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 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 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!

3 Packs of Dave & Adam's NASCAR Hit Parade 2

A few weeks back I Documented 4 packs of Dave & Adam's Hit Parade series 1. A few days ago the three packs of series 2 I ordered arrived and now I'll show what I got in them- again, I got some great stuff!

This is my favorite card I got out of them...it turned out to be the second card out of the first pack. Autographed relics are not something I have a lot of. I think this may be the ONLY autographed patch in my collection!

This card made a good run as favorite...it goes well with the autographed version I pulled myself.

I pulled two more of the Prized Pieces sheetmetal cards. The Keselowksi has a great pattern. I'm up to 4 of these now.

Each pack contained a copy of this Tony Stewart tire card.

Here are the remaining relics:

And here are the autographs. I got some good ones. (Of course, I consider ALL of them good ones...)

 

So, all in all, another great round of packs. I hope they keep doing more of them. Always a good day when you can add more than one Cup champion's autographs in one day (Kurt Busch 2004, Kevin Harvick 2014)



Month in Review - January 2015

I thought I would debut a new feature today, a look back at the previous month in my hobby. And of course, take a look at some cards that I have not posted yet.

January was an overall unpleasant month in real life, but the cards were great, of course. Not even counting the huge epic mailday I posted about yesterday, I had already gotten 699 new cards in the month- and more than half of them came from trades, which is always a good thing.

I have been constantly tinkering with Cardboard History itself, adding many new features in January, including a Blogroll, my Top 10 Wants, links to my tradelist and semi-complete wantlists, I figured out the Tagging feature, and I added several pages to the top, where you can follow along as I add new cards of my favorite player in the NBA, and view a listing, with links to the gallery, of all my completed sets. I have some more things I want to add, just need to make the time.

I returned to Ebay, for the first time since 2009. Back then they went to where you MUST pay with Paypal, which I do not have. Sometime recently they allowed you to pay without Paypal, so I made 4 purchases. One NBA card, two NASCAR cards and one Non-Sports card. The NBA card I chose is visible on my Elton Brand chart, #3 on the list.

I hit NBA card #77,000 on January 1st. I knew I was getting close, so I pulled from my stash of mixed boxes until I hit the exact mark, and stopped there, for that day. I'm actually doing better with adding to them than I thought I would, it's not like the peak years where I was adding 1000 new cards a week, but I think I appreciate the cards more now. I even take the time to read the backs, something I didn't do when I was getting that many new ones- I didn't have the time to do that back then, I could barely keep up with keeping my Excel chart up to date...which I ended up losing to a floppy disk corrupting. That happened sometime in 2005, and it still stings...but, I am working on (slowly) recreating it, and even better than it was before.

I added 8 new people to my collection in January, 6 NBA and 2 NASCAR. (I only keep track of these two sports- but I got hundreds, if not thousands, of new people in baseball, football and especially hockey yesterday) 3 of the NBA players are rookies who I got in Prizm, which came out in January. My brother treated me to a shopping bag full of Rack Packs, some of which I have not yet opened. Of the 6, 3 of them are One Hit Wonders! Besides Scott Meents, who got a post in One Hit Wonders, and Rex Hughes, who was detailed in "My Largest Trade Ever", the other is Mark Hendrickson, who played briefly with the 76ers in 1996-97. He only got one NBA card, although he does have college cards in my collection, those don't count towards the NBA collection. For NASCAR, I picked up a card of former Miss Sprint Cup/current broadcaster Monica Palumbo off Ebay, and then I found a website that was selling the 1991 Track Pack Yesterday's Heroes set for a great price, and added Jim Roper, who won the first ever NASCAR race- but only ever got one card.

I only added two sets, not counting the massive amount I got yesterday. That would be 2014-15 Prizm, and this one- now my oldest card in my collection, from 1909. This was the non-sport card I picked up off Ebay. Kind of amazing, but I was able to get this 106 year old card for under $6. And it's a squirrel, so you really can't go wrong!

It appears this card predates the concept of numbering cards.

I opened one box in January 2015. Press Pass Cup Chase. I don't usually like to spend that kind of money on myself, but being the last Press Pass set ever- and the last NASCAR set for the forseeable future- I had to. I loved it, and it got it's own post last month.

I also nabbed this relic parallel on Ebay. I was quite surprised but pleased to pay less than the serially numbered print run for this one. I should have taken a better photo without the glare, but I mainly wanted the show off the green foil and the 07/10 SN.

 

Here's the Jim Roper card I mentioned earlier and a really great looking insert from 2012-13 Crusade...also named Crusade. (I hate when card companies do that). Tim Hardaway Sr.'s not my favorite player, but I have always loved the refractor technology. This came out of the mixed boxes I love so much.

 

I found out this card existed during the month of January, and added it to my collection as well. It was exclusive to Club Maxx in 1991. They also did a handful of them in 1992, of which I have the Elliott from that year as well.
From the front it almost looks like a normal card...

But it's not, though!

I found a dealer that sells cards by the pound, so my mom treated me to 10 pounds of cards. It's been a little disappointing, though, as they are mostly all duplicates- and all but 2 cards have been from the 1989-90 through 1994-95 era, of which I have most of them already- and nearly every single card has been damaged. More than 90%. I've gotten more than 20 copies of the 1992-93 Hoops Chris Ford card, however. When I finish all the inner boxes, I will line them all up and take a photo. I have gotten a few new cards, but of the two inner boxes, of 6, I've gotten less than 30 new cards. I don't plan to buy any more from them. (If I could find newer cards, like 2005-06 and later, like this, I would do it, as I don't have many from that era, comparatively)
I did get this great error, though. I love error cards...you can somewhat see the kind of damage most of the cards have from the photo though. Scuffs, bad corners, dents throughout.

And then....there's this. I never have any luck with redemptions. I usually send them and get nothing back. (Fleer still owes me some) Not this time!

Only my second triple autograph in my collection. First NASCAR. Those are on-card, too, not stickers. That doesn't matter too much to me, but I know a lot of other collectors care.

And before anyone asks....it's not for sale! It's my third Newman autograph, but first for Tony and Danica.

As always, thanks for reading! I'll post the grand total of cards added in January when I finish going through all the new ones I got yesterday...but that's not going to be for a few days more!