An Exquisite find

 Back in the end of the 2003-04 NBA release season, Upper Deck announced a new set called Exquisite Collection. You got 5 cards per pack, and each pack cost $500, which at the time was insanely high for a box of cards. At that point in time, it was important to me to open a box of every set released. Other than 2000-01 Fleer Focus and 2001-02 Hardcourt that I missed, I opened a box of every NBA set released from 1999-00 through that time. (I did a box of most of the 1998-99 sets too)

When the set was released, I saved up and bought a box...and that instantly ended my opening a box of every set even though I still want to. Remembering now, not being able to actually actively collect every set even played a role as a contributing factor to why I quit the NBA during the 2006-07 season, which I now regret. Another BIG contributor to me leaving was my original Excel file corrupting in 2004.  It was late in 2004 that I had my NBA sets together for the last time to date. I sorted them by letter trying (but failing) to recreate what was lost. 

Exquisite Collection came out shortly after that time. I do not know when exactly that happened, but the first set that was still together, not sorted by letter with the rest of my collection was Triple Dimensions, which I got on April 8th, 2004. 

My experience at that time wasn't a great one, and once I put the cards away from that failed sort, I didn't take any of my NBA cards back out again until 2012, when I joined the Database and got back into the NBA. 

Not all of the cards were found at that time, although my paper listing showed that I did indeed have them. The box of Exquisite Collection was among the missing cards. 

Flash forward to 2025. Doing some cleaning, I found the box of Exquisite Collection I bought, but I was in the middle of cleaning and didn't take the time yet to scan it/look in it. I refound it again in April 2026, and this time I looked in it. Surprise surprise, the cards were still in it! I almost NEVER leave cards in the packaging they came in, I tried to keep them all together in the same style boxes, specifically so they would always be with the other cards in my collection. This was actually somewhat of a big surprise to me because it's so rare. 

I probably had not seen these cards with my own eyes or held them in my hands since late 2004. 

The packaging on the cards is pretty extensive. 

There's an outer carton...

Inside that is a brown cardboard box, and inside That box is a bag. Inside the bag is this wooden case with a glass placard on it. 

Inside THIS box is full felt lining on both top and bottom, and yet another box. 

and FINALLY inside that we get to the cards. 

The only base veteran card in the pack was this Jason Kidd, which is probably the second best possible card the pack could have contained. Only Elton Brand would have been better. I do not have his card from the set even today. 

The base set is only 78 cards, a very small set. There are the base veterans, but technically this is also a base card. Each pack contained 1 autographed rookie patch card. 2003-04 is one of the best draft classes in history, and the LeBron James card from this set sells for a LOT. Like the gross domestic product of some small island nations. 

Unfortunately I was not lucky enough to pull LeBron. Nothing against Zarko Cabarkapa but this is a card I could buy for well under $100*. The patch comes from the Rookie Photo Shoot, not game worn, either. 

Next up was a gold parallel of Steve Francis. Yes, it's numbered to 25 but I've never been a huge fan of his. 

The next card is this jersey parallel of Steve Nash. I do not like Steve Nash. I also pulled a card of him from Ultimate Collection. Without something like the Database existing in 2004 I didn't know if this was a parallel or an insert back then. 

Final card was this patch autograph of Tracy McGrady. It's nice. even with a single color patch (this can only come from the number on the jersey) McGrady is a Hall of Famer and it was obvious he would be even by that point in his career. I have 3 or 4 autograph cards of his. 

What's the best part of finding this, aside from finding cards I knew I had but didn't know where they were? I didn't remember the Nash or McGrady at all, and I didn't have the inserts listed in my paper listing! I had no idea they were in my collection, since I hadn't layed eyes on them in 22 years. 

I did not feel like I got my money's worth for $500. Little did I know this would be what most of the hobby would be these days, which is nothing short of disgraceful. Upper Deck produced Exquisite Collection until 2009-10, during which season the NBA pulled their license. This was the only box/pack of the set I ever opened, or ever will. 

