Breaking Down the Breakdown Box

I finished listing the cards I showed in the previous post from Gavin of Baseball Card Breakdown. I'll take anything, and he had some stuff he wanted to get rid of, so it worked out perfectly!

He got my baseball collection over 1000 cards, before the box I had 901, I'm now at 1759! I know I have a couple more I've misplaced over the years as well, but I'll count that for now.

I also had 87 different baseball sets in my collection, now 216 are represented.  I'm not going to go crazy trying to chase down an example of every set like I did for NBA and NASCAR but it is fun to see how many I can get, just by taking the cast offs from other people's collections.

I also now have most of the Topps flagship sets in my collection. I am missing pre-1957, 1984, 1995, 1998, 2003 and 2005.

Working on these cards made me truly realize how good you baseball collectors have it. When Panini can't be bothered to give us a flagship set larger than 300 cards for a 450 man league, you guys are getting 600 or more cards on a regular basis. My preferred sport has not had a card set hit 500 cards since 1993-94, and my 2nd sport (NASCAR) has never gotten any larger than 340...ever. Topps designs may not always be great but at least you have the cards to chase.

In the final tally, it moved into second place for most new cards with a day, with 2827 new cards. I got 476 new baseball people for my collection, 164 new football people, and some others in other categories, bringing my collection total to 9765 different people..wow! I have a post I wrote up about my march to 10,000 people but I never got around to posting it. I really need to do that...

My favorite, as I mentioned the other day, is the Elton sketch, but since I posted that already, even if just a photo, here are my favorite baseball and football cards, respectively.

2013 Topps Update Emerald #US3. This card looks great in hand, even better than it looks in scan. Green has always been my favorite color and this really pops! It was one of the last cards out of the box and it's one of my favorites.

 2011 Topps Chrome X-Fractor. One of the very first cards out of the box-literally the second one I saw- was this one. I've always loved Refractors, and I've always loved parallels of refractors. This is my first non-NBA Refractor.

Editorial note: Another post I never finished writing, this has been sitting in my drafts folder since November 2016. I kind of trailed off because a lot of the cards were naked ladies which I will gladly collect but don't really show on the blog. Another reason is that a lot of the cards were already done on the Database which meant at that time I set them aside to work on getting things done that needed to be posted there. As I'm no longer contributing to the Database I now regret doing it that way but it's in the past and can't be changed. I'm still working through my cards and the vast majority Gavin sent me are still waiting for their turn to be scanned, 8 years later. Slow but steady I'll get there eventually, but I'm doing it in the way that's most fun for me- completely at random. The boxes are all labeled as to scanned or not scanned. and I'm working through them by simply grabbing a box that has not been scanned and working on scanning it. In theory, anyway. Most of the time I'm just trying to stay caught up with new additions and rarely ever actually grab a box of older stuff to scan. I don't think I've done it even once in 2024 despite being a year with a LOT of scanning in it. 

Anyway, thanks again Gavin! 

Contest Winnings

Editorial note: I wrote this post back in 2017 but never posted it, for some reason I no longer remember. I did not change it other than correcting a typo I found pre-publication. 

This isn't something that happens too often, but I actually won a card related contest! I am a fringe member of the Collector's Universe forum, which is owned and run by a grading company. My thoughts on that concept are not really a secret so I am not on the forum all that often...I try from time to time but there's way, way too much worrying about nothing and not a lot of real collecting. So, I get annoyed and take months off. However, there are still enough posts that make it worth reading, and I've been trying to work myself back into the message board scene...I used to spend hours on message boards every day. When you aren't able to do things, due to health issues, you have to find something to do, and for many years for me that was message boards. That kind of went by the wayside when I began scanning my collection in 2009, to the point where I didn't visit any of them at all. But I did enjoy them, so I'm slowly working my way back in.

That's kind of a long pre-amble, sorry about that.

