Total Blaster 14 + JBF Christmas Tradeathon + NHL #3000!

Kind of late to get this posted tonight, but I have two topics to cover and one of them led to a milestone.

First up, because I opened it first, is my 14th Total Blaster, and although the picture is not good, the blaster it self was a great one...probably my favorite so far.

They are all new, which is nice. Jamie McMurray base, Drew Herring red parallel, the Carl Edwards Acceleration and the Ned Jarrett Hall of Fame placque...Herring was only ever included in this set, it's my second card of him, I have the base version already. With the Edwards Acceleration I'm now one card away from completing the insert.

Here we go! I mentioned in the very first post of this series I was hoping to get some of the tires from the first Eldora race- NASCAR's first major race on dirt since 1971. I had pulled race winner (I think, memory is not so good) Austin Dillon from one of the two blasters I did when the set was new, and now I've pulled Jeb Burton. This is the gold version, clearly SN to 50. This is my favorite card of the project so far. It looks better than my cell phone photo shows.

Next up, I got my trade package from Wes at Jaybarkerfan's Junk in his Christmas Tradeathon. While I regret missing the Andrew Wiggins relic he offered, I still got some great stuff. I will be getting his return into the mail on Friday, I didn't have his address so I had to wait and get it off his return address!

What you see here: 2014-15 Totally Certified Materials Red #82 Julius Randle
2013 Panini Black Friday #40 Trey Burke. Bonus points for this being a set not in my collection, which I didn't realize when I claimed it!
2015-16 Panini Prizm Prizm #243 Alonzo Mourning
2011-12 (I think) Pinnacle Threads #56 Erik Johnson (More below)
2011-12 Past & Present Bread for Energy #12 Kevin Durant

This is actually the exact 3000th NHL Hockey card in my collection! It actually only got that milestone number because I found that 6-card panel in my stash, which I posted about recently but had totally forgotten I had. Not only is this #3000, it's also my first actual NHL relic...and it's a patch! (SN 49/50 on the back too!)
Pretty darn cool. The relic has a different texture than I am used to- the NBA relics that I've got literally thousands of and the NASCAR relics I have hundreds of, the cloth used, none of them feel like this. That might be because hockey uniforms are meant to played on the cold ice, where NBA players are trying to minimize heat, and inside a NASCAR racecar usually hovers around 150 degrees Fahrenheit so they definitely don't want to add any more heat.
No matter what, this card will always be important to me as my first relic from the sport, and a Milestone card at that! (I'm obsessed with the milestone/thousand cards. Don't know why, just is). Once I find this set's listing on the Trading Card Database, it will appear on this list I linked to as well.

COMC Bonanza Part 4: The End...and the Beginning?

Editorial Note: I wrote this post up back in June, but with all the stuff that's gone on- my remote hard drive crashing, the huge NASCAR gift, continual health problems, deaths of family and friends, and neighbors causing trouble, I just have not been in the mood to write or even post out of my completed drafts, of which I have more than 20 posts ready to go.  I need to force myself to post or else it will just slip away from me so here you go. I sure wish more of the things going on were good things like the NASCAR gift...

This is the final post in the COMC Bonanza series, and also shifting a MAJOR stance on something that has held true for some 28 years. Read on...

Here are the first three posts. 

While the first post showed cards that were needed to complete sets, the second post showed SN, AU and Relic cards, the 3rd post showed the sets and people I added to my collection...this post is going to show the other cards that don't fit those above categories, cards I just liked and wanted to have as part of my collection...and then the change.

 I was 5 cards short on the Die Cut parallel of 2001 Trackside, and I got 4 of them. (Not shown: The censored cards of Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt Jr.). The last card I need is Dale Jarrett's car, but the one on COMC was ridiculously overpriced- I think he wanted $18 for it, or maybe it was just $8. The card shouldn't even cost $1, so I left it.

 Card #100 from 2010 Premium, showing the 2010 Daytona 500 victory celebration.

 The short prints in 2010 Press Pass are a pain in the butt. I got two (Not shown: Juan Pablo Montoya) and still have 2 left to hunt down, to complete the set.

