Total Blaster 20: The End!

I bet the few people who are reading these are happy this is the end. I know I am! Not because I dislike the cards, but because I really dislike how Press Pass did it. It was only a 50 card set, and you only got one per box...yet I got more duplicates than new, I think, including today, where it goes out with a whimper...as only one card is now.

 Stenhouse base is a dupe, Stewart red parallel is a duplicate, the Edwards Acceleration is not even the first time it's been a duplicate and that is the most frustrating. It's a ten card set...you got one per box and I got 20 boxes, so you'd think I would have completed the insert, especially considering I already had two of them before the project started...but NO. I did not get the Dale Earnhardt Jr. card. Ingram is also a duplicate.

The one new card is the relic, which is Kasey Kahne. This makes it the first year ever my first card of the year was a "hit", I think. (relic/autograph). This one has a scuff on the tire piece and two wear tabs, so the relic is a nice one. I'm happy to get that one even if the rest of the box was a waste.

The best thing though I think, is that this very disappointing series is now over. Let's never speak of it again. Unless you want to trade for any of the many duplicates, that is.

And to think I put off my Goals of the Year post for this...

Total Blaster #19

White Flag! The penultimate 2014 Total Memorabilia blaster was today, and it wasn't a bad one.

Josh Wise is new. I pulled the red parallel previously. Dale Jr. red is new- the first time Dale Jr. has appeared in this project- the Dania Acceleration and Tim Flock cards are both duplicates. I have one blaster to go and all I need to complete Acceleration is Dale Jr. We'll find out on January 1st if I do complete the insert. Knowing Press Pass, it'll be another Keselowski, which would be the 5th in the 20 blasters. 

Relic is Kenseth. It's new. I could have taken a better picture, but...it's Kenseth. good enough.

These might be the last cards I get in 2016. I still have two days and I'm waiting on a trade from the Trading Card Database. Since we have no working car we can only check the PO Box on Saturdays so I may end up getting them on the last day of the year. I don't intend to open any more packs in the remainder of the year so if they haven't arrived yet, this is it...and it's been a great year. These three cards bring me to 10,469 new cards in 2016, and if the trade gets here, that's about 20 more. (I'm not worried about it getting here, it's the third or 4th trade I've made with this person, I just mean if it gets here this year).

I will probably publish another one of my COMC Black Friday posts tomorrow, and then I have a rundown of my favorite new card from each month of 2016 to post on the 31st. I'm going to end the year with a whole bunch of consecutive days of posting, and by publishing this post December 2016 now takes the lead with most posts in a month...I didn't really plan it that way, but I've had a lot to post about lately. And it's going to continue into 2017 because I have a bunch of posts ready to go in the queue already. I don't think I can go post-a-day-everyday like some of the bloggers but that would be fun to try and do sometime.

Total Blaster 18 - 24th Anniversary of becoming a NASCAR fan

It was 24 years ago today I became a NASCAR fan. I was given a big box of Racing Champions cars for Christmas and it hooked me...been hooked ever since! I thought about skipping today's blaster of 2014 Total Memorabilia, and doing two on the first to end the project- yesterday was Christmas, after all- but once I remembered it was my anniversary I had to do it.

Unfortunately the box was not all that good as 4 of the five are duplicates. The Scott, Kenseth and Yarborough all appeared in the same order in Blaster #5.

The one new card was the Michael Waltrip relic.

The actual picture I took was pretty crappy so I cropped down the first image, it's better. This is the first time any firesuit pieces have come out of one of the blasters.

Next year, to mark my 25th anniversary of being a NASCAR fan, I will be launching a new NASCAR series, to run solely as I celebrate 25 years of being a fan, but I have not yet determined if there is enough material to do it weekly (my first thought) or if I will have to do monthly. If there is enough to do it weekly I better get busy because week #1 of 2017 is coming up pretty darn soon. Although the actual 25th anniversary is December 26th, 2017, I am going to celebrate all through the year, and perhaps all through 2018 as well, but I will be celebrating 30 years of being a card collector in 2018 as well and I may not want them to overlap. Time will tell! Of course, if I do it monthly in all of 2017 and 2018 that would give me 24 of them, I am sure I could sneak in a bonus post some time in the two years of the project's lifespan...Hmm...a 25 post series to celebrate 25 years sounds pretty good, doesn't it? And unlike my 20th Anniversary of the NBA series, they would not be on back to back days...decisions, decisions!