OK, before I published this post I thought to look up this set and maybe add the Elton Brand card to my collection. I had no idea what these cards were going for now. The cheapest card I could find is $50 and it's badly damaged, and even the base veterans are not available under $100. That's such a shock to me, because they aren't really great cards. Even the empty wooden box is available for sale without the carton or the baggie it comes in or any cards...for $215. That's insane. There's only one copy of the Elton card currently available, and it's $199 + 20 more for shipping from Thailand. Nope....that's a card I'll never collect. These cards are not worth the money they are selling for. 

Are you kidding me? This has to be money laundering or something. No sane person would spend that much money on this card. I know the hobby has gotten stupid lately but this is just so egregious. 

Hiding in plain sight

Back a few years ago, I sorted out my cards that needed scans for the Trading Card Database, in an effort to prioritize them and get them posted. When I did the NASCAR cards, I set aside the Jeff Gordon cards that were already posted...and there were a lot of them since Jeff is one of the most popular drivers ever. 

I remember putting the cards already posted in a small white box, and I hadn't seen them since...or so I thought. I don't remember when I began to work on scanning the NASCAR cards that were already posted to the Database, but I think it was 2018. (I know I finished getting everything on the Database on Christmas Eve 2017, and I had finished NASCAR quite a while before that since I made it a priority.) I remembered putting them in that small box, and I've been looking for it for a while now. 

I've probably checked each small box twice, wondering where it could have gone off to...

Then, out of the blue this morning, I had an idea, to check the 5000 count box I have right next to me but rarely go in because I use it as the base for my built model display. After a significant amount of work to get into the boxes, I got to the bottom box...and there they were. 

I remembered putting them in the small box, but I had ZERO recollection of taking them out of the small box and putting them into the big box. I probably did this back in like 2015 or 2016, so it's been a while! 

I have no idea exactly how many cards it was, but the column at the bottom was full when I opened the box, and after I took the Jeff Gordon cards out, that's how it looks now. 

I have no idea how long it will take me to get them all scanned...may take quite a while, but there's no time limit. I do know that I have more cards of Jeff than any other person, over 1200 according to the Database, although they include stuff that shouldn't be included like multi-person cards, race scenes and more. I've got 766 scanned currently.  Every other card in that box needs scans too. I'm not yet close to being caught up, 

Thanks for reading.

My 2021 goal is complete

 I know I've been setting easy to achieve goals for the year, but I've topped myself this time...as I've already completed 2021's goal! 

I've been trying to keep the goals light...the 2018 goal burned me out on the hobby for about a year. (getting one new card every day of the year to celebrate my 30th anniversary in the hobby). This year's goal was to scan every card I got at Christmas 2018, and I accomplished that in early January.

2021's goal was to get my packs scanned on the Trading Card Database to 1000. I was at 931 as recently as the afternoon of December 6th. However, I think it's safe to say I've hit that mark...

...considering how I'm now at 1047 posted!

I'm one of the few collectors who collect the packaging. Boxes, packs, I save them all. I started that in 1999, and wish I had started sooner...I still hear the occasional comment about how they are "garbage" and I should throw them out, and that is coming from other card collectors. 

However, they are not sorted or organized in any way, shape or form. They are just in whatever I could fit them in, mixed in to my storage unit, which, ah, well....let's say the former houses destroyed by tornadoes on the Weather Channel are more sorted and organized. They aren't even in anything resembling chronological order, after we discovered that the former units were leaking with every rain storm and moved to a new, climate controlled unit in 2016. 3 units were condensed into one in a mad dash to get it done- 20 years worth of stuff moved in 7 days. It was an ordeal. Because we had a time limit we couldn't really sort anything- it was simply grab and dash, throw it into the new unit, and make another trip. And I may have neglected to mention that I'm a hoarder- everything I've ever owned...I still own. 

