I pulled another awesome sheet metal card and...

this awesome Richard Petty insert parallel. Also a red parallel, obviously, it's SN 49/49, so end of the line, which is pretty cool. It shows his 1989 car but the picture of him is from 1992.

And here's the sheet metal card! I'm not sure where on the car this comes from but I suspect one of the contingency sponsors. Another three color piece, too!

Now I move to 2019 Donruss. That's NASCAR's flagship set and I needed most of the 2019 set, previously only having one blaster's worth. 

Here's a base card...

a black parallel, SN to 199.

Contenders Ticket is one of the inserts, and the only one I pulled more than one card from in the blaster.

Decades of Speed is a cool insert because it features a photo from 1995, one of my favorite seasons. Terry Labonte is my mom's all-time favorite driver so she will enjoy this one as well.

Next in Line is an insert showcasing up and coming young drivers. The 2019 checklist is 9 cards long, 7 of the drivers do not appear in my collection. Unfortunately for my project of getting one card of every person to get one, Riley Herbst previously appeared in the 2018 version of Next in Line, which is the only card I have from either year's set! They didn't bring this insert back unfortunately, so at least I have a complete run of Herbst's cards. He is moving to Stewart-Haas Racing in 2021, and will have a legit chance to win the Xfinity title. 

My relic card was a tire of Denny Hamlin. I could of sworn I had this card already but as it turns out I had the Red parallel. Kind of funny how that worked out, having only two relic cards from the entire set. 

And a Silver parallel, which is really gray. 

Now, moving to hockey, I started with the blaster of 2020-21 Upper Deck 1...

The very first card out was a Golden Knight! That makes this the first set where one of the Knights was the first card out of the pack. While this is not the first time a Knight was my first card from a set, the other instances are where I bought the card as a single so that doesn't really count. I keep track on the Database of the first cards I get from each set, which I started in 2015...so I was able to easily check.

I happened to pull Igor Shesterkin, who will be the starting goalie for the Rangers going forward, friom the very first pack...

and I also managed to pull a Young Gun from my first pack as well! That is also a first for me. The blaster yielded two YG. 

This, however, is my favorite card from the blaster. Even though it's just a cut out of the player in front of a computer generated backdrop, something I normally hate, it's OK here because : 1. it's the Rangers, 2. it's an insert while the rest of the cards are real photos and 3. green is my favorite color and 4. this card looks totally amazing in hand, scans don't do it justice. This is 1990s level of awesome. 

O-Pee-Chee is always a great set, because it's so large, always at least 600 cards. 

You don't get anywhere near that many in a blaster or even a hobby box, but if your goal is to get as many different people as possible, this is the set for you. 

The base card design is clean. I like it. Easy to read name, large photo, team logo. The card stock is thinner this year, but that may be an improvement, as they did have a tendency to come out of the packs damaged in years past. Not a single card came out of this blaster damaged. 

The backs of the cards are white card stock and feature a photo this year! That's a BIG departure from the Upper Deck era of O-Pee-Chee. While the backs have changed a lot over the years, this is the first time they have a photo on the back as far as I know. I also got two Blue parallels but I have not been able to get them scanned yet. I got several Retro parallels which I really like, but didn't get them scanned either.

There were three of the O-Pee-Chee Premier inserts in my blaster, two of which were the yellow Blaster exclusive parallel. I won't complain about that, these are cool. Yellow is my second favorite color, too. OPC is not the set for chasing inserts. There is zero chance for pulling an autograph or jersey card, this is an old school set for collectors. 

Finally, I ended with the MVP Factory set. This is the third year they have done it, unfortunately I missed last year's even though I really wanted it. Unfortunately I ended up not getting card #159, Oliver Bjorkstrand. Even though I'm supposed to get a complete set...have already contacted UD but everything is closed up right now, they did say they will work on it when they get back in the office. Pretty disappointing though. 

The Blue parallel is exclusive to the Factory set, and I really like it. The first year was metallic blue, this year's is just solid dark blue. Not sure what they did last year. Like all MVP sets, they don't show the players with their new teams.

But they do get some rare player/team combos. Wayne Simmonds only played 7 games with Buffalo after being traded there at the trade deadline, something he didn't want to happen. Now he's with Toronto, this will likely be the only Sabres card I get of him, since I didn't pull his OPC card, which also should show him with the Sabres. 

My favorite part of MVP, honestly, is the pronunciation guide on the back. While I've been around the sport enough to know all the veterans by now, it's still helpful with the rookies, and it was very helpful when I was first beginning to follow the sport. It's how I learned that Byfuglien is pronounced Bufflin, for instance. 

Overall, it was a great Christmas...I got plenty of cards, yet not so many that it will make my hand hurt from writing them into my paper listing. I got my #1 most wanted card item, which was the MVP factory set. I am quite pleased with how it went.