Top 12 Cards of 2020 + Yearly Recap

This is my second post of the day, the In Memorium post went live at noon.

Trying something new this year, in that I'm not waiting for the end of the year to compile this post- I'm actually beginning the composition on March 20th, and will update each month after they conclude. With March, I already had a card by then I knew would take the top spot, so no need to wait for the end of the month to begin. But first, January and February.

January was a huge month-I added 1525 new cards to my collection, with the largest batch coming from 2 full 600 count boxes I received as a Random Act of Kindness on the Trading Card Database. I also got my Christmas present COMC order, and from there is where my favorite card of the month comes from.

This oversized insert from Upper Deck commemorates the very first NHL game I saw from start to finish, on January 1st, 2017. Although I had begun watching in October 2016, I didn't catch a full game until the Winter Classic...as such, that game's commemorative insert set takes a very special place in my collection. I remember this event, where Tarasenko took a selfie with the crowd, from that day, and when I saw the card posted on one of the blogs, (don't remember which one) I knew I had to have a copy. It took me a while, but I found one on COMC as noted.

February saw even more cards roll in, 1571, 998 of them from a shoebox I bought at a card show, where I met Dan and Jerry from the Trading Card Database. One card I found that day, despite not being in the greatest shape, is a card I had been chasing for many years.

Wayne Embrey was for many years the missing person from my collection. An NBA Legend and Hall of Famer, he had scant few cards issued, and I was never able to hunt down a copy. I eventually added a card of his from 2010-11 Rookies & Stars Longevity, but this is a playing career card! In fact, he was the only Hall of Famer who had cards later than 1948-49 Bowman that was missing from my collection! And he had that distinction for quite some time, as he was inducted in 1999. I don't recall when I got the R&S card but it was only a couple of years ago- after I had made the list of missing people which I published to Cardboard History in 2015. I had been wanting this card for so long that finally adding it made it a sure bet for the top card of the month.

March...things got crazy in March. Still are, as I type this on March 20th. Every century has a major health pandemic, and it's going on right now. All sports in the world are on hold right now- cancelled outright or on hiatus until further notice. It's something the world has never experienced and hopefully it'll be in the past soon. However, it has not stopped cards from entering my collection, although at a much lower rate...only 154 cards as I type this, although 11 days remain in the month. One, however, has such an awesome photo that I don't think any card would surpass it.

  I love snow...it's not something that comes up on card topics very often, so it may not be known to even my most regular readers. But watching snow fall is one of my favorite things to do. I've been known to set my chair up in front of the window and just watch it fall for hours. The Heritage Classic, an outdoor game, was played in the snow during this season, and UD chose a photo of Rittich from that game to use on his base card in Series 2 of the flagship set. And it is snowing! And he's toqued! So much awesome about this card. I ended up with 172 new cards on the month.

April saw my card intake decline somewhat from January and February, but I still added 1048 cards! 881 came to me as Easter gifts, and the rest were pulled from my stash. All but two were hockey cards! I didn't go out card hunting at all, for the second month in a row. My favorite was clearly the Clear Cut parallel I pulled from the Upper Deck Series 2 box my mom gave me.

So far, with the first third of the year down, Hockey has taken three of the months.

May was a BIG card month, as I hit the Sousafly Collection hard...I ended up adding 1797 new cards during the month, and all but about 150 of them came from that collection and my pack stash. However, my favorite new addition was actually one my Mom got for me. I had mentioned how I didn't have any of the series 2 High Numbers for the 1953-54 Topps World on Wheels set, and probably wouldn't because they are generally all above my self-imposed $20 per card limit. So, she went on Ebay and got me this one!

It was also the most cards I've scanned in a month since 2017, as I did 2501 cards. I didn't get the monthly upload on the Cardboard History Gallery done until June 13th!

June saw 874 cards enter my collection, many of them from a large purchase I made on the Trading Card Database. I don't purchase all that often, but I had a deal presented to me that I could not possibly pass up. 313 of the cards from the month came from that purchase, including the card of the month. It was most of the Chrome parallels, about half the Refractors, and about 1/3rd of the Atomic Refractors from 1996-97 Topps Stars. It is the equivalent of 44 boxes worth of parallels. The most I've ever opened of one box was 6...

The Atomic Refractors don't really scan all that well, so I actually took a video of this card in the sunlight. 

Two of the greatest to ever play the game on some amazing technology. 

375 cards came my way in July, and the absolute best was already shown- my Henrik Lundqvist autograph that I got from Kenny!

I never thought I would ever get one of these! I'm not sure this can be topped, this may be my card of the year. 

August...nothing can top July, but let's see what is my favorite addition of the month. Only 94 cards to choose from, too, a very light month. In fact, the first time since August of 2014 that I didn't get at least 100 new cards in a month. August 2020 is when I started to go fully into scale modeling mode, which would last until it got too cold to build in October, when I'm working on this post for the first time since June. I'm actually going to go with one I pulled from my pack stash this time:

I always liked the alien Green Lanterns and the stories that dealt with the GL Corps in space, and this is one of my favorite alien GLs solely because he looks so cool. I am slowly working through a box of 1993 Cosmic Teams I bought in 2019. 

