Greg Biffle Memorial and NBA Advent Calendar day 18

 Such sad, shocking news today. Greg Biffle, his wife Christina, daughter Emma and son Ryder were killed in a plane crash today, along with three other people. Although mostly retired now, he was the first to win the championship in the Truck and Busch series, and came 1 spot short of winning all three major touring titles in NASCAR, something that no one has ever done. Ever since retiring he has dedicated his life to humanitarian work, and was especially active in helping people after Hurricane Helene devastated the area. That's not all, he did a LOT of work to help people that never got publicized. I saw someone in Jamaica who said he was there helping after the earthquake they had, which I wasn't aware of until I saw the memorial post they put on Twitter today. 

He was named as one of NASCAR's 75 Greatest Drivers during their 75th Anniversary season in 2023 and is sure to be inducted into the Hall of Fame...it's only a matter of time. It's such a shame that he won't get to experience that though. 

Here are 10 highlights from the 173 cards of him I have scanned. 

Although I have to admit that my heart wasn't in it today, I did do the NBA Advent calendar and got a first today as well. The base card and the plaid parallel in the same pack. 

Updating the Pack Pulled Parallel Project

Way back in 2018, I wrote a post about my quest to have at least one card from every pack issued parallel in NASCAR history...but since then, it's stalled out. I either haven't gotten any new parallels, or they were for sets I already had...but I had a bunch waiting for me when I finally shipped my COMC purchase, and here they are, in chronological order of release.

 1995 Traks 5th Anniversary Red

 1995 VIP Cool Blue

 1996 Traks Red

 1996 Viper First Strike

 2000 Wheels High Gear MPH (SN on back)

 2003 Trackside Golden. 2003 Trackside is the only set from that year I didn't open a hobby box of.

2008 Legends Bronze

 2008 Legends Gold

 2009 Showcase 2nd Gear

 2010 Eclipse Gold

 2010 Showcase 2nd Gear

2010 Showcase 3rd Gear

Not bad, 12 new parallels that had not been in my collection previously. The Dale Jr. Select Prizm I showed in the Favorites post was listed as being from a set I lacked, but I believe I picked up one of those Select Prizms at a card show back in the February or March, so it's possible I did even better.

I also converted the list of what I needed to a Page, easily found on the top of Cardboard History, so I don't have to go through all my old posts trying to find it.

I still have to type in the parallels from the late 2018 and all the 2019 sets but I will get to that in due time. I need most of them but there's only a handful of NASCAR sets each year so it won't take too long- I just have other things I need to accomplish right now.

I was planning on scheduling this for noon of the Daytona 500 day, but I forgot. The lengthy rain delays are a good time to get this posted!

Fulfilling expired redemptions on COMC

There's nothing worse than pulling an expired redemption card, and in one case I even pulled one the day after the due date to ship it to Topps. (as an aside, redemptions that ever expire is one of my biggest pet peeves in the hobby- there's really no reason to ever expire, other than the card company being too lazy to put them in a box and wait for the cards to roll in...Panini does this better than anyone else in the hobby! They print expiration dates for some reason but will honor them anyway)

I had the idea, when I came across some expired redemptions in my regular scanning activity, to see if I could fill them on COMC. I wasn't able to fill all of them, but I did get a lot. I am including the expired redemption cards- which I do count as part of my collection- smaller, underneath the card they finally turned in to.

This was the first one I did on there, and that's only fitting, because I pulled the expired redemption all the way back in 1996!

It's the autographed parallel from 1994 Action Packed Hall of Fame.

 The 1994 Action Packed Hall of Fame set may be the first box of basketball cards I ever did...I don't remember, it was in the first three. My local K-mart had boxes of this set, 1990-91 and 1994-95 Hoops on the shelves when I first began collecting, and I got all of them early on...this may have been in the very first box of basketball cards I ever did.

From 1996 Maxx, this five card Sterling Marlin set was available with one redemption card. Sterling was Maxx Spokesman that year, and I never had the opportunity to send it in- Maxx went out of business in mid-1996 and I didn't get the redemption until circa 2000.

 

Leave it to Press Pass to be the least inspired. The card that was due to be redeemed looked EXACTLY the same as this card, only without the foil name and 2003.  

 2000-01 Fleer Tradition Glossy. This is an autograph.

One of the worst feelings I ever had in the hobby was pulling a redemption card from a pack the day after it expired. I can't remember which card it was anymore, but I remember that it was from Topps. It may have been this one. Topps rushed the set out too early and couldn't even get all the rookies into the base set without redemptions.