BUT....last week, my brother and I (mostly my brother- I have physical limitations on what I can do) began the monumental task of fixing the storage units. Getting them sorted and organized the way that I have always dreamed. Monumental is not hyperbole. This is going to take years. And that's OK...we are actually enjoying the process, and every single time we've found things we were looking for and had not any idea where it had gone off to, and I've found some things I forgot I even had...things I needed, and would have had to replace shortly, had I not found them. (Modeling stuff, if you are curious)

And of course, the very first trip, we find a box that I had not looked inside of for years, which included a large number of card packs! It was mostly 2000-01 through 2002-03 NBA, but there was some older- as far back as 1992-93- and some NASCAR as well A separate shopping bag- my usual method of sending something to storage- yielded the 2006-07 Rookie Debut box and packs, which I had, from 2006 through 2012, believed would be the last NBA box I ever opened, which I now know was not accurate in the least. 

When I posted the scans missing to the Database, it turned out that I had posted 116 pack images, 13 factory set images and 32 box images from this trip to storage. My 2021 goal was not just met on December 6th, 2020, it was obliterated. And that was just on the very first trip...

Earlier tonight- I'm writing this at 2:11 AM, so technically last night- we went to the unit and worked some more. And found some more...boxes, packs, and even cards- at least some of which I had never even opened! (a factory set of 1994 Skybox NASCAR- which I was "missing" 7 of the 26 cards of all these years!) . While this is going to be a lot of effort- remember, monumental- it's going to be worth it. And we know some things are going to be destroyed. Not only did the original units leak, they were also home to several Mickeys and Jerrys if you know what I mean. But the good is going to FAR outweigh the bad, and there are some things that I'm specifically looking for, that when found will be getting their own Lost & Found series posts (which technically this is one as well). 

Now...do I come up with another goal for 2021, or be happy that I've already completed it and just take what the year brings me? I'm leaning towards the latter. Although I didn't come up with my 2020 goal until December 31st, 2019, so I guess I still have time. 

Oh, by the way, the 1000th pack image was this one- 

The back of 2000-01 Topps Gold Label. Even the packs were awesome looking on the Gold Label sets. (As an aside one of the Gold Label boxes and presumably the packs inside is one of two I am absolutely sure were destroyed by the leaking, but I'm not sure if it was 1999-00 or 2000-01. It was covered in mold and disintegrating, I had no choice but to throw it out. The other was 2000 Press Pass VIP NASCAR). I'm pretty sure the box I scanned all of these out of was actually the results of repacks, which I'm glad about since there were several retail packs in there, and I normally did hobby only at that time...or at least I thought I did. Apparently not. The fact that the box they were in was mailed to me in 2006 also makes me think they may have been packs I opened long after they were new, but there's no way to really know since I do have a tendency of repacking things when I look inside of them...for instance when I brought the box back over to the unit tonight, there are now packs from 2019-20 in the same box. Hockey packs, which I didn't even collect or watch the last time I saw inside of that box.

Eventually, the goal is to have it all sorted, and have the packs and boxes neatly sorted, and all together. I probably won't be able to sort them chronologically because they are not evenly sized, but that's OK. I'm OCD as should be obvious but it manifests more in trying to get everything into as small a space as possible, and the photos/scans in chronological, properly labeled order. 

Lost and Found : The very first paper listing I ever made for my card collection

 I've shared in the past some photos of my paper card listing. It's how I keep track of what I have, and for a long time I didn't even officially consider a card as part of my collection unless I had written a paper listing for it. While this is now firmly established as the backbone of my collection, it had to start somewhere...and that was 1998 Maxx 10th Anniversary, one of my all-time favorite NASCAR card sets. 

I knew I had to rewrite the listing, because I didn't leave space for the cards I was missing, so as soon as I got one it was messed up. And get one I did- I eventually completed the 134 card set. 