In August, I won a contest on there. The game was to predict which driver was going to finish second in a particular Cup race. I don't even remember which race at this point, but I know I didn't get it for the first race after I posted. I didn't track the thread. A few weeks later, I see the thread is still getting new posts, so I clicked on it to see what the deal was...and as it turned out, I missed the part of the original post that if there was no winner, it would roll over...eventually, when Martin Truex Jr. finished second at Michigan...I won! The contest runner posted a bunch of stacks of cards and the winner was going to pick five of them. Since I was the winner, I picked the one that showed as Star Wars, the one that showed as hockey and the rest were NBA. The cards arrived and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that some of the cards were from sets I have very few of, but also a little disappointed because I thought I needed a lot more of the Return of the Jedi cards than I actually did...so there were more duplicates than I expected. For some reason I can never remember that I bought a big lot of series 2 (blue border) cards a couple of years ago, and this is actually the second time I've gotten a "lot" of them expecting to add a whole bunch of new cards, only to find out I had them already. Maybe this time it will stick and I won't do it again...but knowing me, probably not.

Now, here are some highlights. I ended up getting 85 new cards and I am not going to post them all, LOL.

This was one of the bigger highlights for me, as it's only my second card from 2006-07 SP Game Used, and only my third of Denham Brown...but the first that shows him in NBA action. Plus, Serially Numbered cards are an addiction of mine.

Speaking of serially numbered cards, this Greg Oden card from 2008-09 Topps Treasury- a mini card that might have come out of a rip card (what a terrible concept that is) but it's SN 23/25. Nice!

One of my biggest achievements in the hobby was completing 2002-03 SP Authentic, including the autographs and serially numbered cards- of a 203 card set, all but 90 were SN. I pulled Yao's autograph, the biggest card in the set,which allowed me to do that. I couldn't do it with the 2003-04 set as I didn't pull LeBron's autograph, so I didn't chase it as much. I am still missing some of the Spectaculars subset, and Yao, card #100, was one of them!

When I first opened the package, I was pretty happy to get some Mystery Finest cards from 1996-97 Topps. Then I looked a little closer- these are Super Teams redeemed cards, significantly harder to find than a standard Mystery Finest. So much so, that I didn't have a single one beforehand. The first design, with the silver border, was the prize if you had a Conference winner. The second version, which has the broken border, is the prize for Division winners. There is also a third version that I have not seen...but I think may be a Refractor for the Champion winner, which would have been the Bulls that year. I actually like the Division winner design better, so I'm glad I got more of them...although I would gladly add the others if I found them in the wild.

Another good one is this Paul Pierce rookie from 1998-99 Ovation. The 10 rookies included in the set were all redemption cards, thanks to the Lockout. They aren't particularly rare as far as redemption cards go but I only have half of them counting this card. I had previously had the SN'd Gold parallel of Pierce- who just retired in June 2017 - but I don't think I got it via redemption, I think I got it on the secondary market. I don't honestly remember. Being the #10 pick (a steal!) Pierce was the final card in the set, #80.

With these two Mournings I'm now 3 cards away from completing both 1992-93 Hoops and Stadium Club. Getting real close, hopefully I will complete them at some point soon. I thought that this was going to knock Hoops out for me but a quick check of my Wantlist on here showed me otherwise.

 I got three of the Lottery Pick redemption cards from 1994-95 Hoops! That's one of my favorite sets, and I didn't have any of the Lottery pick cards previously. Unfortunately they have some contact damage, enough that the Grant Hill card didn't get scanned.

 This one kind of threw me. This is the wrapper exhange card from 1994-95 Hoops. I would never have done that- I save my empty packs- even if I could have. I didn't start collecting the NBA until February 1996 though so it was long expired by then.

Some more NBA highlights, including some great 1990s inserts. Anytime I can get new inserts from 1996-97 Topps is a great day, and here there are some more, in addition to the Super Teams cards. That's only my third Hobby Masters card- the previous two in my collection I pulled when the set was new. Magic gets me 1 card away from the 1989-90 Fleer sticker insert completed. 2006-07 Upper Deck is a set I have very little of...I think only two packs worth. The Rondo is my first RC from the set.

Some of the Star Wars cards I got. There were 9 new base cards, which I scanned all of but didn't show, and some of the stickers, which I needed much more of. The #49 sticker was the one they reprinted in the Abrams' book about the Topps Return of the Jedi set so I had to scan that one.

The set that saw the largest influx of new cards was 1991-92 Pro Set French. I more than doubled my collection of the set, although considering it's a 600+ card set and I now have 30 something, I still have a lot more I can add. I added a bunch here and only scanned a couple (and one of the English versions) because they were all done on the Database already.

Quite a few of the new addition are from the All-Star subset. Somebody sign Jagr already!