 This is the Salute to Dale card I mentioned in post #1. It was a three card set, of which I pulled multiple copies of each of the first two cards, but this one was short printed.

I discovered that COMC has Racing Champions cards! I didn't expect that (most people ignore them, because they did not come in packs) and they actually had three I needed. This Stock Rod, I don't even know what SET it goes to. That's surprising, as I worked for almost 25 years to get every Racing Champions issue I could. The last time I found a set I didn't know existed was probably 1999. Not trying to brag but RC was my specialty. I have since found out they were exclusive to stores that were either not in my area or that we didn't go to. The TRU promo is neon by the way!

And now...a major change for me. I've been in this hobby since 1988. I was 4 years old, and I've never stopped collecting. Even when I was mostly out of it in 2007 and 2008, I was still in a little bit...I've always considered myself a collector, even if I wasn't able to add to my collection.

In that time I've never sold a single card. Not one. I've given away thousands, traded away thousands more, but I've never sold one....until now. I had a lot of fun going through COMC and picking out cards. Most of which you've now seen over the last 4 posts. It proved to be immensely fun for me. I spent $200 and I got 144 cards, 139 of which were new, and the others replaced cards that were damaged, including two of the worst from my flood of 2/5/15. It took me about 5 hours to create the order of cards, and they have given me literally days of enjoyment. I got the order on June 22nd and I'm STILL working on them now, and enjoying every minute of it.

It got me to thinking. I've been adding cards to my collection non-stop for years. I viewed it as something to be proud of that I've never sold any cards. But I got to rethinking that. Seeing how much enjoyment it gave me to hunt down these cards- most of them that I got were common cards, to fill sets, even ones I wasn't able to complete- it gave me great joy. What if my duplicates that I've been storing all this time could bring somebody else that same feeling of joy? So,  I started to dig into my duplicate stash, which is extensive, but not as extensive as it could be, as I've given away lots of cards. I selected a random assortment of cards (mostly random, anyway) that were duplicates, and which I had not entered into my tradelist on the Trading Card Database, and selected 100 cards, which is the minimum that COMC requires. By the time this post gets published (I usually write up posts several days in advance- to be honest all the posts in this COMC bonanza series were written on the same day) my first shipment of cards for sale on COMC will be in possession of the USPS en route to COMC. There's nothing too spectacular there- I made sure to put in a couple of Jordan, Kobe and LeBron, but all college sets. And one thing for sure is that they are all duplicates. A card I only have one copy of is still going to be part of my collection as if my life depended on it! 

I don't know how it will work out. I hope it will work out well, but I'm not going to be asking for much on these. I am planning to ask for 30 cents a card for base cards, most of which they are, 40 cents for parallels and 50 cents for inserts- regardless of player or card subject. I wouldn't even ask that much if COMC didn't charge 25 cents per card, to be honest.  I'm aware that if all 100 cards sell, which I think is unlikely, that would give me a profit of ....wait for it....Five dollars. It's not a lot, but it's $5 more I have to spend on cards than I have right now. (A little more, actually, as there are some non-base, but you get my drift)

One of the reasons I've decided to do it is that I don't have anywhere near as much money to spend in the hobby that I once did, or would like to have. There are lots of cards I want- thousands upon thousands- but can't afford. I'm specifically targeting a card from Panini Eminence. The cheapest one on there is $150. The most I'll spend on a single card is $20...maybe $25. If I can come anywhere close to that, to me mentally I could justify it because it wouldn't really be spending $150...it would be trading a bunch of cards and then adding some cash to the deal...even though I don't know who the cards will be going to. It works for me, mentally.

I do have some trepidation. This is a major change from the stance I have held pretty much my entire life. I'm not going to be selling cards on Cardboard History (though a link to my COMC listings WILL appear, when it's ready) nor on Ebay or the Facebook groups, but I will no longer be able to say I'm solely a buyer. 

The other possible con I can think of is that, if it works well and I end up funneling most of my duplicates to them, I won't have anything new to trade, or to fill out random trades with new people I meet. I just "met" a collector through the Database and I've sent him about 350-400 cards...cards that, otherwise, would have been in line to eventually get to COMC...if I like doing it. 