Like I said above, I was not able to fill all of them...but getting these filled...especially after having one of these expired redemptions for 21 years now...it's a great feeling. In fact, this may be my favorite project of all that I worked on with COMC...and that's why it's the first I'm showing this week.

Total Blaster 1 & 2

A few days ago I came across the pre-Black Friday sales Blowout Cards was doing, and while there was a lot of nice stuff at good prices, what caught my eye was a deal on 20 Total Memorabilia Blasters from 2014. The normal price on this was $400...and they were on sale for $99.11. That's more than I like to spend at one time, but I couldn't pass that up. Each one sold for $20 when new so that's some major savings. And I had very little of the set, too, which meant that in theory most of the cards would not be duplicates. I had only two blasters worth of the set, plus a couple of multi-piece relics I purchased on the secondary market. (Retail finds are usually single piece).

Well, they arrived yesterday and I determined that I was not going to open them up all at once, and spread out the fun, with my target date to finish opening them on January 1st. That came out to 1 box every three days after I did two the first day.

Just for fun, I decided I was going to blog about each box. I have not been posting too much NASCAR stuff lately but this will give me 19 posts between now and January. If I follow through with my plans...I don't always.

I also came up with a way to take better pictures of the cards too. Press Pass was making every insert mirror foil and the depth of the relic pieces make 3 out of 5 cards per pack tough to scan...so photos it is!

Box #1:

 Each pack contains one base card, one parallel and 3 inserts, one of which is guaranteed to be either a relic or an autograph. Most of them are from this insert set, single relic pieces, most of which are tire chunks but there are also cards with firesuit pieces and maybe some other stuff. I only had three base cards going in and the Almirola was one of them.

They go up to 4 relic pieces per card and each version has a different color foil. The silver foil single relic pieces are the most common. this Biffle piece shows quite a bit of cording in the tire as well, something I like to see even if it does mean that it's from well inside the tire instead of the surface that touched the track or the sidewall.
The Acceleration and Hall of Fame placques are mirror foil.

Box #2:

 Oof, a duplicate already, pulling the same Acceleration Brad Keselowski from both boxes. With only one base card per box, I don't think I'll complete the set, even though it's typical Press Pass microscopic 50 cards. I needed the Kurt Busch card shown here.

Now that's a great tire piece! This looks like it's got burn damage from the burnout shown on the card. I love race dated relics, too. I wasn't expecting this card, I forgot this insert was in the set.

And that's box #1 and 2. Future posts in the series will have only one box per, in theory. I'm not really known for my follow through, after all. I'm hoping I pull more of the truck tires from the first Eldora dirt race. I pulled Austin Dillon's from a blaster my brother got for me when the set was new. It's a fairly small insert, I think six or 8 cards, so maybe I will be lucky enough to complete it...or, barring that, I will get closer to it and be able to pick up the missing cards on ebay or COMC or something.

A box of Excalibur and 2 of Prizm...yes, two!

Yesterday was definitely what would be described as a rollercoaster. It started out spectacularly, but then turned horrible...as is the norm for me, any good thing is offset by something horrible happening.

But the good thing that happened yesterday...what a good thing it was!

I was more than surprised to receive a message in my inbox from someone asking my address, as they wanted to send me some boxes...I am not going to say who it was but I will say that I am forever grateful.

Said boxes arrived yesterday, and I didn't know what to expect. Inside were 2 boxes of Prizm, and one of Excalibur. I couldn't be happier. Prizm is one of my favorite NASCAR sets in years, and has now become the first NASCAR set I've ever opened three boxes of...considering I've been collecting NASCAR since Christmas 1992 that's pretty amazing! Excalibur is a set that I really liked, but the hobby box was out of my price range...there's no way I can justify spending that kind of money on a box anymore.

Prizm is the first time ever that the Refractor/Prizm technology has ever been used in NASCAR. In the hobby box, retail blaster and two retail hanger packs I did, I didn't get a single Prizm of any of the car cards. In these boxes, I got four of them!