Total Blaster 16 & 17

As I mentioned briefly the other day, one of the blasters had been opened and had the relic card stolen. I really didn't get too much from Blowout- a $10 shipping voucher which I may never use- so that's disappointing.

The 4 cards in the blaster were not super spectacular either, in that 3 of them were duplicates.

Aric Almirola again. Jeff Gordon red is a dupe. Bowyer Acceleration is not new.
Tim Flock Hall of Fame is new. That's a good one, I like Tim Flock. It was seeing a feature on him, Junior Johnson and Russ Truelove in 1998 when NASCAR celebrated it's 50th Anniversary that directed me towards becoming more than just a current fan and dedicating much of my life to learning the history of the sport. Sadly cancer took him later in '98.

Today was Blaster #17 and it again was kind of a let down...but that is all on Press Pass.

Jimmie Johnson base is new. Newman red is not. Keselowski relic is a duplicate. Keselowski Acceleration is the 4th time in the 17 boxes I've pulled that very card. Ingram is new for this project but was in my collection from one of the two blasters I got when the set was new in 2014.

So, in two blasters, 9 cards and only 2 were new, although the Keselowski will also count as I count duplicates of serial numbered cards.

Three to go, and still many base cards missing. With how this is going, I would kind of be surprised if I get more than one new base card. I've got a ton of posts in the queue waiting to go, and I'm sure Christmas will lead to a few more as well, as I told my family all I wanted was cards...at the rate I'm going I am likely to post every day remaining of this year!

Total Blaster 15

It's funny how November was a great month for me for posting, but December has been dragging. I got my big order from COMC - big for me- that will give me at least 5 posts. Hit a couple of big goals/milestones as well...But I have not done them. I wrote up two, and I still have posts from November- and some going back to 2015- in the queue but I just can't be motivated to post them. In November I could have easily cranked out two or three posts a day.

I can barely crank out these Total Memorabilia blasters that quite obviously nobody cares about based on views/comments on the posts. Only 5 more to go after this one!

 Michael Waltrip base is new. This is now the 3rd time I've pulled that Vickers red parallel in this project. Even though the set is only 50 cards. Typical Press Pass.
Tony Stewart is a duplicate, I'm down to only needing the Dale Jr. for that set.
I could swear the Maurice Petty was a duplicate, from this project, but my records show the card as being new, and he's not got a tag yet, and I've been tagging everyone who appeared in one of these blasters. Even I don't want to go read through the previous 14 posts in the series to see if I made a mistake somewhere along the line, LOL.

Relic's a nice big piece. I'm not a huge fan of Harvick, but I'm still happy to have it. Even though the picture is craptacular (I should have used my cell phone, instead of my actual camera) it does one thing for me- I didn't notice that there is a piece of blue on there, letting me know this comes fromt he sidewall. There is a blue outline around the yellow tire lettering and I didn't see it when I was looking at the card...now that I saw it on the photo I checked and you can see it- I just missed it. Also, have the base of a wear tab although the tab itself is gone. That's kind of cool.

Total Blaster 14 + JBF Christmas Tradeathon + NHL #3000!

Kind of late to get this posted tonight, but I have two topics to cover and one of them led to a milestone.

First up, because I opened it first, is my 14th Total Blaster, and although the picture is not good, the blaster it self was a great one...probably my favorite so far.

They are all new, which is nice. Jamie McMurray base, Drew Herring red parallel, the Carl Edwards Acceleration and the Ned Jarrett Hall of Fame placque...Herring was only ever included in this set, it's my second card of him, I have the base version already. With the Edwards Acceleration I'm now one card away from completing the insert.