Pros are that I won't have to store the dang things anymore. I have somewhere north of 150,000 cards in my possession, and that's not even counting the ones that are too badly damaged to list on my tradelist or offer up on COMC or elsewhere, which outnumber my tradeable duplicates by about 2 or 3-1. And I keep finding cards I didn't even remember having in my storage units, of which we have 3. (Some of which were duplicates and are now headed to COMC!) 

Another pro is that it opens up a wide variety of people I would not have access to otherwise. I basically know only a handful of people in the hobby...it's not like it was back in the early 2000s when Trader Retreat was going strong. Most of the NASCAR collectors I know already have everything I've got to offer, so hopefully the NASCAR collectors perusing COMC will be people I don't know who want my cards.  

The biggest pro, though, is that I should be able to turn some of my duplicates, of which I really have no need, into cards I DO need, so in a way it's really like just trading them. As I stated my goal is to get a Eminence card, but that is not something likely to happen this year....especially as I'm starting out small with the very minimum COMC allows a seller to send in. And, knowing myself, I'll spend it on the first serially numbered Elton Brand I see anyway.


Here is a photo of the cards I selected, most of them chosen simply because there were easily accessible, IE, the Donruss cards, which all were duplicates out of a blaster my mom bought me last week.  

after taking this picture, I put the cards in the penny sleeves that my COMC order of 6/22/16 arrived in!

 With the $25 minimum it would take me a while to send them all my duplicates...I literally could not afford to pay the fees required to list them, which is humorous in a way. 
I have to admit, I selected a lot of college cards because I had no intention of ever listing most of them on my Tradelist on the Database. Let them deal with them, LOL.  I won't be sending in anything on my tradelist currently either, it was way too much work to get them listed so they are going to stay there until I trade them all away. (IE, never)

I hope it's a success, so I can turn these duplicates into new cards for my collection!  

Editorial Note Part 2:The "last week" I mention in relation to the blaster of Donruss is now over a month ago. I finally got the cards into the mail today, July 30th, even though I printed out the shipping slip on June 28th. Over a month...tells you a little about my mindset right now, but I will keep going forward. 

Ye Olde Blogge

 

NBA's Best Signature, James Posey

NASCAR's best signature, Tony Raines

NBA's worst signature: Josh Howard

NASCAR's worst signature: Jamie McMurray

I made two errors on this page. Can you spot them?

Being sick is not a lot of fun. Updated with photo.

Sick again. I woke up sick on January first, got better, and then got sick again-worse than before, in fact. Of the 29 days of the month, (and really, we're on day 29 already? How'd that happen!?) I've been not-sick maybe 6 of them.

And that's not counting the permanent health problems I have, but I'm talking about your common, annoying, cold. This one hit me so bad I can barely even talk- although I'm not much of a talker in the first place.

It has put my card stuff on a bit of a hold as well. It's hard to concentrate on cards when you are feeling this bad- I've essentially lost several days of getting my tradelist entered into the Database. Let alone scanning or posting anything. I didn't accomplish anything at all yesterday other than watching one of the two Simpsons episodes I've missed; I would have watched both but the Cablevision On Demand was not working right. I tried to watch the movie Midway but fell asleep early on, the last thing I remember was when they determined that it was indeed Midway that was the target. I'm a big history buff and the battle of Midway is my favorite from WWII to read about.

But being sick does make me think of how athletes play through sickness. The most incredible time I can recall was when Michael Jordan was poisoned during the 1997-98 finals. He literally turned green, yet he still nearly single-handedly won the game. He needed help to walk off the court, yet still put up, if I recall correctly, 38 points.

Why can't I do something like that? (well, aside from the fact that I'm nowhere near as talented as MJ).

And I couldn't imagine driving in a race while being sick. I know it's been done. One of the worst things I can imagine is projectile vomiting while wearing a full face helmet...but it's happened. Eww. (Fun fact- if you remove the seat and dashboard, NASCAR cars can be cleaned with a common hose. The dashboard has electronic scoring and in some cases lighting, and the seat has a cloth covering that could probably be hosed down, but wouldn't dry as quickly). Score one for mandated simplicity.

