Lost & Found: Beckett Samples

A few years back I found a box in my storage unit with some old Becketts in it. I consider magazines one of the main things I collect but I am terrible at keeping track of them. After I read them, I put them in a box and put them in my storage unit...generally never to be seen again, although I hope to change that in the not too distant future. Well, back in late 2017, when we upgraded to a much nicer storage unit, I found a box that was mostly old Becketts, and I took it home with the intent to re-read them again. And then, I just kind of used the top of the box for storage, not actually opening it up and looking through them or reading any of them. 

A few days ago, I reached a bit of a burnout impasse in my scanning project, (Since I got scanner #5 I have been working on scanning foils, finests and etched cards only, not editing the scans. Not a lot of fun and I hit burnout.) So, I got into the box and decided to start scanning the covers. Not only for my own collection, but also to post on the Trading Card Database, which has a magazine section. Also, those issues are a goldmine for card ads, which I also scanned. 

The box was mostly early Beckett basketball...issues #1-18, minus #4, and then another run of issues from 1995-96 era, and then some from 2002, which is probably the last time I was in the box before it went to storage. (I'm not sure if I never got issue #4 or it just never got into the box- back in the day when Beckett actually had articles worth reading I was working on collecting all of them)

There was also a small selection of Beckett Racing. Now, one thing Beckett Racing had that Beckett Basketball did not, was promo cards. Starting in 2002, and going to circa 2005, Press Pass supplied most issues of Beckett Racing with a sample card. These cards are actually quite rare and whenever I meet someone who collects, there's about an 80% chance that their first question is going to be if I have any of the Beckett Samples available. 

I thought that I had pulled them all out of the magazines when they were new...I was wrong! 

Jeff Gordon is 2002 Premium. Dale Jarrett is 2002 Eclipse 

 The fronts look just like normal base cards, but the back...that's what makes them special.

Two of the Becketts still contained the cards, and I thought to myself, they must be duplicates, which is why I didn't take them out. But I checked, and they were not! I needed both cards! Unfortunately, by being glued into the magazine with tacky rubber "glue", both cards have some slight damage. The back of the Gordon card shows some of the "cracking" that is common on these, and the Jarrett card has that AND the glue took some of the UV coating off the card. I don't care. I'm thrilled to have them, now officially part of my collection, 17 years after I originally acquired them! 

That was an awesome find, and it really makes me wonder what else is waiting to be found in my storage unit, unseen by human eyes in a decade or more...

In the end, I scanned 108 magazine covers for my collection files, and totally coincidentally, 108 card ads, which I will be working on uploading to the Cardboard History Gallery over the next few days. I am debating adding my magazine cover scans to it as well- especially the card related magazines, which are not solely Beckett.  

If anyone would like to read a Lost & Found post about the magazines themselves I could whip one up in a very short time...I'm not sure anybody would want to read it though. I may write one anyway if the spirit moves me. 

NASCAR Box #2 Breakdown

I've finished going through the cards my friend sent me a couple of weeks ago, totally unexpectedly. And what a box it was! I ended up getting 1079 new cards, which is my 6th most all-time for one day. (the first box he sent me is in the top 5)
My records aren't matching up, and I hate when they don't match in the three places I store them. But it may really be off by a card or two, because the Database shows I have one card, while my paper records- which I based my collection on the Database off of- shows I don't. But I've long said the numbers are probably off and that I just use them as a baseline anyway.

While the first box had more cards in it, this one completed more sets- 8 of them, all from 1995-97. Also, I completed a parallel and three inserts, which is very rare for me to do so. The inserts I completed include 1996 Ultra Champion's Club (5 cards), 1996 Upper Deck Virtual Velocity (15 cards) and this one, from 1997 Upper Deck Victory Circle, at 10 cards...

It's as sparkly as it looks in hand. I pulled one of these when it was new and now, 20 years later, I've completed it.

While I didn't complete this set, the largest percentage of increase was 1996 Ultra. It is a 202 card set, and I previously had 11 of them. I now have 201 of them! I'm only missing one common card, #145, Joe Gibbs. Amazingly, despite Ultra being my favorite brand, I've NEVER completed an Ultra flagship. I have completed the Ultra Power Rangers movie set, and with this box I completed the Ultra Update, but standard Ultra still eludes me. I think I may have finished 1999-00 in my COMC pending shipment but until I get it in hand it doesn't count. Maybe someday I will finish one. Heck, maybe if I get more than 21 cents in my COMC account I will pick up the missing Gibbs and complete this one! Wait a minute, I just realized I completed 1992-93 Ultra on April 1st! I forgot when I typed this up. I remembered before publishing but I decided to leave the paragraph anyway. But I am going to have to rewrite some of my April trade recap before I publish it!

Here are an example of each of the sets I completed. The number listed is how many cards make up the set.

1996 SpeedFlix, 87 cards

1996 VIP, 54 cards

1995 Assets, 50 cards. Rare to see an uncensored Bud car.

1996 Finish Line, 100 cards

1996 Press Pass, 120 cards

1996 Maxx, 100 cards

1997 Ultra Update, 100 cards

1995 Optima XL, 60 cards. I had only 1 before the box arrived!

SpeedFlix is a set I loved since new and worked hard on completing from retail, but fell short. Assets was a set I never had much of. 1996 Press Pass was the one I was closest to, I needed only about 20 of 120 cards. The big one here is 1996 Maxx. Maxx was my favorite brand and was in operation from 1988-96. This was their final flagship. I have now completed 1989, 90, 91, 92, 94 and 96. And I have a factory sealed 1988 Factory set but I don't want to open it. Completing 1995 and 1993 are priorities. I really want to get a factory set of 1993, which I know are out there. 1995 was two series and does not have a factory set that I know of.

Unfortunately, they were double paged, and most of them got damaged, but 1996 Ultra Update took the most damage.

You can see where this card stuck to the other card and damaged both of them.Everything that looks like snow in the scan is damage.

Here's the parallel I completed, 1997 Race Sharks First Bite. (45 cards). This is only, off the top of my head, the third parallel I've ever completed, and one of those was a factory set exclusive, so that's a pretty rare accomplishment for me.

 Race Sharks was such a pointless set, photos of drivers superimposed in front of a picture of the shark, but it's late 1990s so I love it anyway.

Now, here's just some scans of cards from this box that needed to be posted to the Trading Card Database.

I even managed to get two new people for my collection, one who I was aware of the fact that I was missing him...

and one that slipped through the cracks and I didn't even know I should have been looking for! No matter how good I think my records are, there's still mistakes.

And, like the last box he sent me, I took screencaps of my collection totals on the Trading Card Database both before I entered the new cards...

and after. You can see that some drivers really went up by a large number!