January 2026 New People

 What a month January was. I started by completing a set I've been chasing for 3 decades, I doubled my set completion totals from 2025, (2 sets) I updated my tradelist and started trading on the Database again, I came up with a new technique to scan some cards, and oh yeah- I had a nasty infection which left me in agony for a week. Plus we had a 14 inch snowstorm on top of all that, and the coldest temperatures we've seen in 7 years. Calling it a whirlwind would not be an exaggeration. 

And hey, in that time I also managed to scan 1081 cards! That's quite a lot. 

115 of them were new people I had never scanned before...although I was SURE I had scanned a George Washington Carver card in the past. It's possible that card was one of the scans I lost in 2016 when my first remote hard drive died, and why I now keep every scan I make in multiple places. 

There are some big names here. Connor Zilisch is the biggest prospect in NASCAR in 2 decades. Shane Van Gisbergen was the first driver to win his debut race since 1963. Florian Xhekaj is only the 4th person in my collection to start with the letter X. Zach Boychuk is the only NHL player to follow me on Twitter. Non-Sports again gets a big boost with the Pieces of the Past cards I added. Marie Curie, Herman Melville (who I'm related to), Beethoven, Monet, van Gogh, Rembrandt, and more. WNBA got a big boost since they got their first real set since 2019. 

I also hit 500 different people with a last name starting with A this month. It's the 15th letter to hit the 500 mark. F is at 499 people although I didn't scan anyone new this month, one of only five letters with E, Q, U and Y to not get anyone new. 

However, even bigger news is that hockey hit 4000 people scanned! But bigger still. Non-sports hit 1000 people scanned! I came into the month with 3999 hockey and 981 non-sports scanned, and I didn't know when the month started that I would hit the mark. I in fact didn't even realize it until I was composing this post.

I don't know who Scan #1000 for non-sports was, but Upload #1000 is Edvard Munch.

This came from the 2025 Pieces of the Past Art & Music Edition set, which is a great one. 

I did know who would be #1000 for hockey and I paid attention to that. It was Ella Shelton.

I'm so glad the PWHL is getting cards now. I missed the 2023-24 set entirely but I was able to get two blasters of the 2024-25 set. Unfortunately most of the base cards were the exact same in both blasters- even the Dazzlers Blue insert was the exact same. Panini style, unfortunately. 

I got 679 new cards in January, thanks in large part to a major sale Blowout cards had. One of them I got was a jumbo box of 2019 Donruss NASCAR which was the second set I completed this year. Of the 679 new cards, 201 of them came from that box. I didn't hit 679 new cards until May 1st last year! 

I also like to work on my card listing while I watch the snow so I opened up some of my pack stash during the multiple snow storms we had this month. 

I was able to add 70 new people to my collection in January, split mostly by the WNBA blaster I got and the various Pieces of the Past sets I got as well

Overall I would say January, hobby wise, was already better than most of 2025 was. I'll be curious to see how the rest of the year plays out. 

This month marks 30 years of watching the NBA so I'll have to do something to celebrate that.