I am feeling better today, and I hope to get one of the features I want to post to Cardboard History typed up, or at least partially typed up. I have two pages I want to create- but I've been putting them off while I worked on the duplicates. Not sure I'm up to that yet (I may try, though- and don't worry, cards don't carry germs; I never stopped doing cards when I was sick when I was in school and going through them in later years never once made me sick, in fact I went nearly a decade without getting sick and never stopped dealing with the same cards. I also wash my hands constantly- every 20 minutes or less) The pages appear at the top of each post and the main page, so by nature they are important topics. Even if I do get one done I doubt I will get them both posted, because one of them is going to require more than one day's worth of work to create. It requires planning and research...

The NBA's duplicates have almost caught NASCAR's, and I believe they will surpass them in the next session I get for entering them- two of the largest sets are ahead of me still, plus I still have all of 2004-05 through 2011-12 and the 1980s to enter, plus some 2013-14 and 14-15. (Not as many as it sounds like as I took a break from the NBA from 2006-07 through 2011-12, so it's only a couple hundred cards, and at least 1/3rd of them are probably from 2005-06 Rookie Debut, a set I did two boxes of.) The margin is only around 400 cards. Of course, if I could find the rest of my NBA duplicates, they would have a several thousand card lead...someday.

One last thing, the mail came after I went to sleep, and I got a dual patch in the mail! I don't have the mental energy needed to deal with the scanner I use for patches right now (my normal scanner has no depth of field whatsoever, the one that does is damaged and needs a LOT of work to fix a scan for posting) but hopefully I can get it posted up in a new feature I plan to debut in a few days.
EDIT: I don't know why it didn't occur to me sooner, but, why not take a real, genuine photograph? Duh...

As always, thanks for reading!

Box Review: 2015 Press Pass Cup Chase (The Last Press Pass set)

Writing this today is not wholly a pleasant experience. I debated if I should even write a hobby blog post after the shocking loss of my 24 year old cousin yesterday, but, as always, cards are the best thing I know of to get your mind off your troubles.

As I talked about 2 posts ago, Press Pass has closed up shop, and the future is fairly bleak for NASCAR card collectors, like myself. I was not planning to get a box of 2015 Cup Chase, as I felt it was too expensive. (They retail for $150) I hadn't gone past the $100 barrier for a box in 5 years now. But with this being the last ever Press Pass product, I decided to go for it. It turned out to be one of the better boxes I've done, and I did better than average, taking home 3 autographs and 4 relics, one more than you can expect per box, each. Two of them were autographed relics, bringing my NASCAR total of autographed relics up to 5.

Man, that Joey Logano card has to be one of the best I've ever pulled. It was in the penultimate pack, the Hamlin auto was in the last pack. The Tony Stewart card is serially numbered 1 of 50. In an odd coincidence, I pulled two cards serially numbered 01/XX from the 2013 Press Pass box I did, the last time I did a flagship set box.

The odd coincidence- the Chase Elliott Green parallel in the bottom middle row here is serially numbered 1 of 10! I'm not a huge fan of Chase Elliott, but that is one heck of a card. And oddly enough, I had won another of the green parallels in a contest on NUTS, making it the first time in my collection that I have more than one card from a set numbered to ten or below. The Kyle Larson car is the Blue parallel, while the Allmendinger, Dillon and Kenseth cards are all the gold parallel. No luck pulling the Melting (1/1). The Jamie McMurray autograph came out of the very first pack, right after the Chase Elliott green. Of the three autographs I got, all of them were new to my collection. At some point I will type up a list of the unique people with autographs in my collection.

Here are all the base cards, and the one Dale Earnhardt Tribute insert card, that I got out of the box.

I had previously been given or had won several of the cards, so I ended up getting several duplicates. You can see them on my Tradelist, with scans, Here (2015 Press Pass Cup Chase Tradelist)

And there you have it. The very last box of Press Pass cards I will ever open new. I'm sure it won't be the last ever, as there are lots of sets that I am still not complete on, but they will all be older issues.

Whenever I am approaching a Milestone card (each thousand) I try to make it a current season card, just to track my progress. I hit 25,000 in 2014 with a 2014 card, but it looks like that may not be the case for 26,000, which will likely be sometime in 2015, if I am lucky.

As always, thanks for reading.