September was fully model mode, although I still managed to add 146 cards. Starting in August, lasting all of September and into October, was the greatest time period in my modeling career. I did almost ZERO card related things. However, I did make one trade- in which I sent out empty toploaders and got back some great Allen & Ginter cards, which completed two of the inserts. Two of them, from the 2017 World's Fair set, show things I've seen in person, but I am going to go with the Unisphere. Funny thing, I've been so focused on models, I have not scanned it yet as I write this caption on October 28th. It showed up in the mail on September 3rd. I finally got it scanned on December 23rd! Actually, I scanned it on something like December 12th and just got around to editing it, since I've been working so hard on other stuff, like the Recovery project.

October, normally a big month since it contains my birthday, wasn't this year...sort of. I got 196 cards, and all but 85 of them were from the Topps Now NHL Playoffs set. I was all set to use one of them, but then I got a birthday present from Database member and friend Bevans, which included this Rangers card from 1969-70 O-Pee-Chee. I have so few 60s Rangers cards, this being my 13th from the entire decade (though I do have 3 from the 50s.) But this is a playing career card of a Hall of Famer- one of the greatest goalies ever. The last card issued during his career and lifetime...Nope, can't beat that! 

November saw me add 280 cards, the vast majority of which were from an entire 100-pack box of Tim Horton's cards my friend in Canada sent me- which I still have not written a post about yet! My favorite cards out of that set are the lenticular team cards, which are also the rarest not-hit insert, as I pulled only three of them in 100 packs. I am going to go with the Lightning, they did just win the championship, and they were the first ones I saw. 

This card looks so much better in hand than it does in scans.

December was once again dominated by Christmas with 435 of 931 cards I got in the month arriving on that day. 291 more arrived on the day my two Black Friday purchased boxes arrived. In total I ended up adding 9009 cards on the year, which is a massive amount. More than I got in either 2019 or 2018. In fact, 2020 is my 6th highest total that I have documented, although  my records are really only fully accurate from 2010 to present. Christmas once again provided my favorite card of the month:

Sheet metal pieces are my favorite, and these are both three color! 

Overall though, my favorite card is the Lundqvist autograph. No surprise there, right?

Overall 2020 was a great year for me for cards. Pretty amazing since I haven't gone looking for cards since February, haven't gotten a COMC shipment since January. 

I achieved my goal for the year on January 5th, and my 2021 goal? I met that on December 6th 2020! I specifically have no goals for 2021 now, at least not not for cards. I do have a goal in scale modeling. That is to build more than 25 1/64 builds. 

My 2020 there was even better than my 2020 in cards...I set a new personal record by finishing 62 models, breaking my old record of 60 which I set in 2000, and which I thought I would never break. Now that I've figured out what I'm doing, the record I set this year could fall...easily...as soon as next year! Only time will tell...

My 2020 completions.

I keep some yearly lists on the Trading Card Database that you might enjoy looking over. Some cards appear in multiple lists.

New Sets added to my collection in 2020 159

Autographs added to my collection in 2020 40

Serially Numbered cards added in 2020 157

Relics added to my collection in 2020 58

New NBA and NASCAR people added to my collection in 2020 41

2020 Trades 10 (I normally make way more trades through a year but I was not trading for most of 2020)

Cards for Easter

As you all know by now, every gift-giving occasion (or even just because) my family gives me cards...lots of cards. This Easter was no exception, as my mom came through big time - a hobby box of Upper Deck Series 2, a blaster of 2013-14 Score, a hobby box of 1990-91 Upper Deck Series 2, and two factory sets!

I'm not going to talk about the last three right now- I didn't open the Upper Deck box in the mistaken belief that they were all duplicates. (Mom had previously given me a factory set of Series 2 for my birthday in 2017) But, just yesterday, I remembered that in those first two years UD included series 1 cards in series 2 packs, so I will have to open them up and see if I can complete the set. The factory sets will be addressed in the next two posts.

What I am going to talk about is the 2019-20 UD Series 2 box and the Score blaster.

This year's Upper Deck flagship struck a real chord with me...I thought it was a great design the instant I saw it. I even completed the veterans in series 1. Series 2 I didn't have as much luck with. I had previously gotten 1 fatpack, and I think I pulled every single card that I got in the fatpack out of the hobby box again, and even in the same order, Panini style. So, that was disappointing. But I was still able to add a bunch of great cards! I even ended up somehow getting TWO case hits from the same box, with my favorite card being one of them- a Clear Cut parallel, of a rookie, at that!

 This is the second Clear Cut parallel I've pulled, but the first of a Young Gun.

 Luckily for me, later in the box I also pulled the base version! I was unable to pull the Young Guns of Quinn Hughes, Cale Makar or Kaapo Kakko, so my dreams of actually completing the set are pretty much nill. However, I did manage to pull A Kakko...

from the UD Portraits set. If ever there was an insert concept that defines the term "meh", Portraits is it, but UD keeps cranking them out, even if I don't know anyone who actually likes them. This year's, at least, gives you two photos.

