I have not really talked about it too much, but I have a huge stash of duplicate cards sitting in my storage unit. I don't know exactly when I last saw them, but I'm guessing it was in 2003 or 2004. I haven't seen them in years, until last year when we moved to a better storage unit. Yesterday (October 28th, not sure when I'll actually get around to posting this) I went to my storage unit and moved the model kits off them, and started going through them a little bit. There's going to be some loss- the previous storage unit was not climate controlled, so they were essentially exposed to the elements. There is a degree of "brickage" and the weight of the stuff has damaged some. Luckily, they ARE duplicates. At some point I'm going to cart them home and sort them...then compare them to my actual collection to see if there are any upgrades...or possibly variations. I know there will be...because I've found some already!
The Brickowski from 1988-89 Fleer was one I knew needed an upgrade for a while, and I found a small stack of the set in a box with a receipt from October 2003 in it, and was happy to have one of his cards in there! Believe it or not, I specifically tried to get the flash on the card to show the bends. It has 5 bends, all 4 corners are weak, and it has surface scratches.
The Juwan Howard card was one I didn't know I needed to replace...I had, back in 2004, the last time I had been through my collection, left it next to one of the inserts from Stadium Club from around the same time period. Unfortunately, those cards have gotten sticky and damaged several cards around them, including this Howard card. I found a small stack of 2001-02 Fleer Premium- surely the duplicates from the two boxes I did back when the set was new- and brought them home, because I couldn't remember off the top of my head WHICH card was damaged, just that it was a Maverick. I was in luck! You can see the white spots on the border and on his jersey.
If anyone wants the two damaged cards shown above, I'd be more than happy to send them to you, but I'm not going to spend a lot of money on them, so it will be PWE. It's not like they aren't damaged already, afterall.
Unfortunately, I forgot to look for an upgrade for this Charles Barkley 1989-90 Fleer card. And I had a big stack of 89-90 Fleer in my hands, too...I simply forgot to look. Duh! The cards are easily accessible now, so going and looking would be pretty easy. Since I plan to go through the boxes in their entirety at some point, I probably won't make a special trip, though. This card has no less than 7 bends in it, plus the corners are all bad. I hope this isn't the best (Only) copy of the card I've got, but it shouldn't be too bad if I have to replace it at some point. I don't plan to do that until I am sure I don't have one already, and I'm not going to sort them until I finish scanning my collection...looking at 2021 or later, considering how many new cards I'm getting from friends and family members lately, but that is NOT a complaint!
About the sticking and bricking....
Ugh, that was painful to see. I'm holding two cards here, the rest are all stuck together, and pretty much all of them stuck together are too damaged to put on my tradelist. The cards that are in even stacks are mostly going to be OK...but the ones that slid around and were not even on the top, they are mostly going to be lost. Of course, I can't throw any cards away, so I'll still have them forever...unless I can find somebody who wants them...but once I get them apart, and make sure there are no variations here...I will be putting them in a box, and putting them back in the storage unit, and probably not going to look at them again for 15 more years.
I'm not sure if you can tell, or are familiar with the boxes, but Avon used to send boxes that were a great size for card storage...I prefer to use them for my duplicates, and have for years. (Luckily, my mom was involved in Avon at the time so we got them pretty much every week). There are 7 of them...all full like this one. I don't know how many card each box holds, but 2000, give or take, is my guess.
I didn't photograph them, but I also found replacements for three of the 2003-04 Topps cards that got destroyed in my flood of 2/5/15.
I found some other interesting stuff, in the duplicate stash, as well. 1989-90 Hoops has some
errors and variations, but my collection is documented on card number- if my records show I have a number, then any other copies of the card go into the duplicate box. One of the cards in 1989-90 Hoops is such a minuscule variation, the #115 card of Spud Webb was originally issued with the wrong date of his free agent signing. They later corrected it. I had the corrected version all these years, but found one of the error versions in my duplicate box. I also found, in a box mostly filled with empty toploaders, a German Collector's Choice card from 1994-95 and a football card I had no recollection of ever having. Back then, actually until a few months ago, I did not count the International editions of the Collector's Choice cards as part of my collection. Now I do! And anything that wasn't NBA or NASCAR I could care less about, which is how the football card got into a box with duplicates and empty toploaders. Now, I consider them both part of my collection, and even better, the football player was one I didn't have in my collection previously!
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