Here we go! I mentioned in the very first post of this series I was hoping to get some of the tires from the first Eldora race- NASCAR's first major race on dirt since 1971. I had pulled race winner (I think, memory is not so good) Austin Dillon from one of the two blasters I did when the set was new, and now I've pulled Jeb Burton. This is the gold version, clearly SN to 50. This is my favorite card of the project so far. It looks better than my cell phone photo shows.

Next up, I got my trade package from Wes at Jaybarkerfan's Junk in his Christmas Tradeathon. While I regret missing the Andrew Wiggins relic he offered, I still got some great stuff. I will be getting his return into the mail on Friday, I didn't have his address so I had to wait and get it off his return address!

What you see here: 2014-15 Totally Certified Materials Red #82 Julius Randle
2013 Panini Black Friday #40 Trey Burke. Bonus points for this being a set not in my collection, which I didn't realize when I claimed it!
2015-16 Panini Prizm Prizm #243 Alonzo Mourning
2011-12 (I think) Pinnacle Threads #56 Erik Johnson (More below)
2011-12 Past & Present Bread for Energy #12 Kevin Durant

This is actually the exact 3000th NHL Hockey card in my collection! It actually only got that milestone number because I found that 6-card panel in my stash, which I posted about recently but had totally forgotten I had. Not only is this #3000, it's also my first actual NHL relic...and it's a patch! (SN 49/50 on the back too!)
Pretty darn cool. The relic has a different texture than I am used to- the NBA relics that I've got literally thousands of and the NASCAR relics I have hundreds of, the cloth used, none of them feel like this. That might be because hockey uniforms are meant to played on the cold ice, where NBA players are trying to minimize heat, and inside a NASCAR racecar usually hovers around 150 degrees Fahrenheit so they definitely don't want to add any more heat.
No matter what, this card will always be important to me as my first relic from the sport, and a Milestone card at that! (I'm obsessed with the milestone/thousand cards. Don't know why, just is). Once I find this set's listing on the Trading Card Database, it will appear on this list I linked to as well.

Total Blaster 13

Before I get into my latest edition of what is now my least popular series, I got a package from Peter K. Steinberg of Baseball Every Night. This is a blog I was not aware of but I found a comment from Peter on Bob Walk the Plank and clicked on his name. I am guessing this is my Blogger Secret Santa package but I didn't open it yet just to be sure. Peter or Matthew, if you see this can I get a confirmation on that? I have added his blog to my blogroll so I will see updates from him in the future.

I also need to thank Tyler of Rekindling the Cardboard Flame for sending me along 2 packs of 2016 Topps Update. I opened one of them and I think it may be the second baseball pack I've ever opened...but I can't be sure as my memory is like swiss cheese. Large holes obliterating pretty much everything between 1998 and yesterday. It is the first time I've gotten the smoke design of 2016 in hand, and since every blog has pretty much commented about them already, I'll just say that I don't think they look as bad in hand as they do in scans.

OK, now the cards you all didn't come here to see, based on my declining viewership of this series.

 Back to smart phone pictures today.
Jeb Burton, son of 2002 Daytona 500 winner Ward, was considered a young gun in 2014, but now is considered more of a field filler, although he hasn't gotten much time in any good equipment.
Mark Martin red parallel...Mark's final season was 2013, but he still got a base card in this set (all photos and text in it relates to 2013, not 2014). Mark won 40 races over his 31 year career, three times hitting the 5 win mark, with a top performance of 7 in 1998, but he is most well known for being the driver with the most second place points finishes without a championship, of which he has 5...although by all rights he should have been 1990's Champion as he got a bogus penalty that cost him 46 points, he finished the season 20 something points out of first.
Jimmie Johnson Acceleration, first time we have seen that card in this project, but unfortunately I already had the card. I had a grand total of 2 blasters worth of this set before I began this project, and that happened to be one of the two I had gotten. Spoiler alert: I'm still finding it hard to believe he has now won 7 Cup championships. And I would not be surprised if he gets more. He still trails Jeff Gordon for 3rd place in all-time wins by 14 but he might get that too- he gets 5 per year pretty much every year, with a best of 10 in 2007, one of only a handful of drivers to hit double digits in a year in the modern short schedule era (1972-current).
Junior Johnson is the second time his Hall of Fame placque appears in this project. Jimmie and Junior are not related.