All was not lost with the Portraits, however, as I got my first card of two players from the insert:

So there's that at least. The UD Canvas insert is better, because it features full action photos, but I'd still rather have a base card. (I'm actually surprised Canvas hasn't been spun off into it's own release yet) I knew, when I pulled it, the Clear Cut Rookie was a case hit at 1:288 packs. What I did not realize, however, was that the Program of Excellence subset of the Canvas insert were also case hits, and I pulled one of them as well. At 270 cards this insert even has subsets...go figure!

at one in every 188 packs, it's not as rare as the Clear Cut rookie, but still falls one per case.

The O-Pee-Chee Updates- which I'm quite fond of- were varied to a wide degree. I got 5 base, 2 Retro, 1 Blue (Boqvist, a Boqvist hot box!) and 1 Red. I had gotten a hobby box for Christmas and hadn't gotten a single red out of it so that was a pleasant surprise. I managed to add two new players to my collection from the OPC updates as well, Joel Farrabee and Joakim Nygard, who I got both the base and red versions of.

I have to say, though, that I think this is my favorite of the OPC updates! It's always nice to pull parallel of your team...this is only my third Adam Fox card, and amazingly, I was lucky enough to pull the blue parallel from the one fatpack my brother got me! I'll have to nab the base card on COMC eventually, the OPC updates are usually plentiful thanks to e-pack.

Getting back to the base cards...I've not gotten a chance to scan any from the box yet. I was hit by some inspiration in my scale modeling hobby and have spent several days creating things there. I also successfully polished something for the first time! But the modeling has left little time for my other hobbies, like cards. So, since I don't want to push this post off any longer, I will take this time to showcase a card from the fatpack my brother got me, and which I got a duplicate of in this box, so it counts....it's my favorite card in the set, so far. I have purposely not gone and looked at the ones I'm missing so I can enjoy it more if/when I get them.

What a great card this is! Taken from this year's Heritage Classic on October 26th, in Regina Saskatchewan, it has so much going for it!

• snow
• toque
• automotive related ad on the boards
• the absolute certainty that I saw this game + the first Heritage Classic I ever saw
• only card photo taken in the entire province that I'm aware of (at least in Hockey)
• A fairly rare player for my collection (only my third card of him)
• throwback uniform

Even the fact that it's horizontal, which I generally don't care for, doesn't hurt it any. Unfortunately for Rittich, the Flames lost in OT that night, despite 43 stops on 45 shots by the Jets, a 2-1 defeat for the Flames.

I have to be honest, you will see this card again...I know that for sure, because I am working on my Top 12 cards of the year post at the end of each month (instead of going crazy trying to write it on December 31st!) and this card was my selection for March. Although the month is not over, the Clear Cut Boqvist is likely to take April's spot)

Now, let me talk about the Score blaster. Panini's NHL license was brief- 2010-14. But their two issuances of the Score brand, wow. They are two of my favorite NHL sets ever. The 2013-14 set is 750 cards! (although the last 100 cards are only available in Rookie Anthology packs). I don't know if the numbers are the same for all teams, but the first team in the set has 18 players with their own base cards! That's incredible. That's the way it should be done. The 2012-13 set is more colorful, but the 2013-14 set is so much larger...almost every player in the league got cards. That's the way it should be done, but almost never is. Yes, I know I'm repeating myself. It's that important. But that's not all! There are also team cards and highlights! The only thing missing are the coaches and league leaders, otherwise this was almost a perfect set. And they also had 1-per pack parallels, which is my favorite kind. I'm one of the few collectors that likes parallels. The set does have inserts, but parallels are more common- which in and of itself is highly uncommon, but I love it. I'd rather have a parallel than an insert any day. 

This is the base card. The section where the team logo and player name, as well as the box behind the Score logo, changes color to match each team's colors. 

The one-per-pack Gold parallel is really brown, but that's OK.

 The Score logo and the stripes also change from silver to gold. There are other colors but I didn't get any- think a couple are Hobby only.

 Here's one of the Season Highlights cards.

And a very cool insert! The photos taken by the camera inside the net can be pretty cool...or they can be closeups of the goalie's butt. That's much less cool, but this photo? Very cool. 

The other insert I got I had to make sure to post because I noticed something interesting about it...

Do you see what it is? 

It's the date of the franchise establishment! By using the 1909 date, they actually are dipping back into the NHA days, which is not something you see too often...in fact, the only other set in my collection that does that is the 1991-92 Pro Set set, which talks about the league's formation. I do know of several other sets that cover that pre-NHL time, including several issued when the league was active, but none of them appear in my collection...yet (or probably ever). 

In the end, I got 793 new cards, which is the most new I've ever gotten for Easter...by a wide margin! I don't know what the next highest number is, but I have an Excel chart of all the days where I got more than 400 cards in one day...and none of the dates of Easter on the list of past Easters in Wikipedia show up on the list at all...so I don't know how huge of a lead this Easter has over others- but it's at least 394 cards. So, this year was definitely an unusual one, but for once, in a good way! 

Stay tuned for the next post, as I celebrate a pretty big NHL milestone. You may be able to guess what it is, considering I basically told you in this post...