Unpleasantness in the Rearview mirror

You may remember that, back on June 28th, my remote hard drive died and took all my files with it. I detailed it some in this post. The two months before it went bad, I had spent most of my time scanning foils and Finests with the "new" scanner I procured. Then when it went bad, I was able to recover most of the work I had done, but not all. I don't know how many it was. I didn't keep track. I remember I had it up over 1000 scans. (even before the hard drive crashed I had begun working on the backs of them, and thinking it was too unwieldy and I wasn't going to do it that way again)

I have FINALLY finished recovering the foil and finests I had fixed, as of today, August 27th, a day short of two months to the day since my drive died.

It was a long, unpleasant process that has sucked a lot of the fun out of scanning cards for me, but I powered through and now, as it says in the title, I've got it in my rearview mirror.

Of course, it had to fight me right up to the end. Yesterday, when I was making the big push to finish them off, I knew I had some that I had to rescan as the original files I had created were just gone. So as I was finishing off the last pages of the backs to scan, I figured I'd do the page I needed to do of rescans. Of course, I then managed to discover that of the cards I had just scanned the backs for, three of them were ALSO missing so I had to make yet another scan.

That's life sometimes. It's been frustrating. But it's DONE!

Of course, my work on recovery is not anywhere near done...and I am not sure if it will EVER be done. All the cards I had scanned since October were stored only on the remote drive. The foils and finests were recovered fully (as much as they could be) but the other cards are all mixed in with all my other images. There were more than 300,000 images on the drive. Sorting through them is not easy because the recovery program put them all in one large file. Moving through them is a very slow process and they are not in any sort of order. Almost sort of the order of being made (either photographed or scanned) but not quite. The file is so large working on it makes my computer run slow and lock up. I do work on it, but I don't know if realistically my computer will live long enough. I've already had it since 2012 and they do build failure into them. I will keep trying, but it may come down to this: When I finish scanning my collection, which likely won't be until 2020 or later, I will sort them back into sets (for the first time since 2003) and then I plan to go through each set and see which scans are missing. That may be the only way. Time will tell.

In the meantime, I'm working extra hard to get everything I was able to recover uploaded to the Database and to Cardboard History II. Again, this takes time, but not as much time as it takes to create the scans in the first place.

Here are the cards I had to rescan yesterday. While it's a coincidence that there are 9 of them, a full page, they were not all originally on the same page as I had done the 1995 Zenith and 2015-16 Absolute Basketball with others of the same set. There were a couple more that I was able to pull from the original scans, as PhotoScape automatically saves originals. I have forgotten which ones they were now so they aren't included. There were three or four I was able to recover that way. I delete the originals periodically, but I had forgotten to do it for a while before the drive went bad so in this case it worked out nicely.

Being foils (and one finest style) they don't look anywhere near as good in scans as they do in hand. Anyone who has ever tried scanning cards knows exactly what I am talking about!

NBA 2015-16 Season in Review

The NBA season ended tonight, and I'm really not happy. I have had a lousy day to begin with and then saw the team with 3 of my 5 favorite players in the NBA get beaten at home after the best season in NBA history. While I generally like the city of Cleveland and the state of Ohio, and were they not facing the Warriors I would have been rooting for them, (I've been a Cavs fan since they wore the black and blue jerseys in the 1990s) but this leaves me with a bad feeling towards the NBA- game 7 the Cavs won fairly, (Game 3 as well) but game 5 and 6 were rigged- no question. Considering how much revenue a Finals game 7 brings in, I'm truly surprised we don't see that more often. Fouls were called on the Warriors when they breathed on the Cavs in those two games, yet the Cavs were allowed to travel at will. At least in the first half that is true- by the second half, the Cavs had such a huge lead that they generally stopped getting everything handed to them on a silver platter, but it was too late to make a difference. Let's put it this way- I remember seeing the Tim Donahy games. Remember the Ref who threw games for gambling? That's the guy, I may have spelled his name wrong. But the games HE refereed were more honest than the first halves of game 5 and 6. Granted, the Warriors couldn't hit a shot for most of the finals. One of the best shooting teams EVER suddenly stopped being able to nail a basket, even open ones. I don't get it. The worst part is they didn't even need the help, they simply played better down the stretch. Instead of winning by 15 points they probably would have won by 8 to 10 in those two games.

It really stinks that the season ended on such a farcial bad note, because overall 2015-16 was one of the most fun seasons I can recall in a good long while. I'm one of the few people who prefer the regular season over the playoffs- and I am very much looking forward to 2016-17. (I've known for years that the playoffs are manipulated to boost revenues, but this year was the worst.). Usually it doesn't bother me- my Nets are almost never in contention this late in the season so I usually don't care who wins, as long as I get to watch more basketball.