Relic is Matt Kenseth...again. Kenseth has become one of my least favorite drivers. At least it's a nice big relic, fairly low numbered, and the photo depicts a special paint scheme, the only card it appears on that I'm aware of. Although you can only see half of it due to burnout smoke....it still counts.

At least it wasn't another Bowyer.

Total Blaster 12

Another less than great box. 3 new but my second duplicate relic.
Austin Dillon base is new, Jeff Gordon Red is new, Leonard Wood Hall of Fame is new, Jeff relic is not, and this is the third Keselowski Acceleration card I've gotten...it's only a ten card set but I have not completed it yet, but am getting third copies anyway. I really don't miss Press Pass.

Total Blaster 11

This blaster of 2014 Total Memorabilia didn't pan out as well as some others, because 2 of the 5 cards were duplicates...but you get something new for this series of posts, an actual scan!

Ryan Gifford is from the Young Guns subset, but I don't think he's made it up higher than K&N. I don't really watch Busch (Xfinity) or Trucks much anymore, although I will in 2017 as they finally are going to get the Cup drivers out of the series for the final 8 and 7 races, respectively.
Newman is the red parallel. The Jeff Gordon card appears in the second consecutive pack and the Richard Petty card is a duplicate...possibly the third copy I've gotten.

Regan Smith is my relic for this box, a good one as I am a fan of his, and though it barely shows on the card, there are two of the wear tabs on the relic, one at very top and bottom. That lets me know this relic piece comes from the sidewall of the tire. (where the lettering is). Most of both of them is underneath the cardboard flap.

Total Blaster 10

Halfway today with my first Total Memorabilia blaster of December, and also my first new cards of the month as well. Today you get an actual camera picture, instead of a smart phone photo.

Trevor Bayne Base, Harvick red parallel, Jeff Gordon Acceleration and Dale Inman Hall of Fame Placque. The Inman is a duplicate but the rest are all new. The camera flash didn't play well with the name area on the Kevin Harvick red parallel but it really makes the red foil pop out I think. The mirror foil inserts show up better in the camera photo vs. phone.

I forgot to take an actual photo of the relic, so here is the image cropped out of the above photo. It's new, and it's SN 100 of 275, which I like. Off the top of my head this is only my second relic of the 2012 Champion.

Overall a very good blaster, even if I did get the Inman card two blasters in a row.

Tomorrow I will post my November trade recap, which is the largest one since I began posting them, I think. I wanted to get it posted on the 1st but time got away from me.

Total Blaster 9- the best one yet!

Yesterday was going quite well, until right before bed...I was having a small peanut butter snack before bed, and there was some foreign object in it, and it broke one of my teeth. First time I've ever had anything like that happen...not really looking forward to the dentist visit that will surely come from this. (I really just need him to file down the sharp part, I could do that myself probably, but...I won't). We'll be giving the what-for to Atkins as well for having some foreign object in the peanut butter bar.

Today's Total Memorabilia blaster is almost the halfway mark...and it turned out to be the best one yet.
All 5 cards were new!

 Daniel Suarez is an up-and-coming driver who won this year's Busch championship...becoming the first driver from outside the US to win a major NASCAR championship. Suarez hails from Monterrey, Mexico.
David Ragan is the red parallel. I have a knack for pulling Ragan cards from blasters. For several years every single one I bought included a card of him.
Kyle Busch Acceleration is new, one of the 4 I needed on the set.
Dale Inman Hall of Fame Placque is a good one, the all-time winningest crew chief in NASCAR history- 193 race wins and 8 Championships. To put it in perspective, in NASCAR's 68 year history, only one other crew chief has cleared even the 100 win mark. 

Tire relic is Jeff Gordon! Jeff has always been a favorite of mine, and this is the first solo relic of his I've ever pulled! It's not the best card of his I've pulled- I pulled a printing plate from 2006 Legends- but this is by far the best relic I've pulled from this Blaster project...and there's still 11 more to go! I did pull a dual car cover with him and Jimmie Johnson several years back as well. Jeff is the winningest driver in my lifetime, with 94 wins, which also ranks him third all time. The first lap of NASCAR I ever saw was the first he led in his career.