Here is a page of the numbered cards I got from both boxes combined. There's some really great stuff here! The Green Flag Prizms are my favorites and I am thrilled to add three of them to my collection

The Kyle Busch auto came out of box #2 and is SN30/50. The Paul Menard is the Gold parallel of the base card and is SN 06/10! It's the second Menard numbered to 10 I've pulled in the past year, as I also got one in a box I got for Christmas last year. I think my favorite has to be the Bobby Labonte patch card. I think that's the letter P from the "Competitive Horsepower" right above the belt line. Here's a closer look-

The autograph in the other box I pulled was Greg Biffle, in possibly the greatest firesuit design ever in NASCAR history, sadly worn only once, at this year's Daytona 500. With the one-race KFC sponsorship, his suit was made to look like Colonel Sanders.

I now have a Gold Prizm autograph, the Green Busch, the Prizm Biffle, a Red Flag Prizm of Darrell Wallace Jr that I got as a single...but no base autographs! Not that I'm complaining, mind you...

Here are some of the Prizms I got. They don't really scan well, but...they look spectacular in person. Not shown (as they are already on the Trading Card Database) : #1 Jamie McMurray, #10 Danica Patrick, #11 Denny Hamlin, #65 Jimmie Johnson, #76 Kyle Busch, Variation #9 Bill Elliott. The Darrell Waltrip on the bottom right is die cut.

Here are the 4 car Prizms I got. I love these!

These are in card number order, my OCD wants to put them in car number order, hah!

I now have 29 of the 100 Prizm parallels. (I've also completed the base set, possibly twice over- I have not sorted my duplicates yet)

I also got two of the Race Used tire cards which seem to be one per box. I could literally not be happier, as these are my two favorite current drivers. Both pieces show some of the cording in the tires as well...cool!

I did these two boxes first, as like I said above, I did a box previously. Excalibur, however, was something I did not do much at all on this year, which is a shame as I really liked the set. It has two things especially going for it- it's the only real set of 2015-16 to show players with their new teams who were traded at the Trade Deadline, and it's the only set where the majority of the cards are sorted by team! As someone highly OCD, I like that a lot. (If I were making the set composition, they would be sorted by jersey number in team alphabetical order, so card #1 would be the lowest number on the Atlanta Hawks, #2 the second lowest jersey number, etc).

The very first pack out of the box...had by far the most impressive card in the box...

This is now the largest jersey piece in my collection! It's also only my second card of Jokic, so it's far and away the best card of him in my collection. He was kind of a surprise this year for the Nuggets, he was not really heralded, and in fact I first learned about him when I watched a preseason game of the Nuggets- not to brag but I usually stay on top of who is in the NBA...I'm addicted to the game. If I remember correctly, he even ended up finishing 3rd in Rookie of the Year voting behind Karl-Anthony Towns and Kristaps Porzingis...so we're talking some serious talent here. I fully expect him to be a regular in the 2016-17 sets and beyond.

Here are the base cards:

Here are the rookies, including my first card of Jarell Eddie of the Washington Wizards. I like how the rookies have a team colored border on the bottom, but I like the team colored scrollwork on the base cards. I would like to see the 2016-17 set combine the two with team colored scrollwork AND border, possibly using both of the team's colors...though that might be hard with the Nets and Spurs, which both use black and white.

Excalibur's Hobby Box provides three hits, and I got some other good ones to go along with the Jokic.

Kobe Bryant needs no introduction, but Wes Unseld might as he's been out of the public eye for a while. He was one of only two players in history to win MVP and Rookie of the Year in the same season! (1968-69). He led the Bullets (now Wizards) franchise to it's only Championship and then coached the team. His son Wes Jr. is still a part of the franchise, I believe. He is a Hall of Famer and is pretty much the best player in Franchise history (Some might say Elvin Hayes, but he also played elsewhere, while Unseld was only ever with this team). I'm very happy to add these two to my collection. It's my second autograph of Unseld and he is the only person with a last name starting with a U to appear in my autograph collection.

You also get three numbered Crusade inserts per box. These are Prizm technology although not marketed as such. My favorite is the Blue, made even more visually impressive by the throwback uniform Cauley-Stein is wearing.

I got two numbered parallels in my box. The Noah is a Gold and the Kaminsky is a silver. I like that they are numbered on the front- something that you don't see much of anymore.

And then the inserts. I'm not normally a big fan of inserts, but these aren't bad. The Team 2020 set is my favorite here, as it profiles players who might be superstars in the year 2020. I didn't have any before, now I have three. Can't beat that! Unlike most recent inserts, the Team 2020 and Team Titans have writing on the back...Jamfest and Class Masters just have the player's name, team and card number.

I want to thank the person who sent these to me once again...it made me truly happy, something that's few and far between...these cards will give me years of enjoyment.