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.

Total Blaster 13

Before I get into my latest edition of what is now my least popular series, I got a package from Peter K. Steinberg of Baseball Every Night. This is a blog I was not aware of but I found a comment from Peter on Bob Walk the Plank and clicked on his name. I am guessing this is my Blogger Secret Santa package but I didn't open it yet just to be sure. Peter or Matthew, if you see this can I get a confirmation on that? I have added his blog to my blogroll so I will see updates from him in the future.

I also need to thank Tyler of Rekindling the Cardboard Flame for sending me along 2 packs of 2016 Topps Update. I opened one of them and I think it may be the second baseball pack I've ever opened...but I can't be sure as my memory is like swiss cheese. Large holes obliterating pretty much everything between 1998 and yesterday. It is the first time I've gotten the smoke design of 2016 in hand, and since every blog has pretty much commented about them already, I'll just say that I don't think they look as bad in hand as they do in scans.

OK, now the cards you all didn't come here to see, based on my declining viewership of this series.

 Back to smart phone pictures today.
Jeb Burton, son of 2002 Daytona 500 winner Ward, was considered a young gun in 2014, but now is considered more of a field filler, although he hasn't gotten much time in any good equipment.
Mark Martin red parallel...Mark's final season was 2013, but he still got a base card in this set (all photos and text in it relates to 2013, not 2014). Mark won 40 races over his 31 year career, three times hitting the 5 win mark, with a top performance of 7 in 1998, but he is most well known for being the driver with the most second place points finishes without a championship, of which he has 5...although by all rights he should have been 1990's Champion as he got a bogus penalty that cost him 46 points, he finished the season 20 something points out of first.
Jimmie Johnson Acceleration, first time we have seen that card in this project, but unfortunately I already had the card. I had a grand total of 2 blasters worth of this set before I began this project, and that happened to be one of the two I had gotten. Spoiler alert: I'm still finding it hard to believe he has now won 7 Cup championships. And I would not be surprised if he gets more. He still trails Jeff Gordon for 3rd place in all-time wins by 14 but he might get that too- he gets 5 per year pretty much every year, with a best of 10 in 2007, one of only a handful of drivers to hit double digits in a year in the modern short schedule era (1972-current).
Junior Johnson is the second time his Hall of Fame placque appears in this project. Jimmie and Junior are not related.

Relic is Matt Kenseth...again. Kenseth has become one of my least favorite drivers. At least it's a nice big relic, fairly low numbered, and the photo depicts a special paint scheme, the only card it appears on that I'm aware of. Although you can only see half of it due to burnout smoke....it still counts.

At least it wasn't another Bowyer.