I actually have one the multi-relics of Jeff from this set that I purchased as a single a year or two ago.

 As you can sort of see, the dual relics are gold foil. The triple relics are blue foil, I don't know what color foil the quad relics have.

Total Blaster 8

A day late in getting this posted, yesterday was a busy day. While I was able to get the blaster opened, I could not make time to get the photo taken or posted. Yesterday, besides opening the box, saw me go to Hobby Lobby to get a model for my club's Christmas exchange, (and get some new outdoor lights as most of ours stopped working I don't like Hobby Lobby, but I do like 40% off coupons), Target to get some cards for my Secret Santa exchange and in exchange for Jaybakerfan's Christmas Tradeathon, visit my local dealer to see if he had gotten something in (no) but found some other stuff to get- for both myself and others. Then, packaging up three things to mail out, thanks to my brother for actually putting them in the mail for me. A little later, we went to our town's Christmas Light Parade, which I live streamed to Facebook, first time I've done that...I didn't have the technology to do that at any previous parade- then walked down to see the town's tree lighting.

After that, we all went out to eat at our favorite restaurant, which was excellent as always, and by time we got home I was exhausted. It's more walking than I usually do and even though it was probably beyond my capabilities I did it anyway...too sore to even go and spend the $115 gift certificate I got for Barnes & Noble today. But I think it was worth it...some times you just have to do something and deal with the pain it causes later.



One of my absolute favorite things about Christmas and the Christmas season is seeing the lights. There is nothing quite like it and if it were up to me they would be lit all year.

Oh yeah, this is a card blog...

This blaster was a success, even if my photography is sketchy at best, and seems to be regressing.
David Ragan is new, Almirola, who I thought was a duplicate is actually new, the Bowyer is a duplicate, and the Junior Johnson is new.

The relic is new, and it looks much better in hand than this craptacular picture. Sorry about that!
4 out of 5 isn't horrible, and better than most of these seem to be going. I was happy with it. Even if there was a Bowyer card included...

Total Blaster 7 and 2 Year Blogoversary

I can't believe I forgot it, but yesterday, November 22nd, was the 2nd anniversary of my launching Cardboard History. It's been a great ride so far and I have no intention of stopping anytime soon. I almost missed it totally but when I was getting ready for bed, I decided to check Facebook- something I rarely do anymore, since it devolved into nothing but political whining- and in my memories was the post I made announcing the launch. I decided to get back up out of bed and open up a pack from my stash of unopened packs...some of which have been sitting in there since before I launched the blog, in fact. I selected a pack of 2008-09 Upper Deck First Edition, a pack I got out of a repack sometime in 2014.

Thank you to all my readers- and especially to my commenters- for making the blog somewhat of a success. For a blog that really doesn't do a lot of baseball, I get more views than I would have expected, averaging about 100 per post. My most popular post, since it got linked to Uni-Watch, is over 700 now. As somebody who's OCD about numbers that makes me pretty happy, I have to be honest.

Today was also time for the 7th blaster of 2014 Total Memorabilia, and it was not a good one.

Kyle Busch base and Danica parallel are both new...the rest are all duplicates, including the relic. Knowing Press Pass it doesn't surprise me that I got two copies of the same relic in two out of the last three boxes, but it's still a disappointment. And since it's serially numbered, my OCD doesn't allow me to trade it for anything else, like say a relic I don't have. The Truex and Petty (my third copy of the Truex, I believe) are available for trade, as they are both duplicates...and with 13 blasters to go, with the way it's going, I'll see them again.

The 2008-09 First Edition pack, which I actually opened yesterday but am posting below the Total Memorabilia box, was much better, as all 10 cards were new to my collection. Four of the 10 came out of the pack damaged, with the first card, Caron Butler, being pretty badly bent, but as I've always said, I'd rather have a damaged card than none at all. Considering I mostly have to get retail these days, I'm getting pretty used to getting damaged cards.