The long name game

Editorial note: I was going through my drafts and found this post from all the way back in 2016. It was meant to be a contest but obviously it's not anymore since I blew past the contest goal in 2017. I hadn't even started collecting hockey yet when I wrote this! The normal color text was written in 2016, the white text in 2024. 

As you have probably caught by now, I'm working on a project where I get one card of every person to get a card in both the NBA and NASCAR. It's a project that technically began in 1996 and 1992, respectively, but I didn't really start working on it, or make a list, until I began contributing to the Trading Card Database, which allowed me to easily figure out who was missing, and also who got cards in the NBA sets or NASCAR sets.

But that's not all.

I also have a running list of every person in my collection...not just in my two favorite sports but everything. Every athlete, every person to get a card.

It's a pretty massive project, and I've talked about it before.

I'm closing in on 10,000 names. As of right now, I have exactly 8,969 people in my collection, ranging from Max Aaron to Vladimir Zworykin. Max Aaron is still alphabetically first. Andrei Zyuzin is now last.

Even if I got 1 card of every person missing from my NBA and NASCAR collections it would not take me to the 10,000 mark. At least, not yet. New people get cards all the time, especially in the NBA which averages about 60 new people getting a card each season. Even though 1031 people doesn't sound like a lot, in reality it will probably take me several years to reach the 10,000 mark. It actually took me about 4 months. 

But I also take cards from every sport, and most non-sport. With the non-sport listings, no characters are counted- only people who have been alive on this plane of existence at some point in history.

I could go out and start buying loads of baseball, football and hockey in an attempt to get there by the end of the year, but I'm not going to do that. I'm going to let it play out and see what happens. As it turns out, I did start buying loads of hockey, although not for name expansion reasons.

Where I'm seeing the most growth is multi-sport sets. Every month a new issue of SI for Kids arrives and in the 9 cards included, usually at least 7 of them are new people for my collection. I got one today, on Saturday, that indeed had 7 new people. I also got a package from a friend with SI for Kids cards going back to 1990. While it was heavy on the NBA content it still added 15 new people to my collection. I wish I had never stopped collecting them, but as I've mentioned in the past, I didn't even know it was still being published. (I have a subscription again). The Olympic project I talked about during the Olympics added quite a few new people, as each Olympic set usually does.

Let's play a little game in this otherwise pointless post. Take a guess WHEN I will hit 10,000, and what SPORT it will be. (non-Sport is also in the running and is a viable choice)

Month and year would be the best way to guess.

Whoever comes closest will win a prize, but I have no idea what it will be yet. You may not see it for several years, so keep that in mind!

Here is a screencap of my stats page.

Again, no contest portion as I am well past 10 thousand now. I'm actually approaching 20 thousand...hockey ended up being the topic of person #10,000.

New People in September 2024

 I didn't really feel like writing much in September. For those of you who aren't on Facebook/twitter with me, my Mom had to go back into the hospital and is back in rehab for her legs right now. So that combined with the fact that writing hurts my wrist, and it's just not something I want to do right now. As it is I'm typing this post using only one hand. 

What I have been doing...and doing a lot of...is scanning. I scanned over 1000 cards in September, 1062 to be exact. A LOT of them were people that I didn't have scanned before...a lot were people I didn't even have in my collection before the month began, sort of. I went through some of the baseball and football cards that Shoebox Legends sent me a while back, with about 3/4ths of them new people and 4/5ths newly scanned. 

So this month was very baseball heavy, although pretty much every topic got at least one new person. 

thst is 282 new people scanned, probably not my record but probably in my top 5. 

I decided to also keep track of the new people added to my collection each month. if you look close at this screencap you';ll see i made a mistake and copied and pasted three names twice. please try to ignore that. 

there was only one NHL player, 2 NBA and 3 NASCAR, although without the stash from Shoebox Legends there would have been only those plus the people from an Olympic blaster, the box of Kakawow Diverse I preordered at the National and the SI For Kids magazine subscription, which actually provided one of the three NBA players. 

considering this was a huge upload the fact that it only took me 5 days to finish- with other things going on like visiting my mom and going to one of my model club meetings, plus my ever present health issues, I'm actually shocked. 

Update: I forgot to do the Misc. Sports people. Those are every sport that is not Auto Racing, Basketball, Hockey, Baseball or Football. There were 11 more new people scanned in that grouping. 10 of them came from the 1983 Topps Greatest Olypians set.