Not only that, but card wise it is the best of the Panini era, or at the very least tied with 2012-13. While Panini still doesn't truly get it- ignoring at least 150 players each season- the designs were better than they had been since 2012-13, and perhaps even better. The only set this year I didn't care too much for was Threads. I loved this year's Hoops set, the joke that they called Complete- 330 out of 450 people is NOT complete in any way, shape or form- the cards themselves, though, I loved. The Donruss design is one of my favorites from the Panini era, and I have not even posted about my best pull from the set yet. I managed to pull a patch from a blaster, only the second patch I've pulled from the Panini era. I pulled an autograph out of the very first set of the year, and it was one I would not have been able to afford as a single, (Andrew Wiggins) so that was a pleasant surprise.

One other thing worth noting, one of my favorite commercial series for the NBA took place this season, State Farm's "The Hoopers". I hope they bring it back next year. 

I did something I have never done before, and that was keep track of the games I watched. I had to watch at least a full quarter for it to count (usually), and here are my grand totals, provided I didn't make any mistakes, which is very much possible as I sometimes got a little behind and had to scroll through the box scores on basketball-reference to see which ones I remembered.

• 356 total games watched
• 252 regular season
• 71 playoffs
• 23 Pre-Season
• 7 D-League
• 3 All-Star (Plus the non-game stuff like the Slam Dunk competition, which is not counted)

I watched more than I thought I would to be honest, and if my TV didn't act up sometimes I would have watched some more. Probably would have increased 10 or so games.

I plan to keep the chart for the 2016-17 season as well, and this year I will attempt to include Summer League games, which I didn't have the idea of making the Excel chart until the 2015-16 Summer Leagues were already over, so that information was lost.

I've already gotten a few cards that mention games I watched. In the past I usually was left wondering if it was a game I saw or not, when a specific one was mentioned. Now, I will know. I just got one this week, in fact my very first card out of my very first pack of Excalibur, #147 Anthony Davis, references a game I saw. I would probably not have remembered that otherwise. That sort of thing tends to all blur together in my head- I tend to remember if I ever saw a player play, not specific games.

As I will watch any team, at any time, (something I can do because my mom gets me League Pass as a birthday present every year) all 30 NBA teams appear multiple times on my chart. I don't know of a way to figure out exactly which teams I watched how many times, but I know the Warriors are the team I watched the most. Second would be probably the New York Knicks or Philadelphia 76ers, once they signed Elton in January. After that would probably be the Nets, and beyond that, I have no clue. I watch them all.

I think my favorite game that I watched this year was Kobe's final game where he scored 60. The Lakers have never been my favorite team, nor Kobe my favorite player, but that was just incredible to watch. It's the end of an era that is a little hard to fathom- the 1996-97 rookie class is the first one I truly got to experience so it has a special place in my memories. Kobe was the best player in the League for most of the past 20 years, until the injuries set in, and to see him get 60 in his final game was something truly special. It's not diminished in my eyes that the Jazz, who knew they would not make the playoffs, didn't really play defense and that most of the other Lakers made sure to funnel the ball to Kobe. That to me is a sign of respect, actually, one final moment in a career filled with incredible moments.

I know this is a really negative post, not the kind I usually make, but I am really an unhappy person (I hide it well) but I can't hide it tonight. I can't be the NBA-does-no-wrong guy that I usually am tonight. I even set aside the NBA cards and worked on hockey cards tonight.

With that said, the 2016-17 season truly gets under way this coming Thursday, when the NBA Draft takes place. I always enjoy the Draft, seeing all the new names entering the league and, hopefully, my card collection. The Summer League kicks off July 2nd so that's really not all that far away- it'll be here before too long, and then there's the Olympics. I LOVE the Olympics and will watch as much of them as I possibly can. (There will be several Olympic-themed posts in the not too distant future)

I can't wait.

Now, here's a look at all of the 2015-16 sets in my collection. I don't have Clear Vision yet and don't know when it will make it's way to my collection- I'm mostly done buying cards for a while, but that's a whole other topic.

Absolute Basketball

Complete- first set to show photos taken during 2015-16

Donruss- first set to show action photos of the rookies

Gold Standard

Hoops - a set I actually completed!

Limited- this is the third time I've posted this card. Only one I've got.

Panini Excalibur- the newest set, just came out this month.