Since it's something I did special for the anniversary, here are all 10 cards, in numerical order, just for the heck of it.

 Davis is no longer in the NBA.

 I remember, when I was first getting back into the NBA, the Warriors traded Ellis to Milwaukee and the fans booed like crazy- Ellis was a fan favorite in Oakland- the reaction was so bad it played a role in Chris Mullin leaving the team- but it was done with the future in mind, to make room for Stephen Curry, 2x reigning MVP and a threat to go three-in-a-row. Ellis is now with the Pacers.

 When Farmar came into the League, he was one of only two Jewish players then in the NBA. I don't remember the other though. Amare Stoudemire converted during his career and now lives in Israel. Farmar is still on the fringes of the NBA, playing with the Kings briefly this season.

 Mo Williams has retired and unretired three times in the past month. I'm not sure if he is retired now or just out injured, he is currently with the Cavaliers. I think.

 Michael Finley was always a favorite player of mine. He's currently retired.

 The first card out of the pack, you can see the bend in the top left corner. Those two grayish lines are the bend. I'm not sure if Butler is still in the NBA or not.

 I like sets of retired players, I don't like it as much when they are shoehorned into normal sets. I remember seeing Dumars play.

 Gallinari RC. Currently a starter on the Nuggets, he wears #8 because he was born on 8/8/1988.

Randy Foye here is a Gold parallel. I have opened 3 packs of this set and the first two gold parallels were pretty darn good- the first was Kevin Durant, the second was Shaquille O'Neal. Foye may not have that level of star power, but the card is not a duplicate so I'm still thrilled to have it. He's currently with the Nets and is working his way back from injury.

StarQuest Tracy McGrady. These StarQuest cards were one per pack and are mirror foil. I always liked McGrady- I have both home and road Magic jerseys I wear on occasion- but since he retired he's gone into that "complain about everyone younger than you" trap. Face the facts TMac- the Warriors have won a Championship, they will probably win another, and you never even got the Finals, ever. They ARE better than your teams no matter how many times you say they aren't and the championship rings they all wear leave little doubt as to which team would win if you faced them. I am still a fan but I have lost some respect in the past two years.

Thank you everyone for two excellent years, here's hoping there's lots more!

Total Blaster 6

A little later than I normally post in a day, but let's face it- nobody cares about this series so I don't feel too bad about it.

Today was the final day of the NASCAR season, and I actually watched the race...normally I just listen while I do other stuff. (that's how I do most sports actually). I enjoyed it. Not necessarily my pick who won, but I can't say I'm really unhappy with it either.

I opened my blaster of 2014 Totally Certified when the race was on about lap #70, but since I was actually watching it, I never got a chance to post it before the race finished.

I have not been all that happy with NASCAR lately, but I find when I actually watch as opposed to just listen, I enjoy it more.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. is a subset celebrating his 2013 Cup Rookie of the Year. There are only three subset cards in the 50 card set and this is the first in my collection.
Tony Stewart Red parallel, fitting to pull on the three-time champion's final race day.
The Danica Acceleration is a duplicate, and the Dale Jarrett Hall of Fame Placque is the Holofoil version. I wish they were all holofoil, it always looks better than mirror foil, but Press Pass loved mirror foil.

I really messed up the photo of the relic- sorry about that. Usually the relic photo is better than the overall photo but today it's reversed. It gets the job done.
Kyle Larson is on the cusp of superstardom, he's found success in the Ganassi cars which usually are some of the weaker entries of the Chevrolet field. He broke through with his first win in 2016 and I can't help but wonder how many wins he would have in a Hendrick or Gibbs car. It would be more than 1 for sure. He looked really good tonight, nearly pulled off the win and without late cautions he probably would have. I'm a big fan of his and I think this may have been his first relic card ever issued. I don't know for sure because I focus more on base cards. He is also the first driver of Japanese descent to ever win a NASCAR race. His grandparents were interred by the USA during WWII. This relic card is from before he moved up to Cup.

Total Blaster 5

Today's blaster turned out better, with not a single duplicate in the bunch, and as an added bonus I hit a milestone.

Brian Scott, one of the few non-Cup cards in the set. Scott made a bit of history earlier this month when he announced his retirement at the conclusion of this season, making the only driver I can think of who chose to retire after his rookie season. He has two kids and the lengthy Cup schedule took him away from them for too much time.
Matt Kenseth red parallel. I really have no respect for Matt Kenseth, not anymore, but this card is, if my calculations are correct, the 29,000th different NASCAR card in my collection. More on that below
The Tony Stewart Acceleration insert brings me to having more than half of the ten card set, I hope I finish it off.
Cale Yarborough Hall of Fame plaque, pretty clearly taken from his time with Junior Johnson's team.

My relic this time is Trevor Bayne, one of the rare non-Cup relics in the set. Hey, that's two non-Cup cards in one pack! First time it's happened in this project.

Now, with the count of my NASCAR collection, I have it officially at 29003 right now. But I'm sure it's wrong, because I know I've counted some cards that I thought were new but turned out to be duplicates, but it's been offset by finding non-duplicates in my duplicate stash from time to time. (notably the cards that had variations that I blogged about once before) Then there's the proverbial gorilla in the room, the cards that came with diecast cars. I have a large number of them- remember for many years diecast collecting superseded card collecting for me- but I've counted them all these years as a separate collection. (actually, I've never counted them at all). But I'm giving serious thought to officially integrating them into my counted, officially listed on paper NASCAR collection. I can't really think of any reason not to, other than the fact that it's just how I've always done it, since I began collecting NASCAR way back at Christmas 1992.

If I do decide to integrate them, it would bring my NASCAR collection over 30,000, which would deny me the celebration of the milestone...but on the other hand, I've been keeping track of the order I get every card since 2014 so I should have little trouble figuring out whichever card actually was the 30,000th. My OCD makes this a big deal for me. And if I do hit 30,000 without counting them...it will always have a little mental asterisk there by the number.

Honestly, this is something I've been debating since sometime in 2015, when I finished scanning them, and I've been held up by the fact that I've misplaced a large number of the cards from 1998 and 1999. I had them and was scanning them a few years ago, and now they went missing and I have no idea how that happened or where to even look, considering I've looked every place I thought they could possibly be...do I count them? I know for sure some that are missing, but I can't locate them physically...and I'm sure there are others that went missing that I've forgotten about.

As I mentioned above, I never counted them...and they are the only aspect of my collection that I don't have a count on. Something I've really wanted to come up with was an actual count of what I consider my collection. In fact, I've left an empty column for that number in my Excel chart where I type every card in order of getting since I created it in 2014.

The older I get, the more I want to have everything documented in nice even rows, uniformly, fully. I don't mind having OCD- in fact I think without it I could not function through a single day- but I wish I had the mental and physical capacity to make things ordered and even just the way I want them. With the mental part, I start so many things, or plan so many things, and then never follow through with them, and the physical part is getting harder and harder. At least I have a neverending project of sorting and resorting cards to work on.

Total Blaster 4

4 NASCAR posts in a row, after a long string of mostly NBA posts. Not really planned it out that way, but that's the way it turned out. I've actually got a rare football post in the pipeline but I've been too busy to write it, even if it is going to be a one card post...

The 4th blaster was a bit of a letdown- 5 cards, 3 of which were duplicates...all of them duplicating a previous blaster. That's Press Pass for you.

The Almirola base, Vickers parallel and Baker insert are all exactly the same as blaster #1. The Danica insert was new, and shows a special paint scheme so that's cool at least. The highlight is the relic, again a tire but this time with some of the lettering from the sidewall. sorry for the crappy picture.

It's got what looks like standard Scotch tape on it, but it doesn't hide the fact that you are getting a large chunk of yellow and some blue border to go along with the standard black rubber from tire pieces. It's probably not tape- but I can't think of what it might be. Perhaps a piece of window tear off that he ran over and it stuck itself to the tire? Doesn't really feel like that so I am just speculating. Yes, I do have a piece of window tear off in my collection.

I'm happy with it, no matter what it is!