Panini Prizm

Panini Threads

Prestige

Revolution

Select. This is a Prizm, I don't have a base card in my collection.

Totally Certified

Hot off the Scanner Tray "Week" 15

HOST is back and this time should last as I have no series or other projects to displace it. Of course I don't have the greatest track record with follow-through so only time will tell I suppose!

I start with some new additions from SportLots...I finally figured out how the site works, for the most part, and I'm having fun with it for sure.

This is my first patch from the Nets in the Brooklyn era! Bonus, it's SN1 of 25, extra bonus, it's also his jersey number!

This was labeled as a patch, but it's not really. I don't dislike manufactured patches, but it shouldn't be marketed as a patch I don't think. Who cares about semantics though, this is a great card no matter what you call it.

This one didn't even have a picture on Sportlots but I didn't care about that. It's my first from 2013-14 Timeless Treasures.

I think my favorite additions from SportLots, though, had to be something from the Non-Sports side. I won two lots of some old tobacco cards, and while I am only sharing one card from each, I got more than one card from each set. Yes, it's true that they are not all in good shape, but for the price I paid...you can't argue. (50 cents combined!) Eventually I will need to do a Sets in My Collection post for three of them, one of them already has a post, I think. I can't even remember!

1912 Wills Arms of Foreign Cities, with metallic silver print!

1913 Wills Arms of Companies

1923 Wills Wild Flowers

1929 Player Hidden Beauties- one of the few Tobacco era sets I previously had in my collection,

I bought a full 550 count box for $15 on the Hot Spot Facebook group, and it was a mystery of what was going to be in it. I prefer it that way. I completed 2013-14 Prestige, which is only my second completed set of the Panini era- (2009-10 to current) and interestingly enough both are 2013-14 season issues.
In the box was one new set to my collection, 2015-16 Absolute Basketball. This wasn't my first card, but I had to scan this one...I don't enjoy scanning mirror foils so I set most of them aside for later.

As I was working on my non-sports card duplicates to post to my tradelist on the Database, I realized that I still had some car cards that I had no posted yet, so I got them out and did them.

The Famous Hot Rods set may be the worst designed ever.

ALL the cards have black backgrounds, including the cars that are painted black. They also appear to have been photographed mostly at night.

Even those photographed during the day, like this one below, are photographed with the sun behind the car- terrible for photography. I've taken more than 10,000 car photos and I always try to make sure the sun is not behind the car- it should be over the photographer's shoulder or, ideally, directly above.

This is an example of my automotive photography, for what it's worth-

Note that the car, which is also red, has the sun above and behind it and you can still see all the important details....I don't know what the card company was thinking or doing...but it may be why the cards are labeled as Series 1 and no series 2 ever happened.

Since the last post I made on Cardboard History, I joined the SportsCardForum message board. It's the spiritual successor to Trader Retreat, where I was very active in the early 2000s, even winning Member of the Month on at least two locations. (Sure wish I knew how to use the Print Screen feature back then, so I could have saved an image of my awards). In just about a week's time I have made two trades already, with one of them going all the way to Slovenia! We got talking and are now making the trade into a larger one but it's pretty cool to be trading again. It really makes me wish I could find the majority of my trade stash, though. A lot of it went missing when I was away from the NBA from 2006-12.

I also got Cardboard History to be an affiliate...hopefully that will get me some new readers. It's not easy to attract new readers when you aren't mostly about baseball, that's for sure. (There will be a baseball post later this week, would have been today but I wanted to get HOST going again) You will now find a link to my profile on SportsCardForum on the right side, above the blogroll.

During the month of March I prepped and posted- or at the very least saw that somebody else posted- exactly 3700 cards to the Trading Card Database. That is my new personal record since I started keeping track of what I do in a month, the previous record being 2958 in June 2014. I only began doing it this way in January 2014, where I keep everything I process to the Database in a big file and then upload it to my own website on the 1st of every month, then putting each card image in it's proper album. It's fun for me to do that and somehow I managed to get all 3700 uploaded on the 1st of April. In 2013 I put everything I processed during the entire year into one big album and then uploaded it all on January 1st...it took me several days to do and I decided to do something differently in 2014, and have kept at it. Sometimes I do a lot, sometimes I do a little, my record low is only 158 cards, in February 2015.
April is going to be big as well, as I'm processing all of the cards I had scanned and not yet posted. My "To be posted" folder had gotten to around 10,000 scans...I decided it was enough that I should start posting. I have it down to 4840 right now....they upload a lot faster than they scan. I'll never be able to get it down to 0 because there are too many cards I just can't find checklists for- some I can't even ID the set on.