I'm also a big fan of both Dillon brothers, they have a lot of talent, which is not really being shown by the sub-par equipment they are getting- but they will never go elsewhere, most likely, as they race for the family team. This is, I believe, only my third or fourth tire relic from the Truck series, also. I also like the low serial number. 

Hopefully the next box will give me more new cards!

Total Blaster 3

Today was the day where I opened the third blaster from the 2014 Total Memorabilia 20-blaster lot I purchased. It was not that great of a blaster, to be honest, but at least it wasn't the last one! It can only get better from here, right?

The good thing is, all five cards were new. The bad thing is, my tire piece is Bowyer, one of my all-time least favorite drivers.

My favorite card here is the Truex. With Dale Jr. out and questions as to if he will ever return, Martin Truex Jr. has stepped into the role of my favorite active driver. The mirror foil aspect takes it down a little bit, but I'm still happy to have it. And even though I am not a Bowyer fan, it gets me closer to completing the set, so there's that. And it means I don't have to spend any actual money to buy a Bowyer card to complete my set. In case it wasn't obvious, that is a goal of mine now that I have these 20 blasters to work through. I thought at first the Kahne red parallel was a duplicate but I was wrong, I had the gold version of the card, which is SN175. I knew I had seen the photo but I didn't remember the foil color I had. Oops. The Elliott Sadler is one of the few non-Cup cards in the set. The Rusty Wallace Hall of Fame Placque is the holofoil parallel.

Total Blaster 1 & 2

A few days ago I came across the pre-Black Friday sales Blowout Cards was doing, and while there was a lot of nice stuff at good prices, what caught my eye was a deal on 20 Total Memorabilia Blasters from 2014. The normal price on this was $400...and they were on sale for $99.11. That's more than I like to spend at one time, but I couldn't pass that up. Each one sold for $20 when new so that's some major savings. And I had very little of the set, too, which meant that in theory most of the cards would not be duplicates. I had only two blasters worth of the set, plus a couple of multi-piece relics I purchased on the secondary market. (Retail finds are usually single piece).

Well, they arrived yesterday and I determined that I was not going to open them up all at once, and spread out the fun, with my target date to finish opening them on January 1st. That came out to 1 box every three days after I did two the first day.

Just for fun, I decided I was going to blog about each box. I have not been posting too much NASCAR stuff lately but this will give me 19 posts between now and January. If I follow through with my plans...I don't always.

I also came up with a way to take better pictures of the cards too. Press Pass was making every insert mirror foil and the depth of the relic pieces make 3 out of 5 cards per pack tough to scan...so photos it is!

Box #1:

 Each pack contains one base card, one parallel and 3 inserts, one of which is guaranteed to be either a relic or an autograph. Most of them are from this insert set, single relic pieces, most of which are tire chunks but there are also cards with firesuit pieces and maybe some other stuff. I only had three base cards going in and the Almirola was one of them.

They go up to 4 relic pieces per card and each version has a different color foil. The silver foil single relic pieces are the most common. this Biffle piece shows quite a bit of cording in the tire as well, something I like to see even if it does mean that it's from well inside the tire instead of the surface that touched the track or the sidewall.
The Acceleration and Hall of Fame placques are mirror foil.

Box #2:

 Oof, a duplicate already, pulling the same Acceleration Brad Keselowski from both boxes. With only one base card per box, I don't think I'll complete the set, even though it's typical Press Pass microscopic 50 cards. I needed the Kurt Busch card shown here.

Now that's a great tire piece! This looks like it's got burn damage from the burnout shown on the card. I love race dated relics, too. I wasn't expecting this card, I forgot this insert was in the set.

And that's box #1 and 2. Future posts in the series will have only one box per, in theory. I'm not really known for my follow through, after all. I'm hoping I pull more of the truck tires from the first Eldora dirt race. I pulled Austin Dillon's from a blaster my brother got for me when the set was new. It's a fairly small insert, I think six or 8 cards, so maybe I will be lucky enough to complete it...or, barring that, I will get closer to it and be able to pick up the missing cards on ebay or COMC or something.