I didn't know what had become of the original paper listing until last week, when I found it in an old notebook. Or at least the first page of it, it was originally 2 pages. 

You can see that early on I was using different colors to denote different dates of adding the cards to my collection...I really, really wish I had recorded what dates they were! I started recording the dates sometime in late 1999...I don't know exactly when yet, that info will be acquired eventually but it's a long, long way off. The second page of the set is still missing, but I think I know what binder it's in...just not the location of that binder.  You can see I DID leave a space for the missing #45 card...you can literally see the evolution of my card listing right on this page.

I eventually rewrote the listing for the set, leaving space for all the missing cards. While I did complete it, I didn't complete it until 2009. I didn't finish creating my paper listing for NASCAR until 2007, non-sports until 2010, and hockey in 2019. (although I only created the one for hockey in 2017). It's still how I truly know what I have...and it all started right here. 

Lost & Found: The largest item in my card collection

You'd think it'd be impossible to lose something this large, but when you hoard as much as I do...it's really not.

 This giant Topps advertisement for the 1999-00 set is huge...and I rescued it from the garbage. My original hobby shop was going to throw it away, as I remember it I happened to be in the right place at the right time yet again and saved it right before he folded it in half to fit it into his garbage can. Most of my collection has been gathered by being in the right place at the right time, and that doesn't just apply to the cards.

Rather than just tell you how large it is, I got a standard sized card to put next to it. I don't have any 1999-00 Topps handy, but the John Starks card from 1994-95 Fleer was next on the "To be scanned" stack so got the call. It may be hard to tell but the six sample card images are slightly larger than standard card sized, probably about the same size as the larger card size Topps used before 1957.

It's no tin perfect shape...the corners are dinged, there's some surface damage, and there's a tiny hole in Gary Payton's forehead to be able to hang the poster from the ceiling...all of which happened before I got it. But I don't care, I'm happy to have it...when do you see stuff like this? It's identical on both sides, and Gary and the Topps logo are a separate piece made to stand out from the background...although pretty much flat by now, since it had stuff placed on top of it before I got my hands on it.

A hockey "card" I forgot I ever had

Generally speaking, I'm not the kind of person that does fads. It's not that I have a hatred of new things, of popular things, like some people do. No, it's just that my collecting habits are so well defined, so established, that it's difficult for something to catch my eye enough for me to reallocate some of my hobby funds from one hobby to a new one.

In the mid-1990s, I went into Pogs in a big way. I loved those things...and I still do, actually. But they were pretty much only made from 1994-96, and then, gone forever. I guess it didn't hurt that they were from the happiest period of my life, right before my health problems kicked in in the 1996-97 school year. My brother and I actively collected them and we even played the game a few times, although mostly I was collecting them as round cards. And really, that's all that they are. In the 1990s, I didn't realize that, because they were not rectangular. I didn't count them as cards...even the ones that came as inserts in card packs. (Heck, I don't even think I counted the oversized and undersized standard card issues, either!) If Pogs were still made, I'd still collect them.

A couple of months ago I discovered that the Trading Card Database had a listing for the Michael Jordan pogs put out by Upper Deck. I knew I had a stash of them but couldn't find them- they were not stored with my other pogs, and they were not stored with my cards. I knew that they were in a zip-lock but they weren't where I thought they were- as it turns out, they had accidentally gotten put into a box with some of my model car stuff. I found them last month, and eventually got them scanned and posted.

But it wasn't all just Jordans in there...oh no, it was a mixture of those, about 75% Power Rangers, and the rest was a mix of everything else...including some of the Garfield pogs from 1995.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned it, but Garfield is my favorite newspaper strip. We used to get the books, and I'd pull them all out and reread them every so often, although it's been a while since I've done that now...and we stopped getting them, not for any good reason, other than they stopped being in Previews so we couldn't just order them and have them show up at the door. Don't remember where we left off, either...

Anyway, this is one of the Pogs in there:

I had zero memories of ever having this! At the time, I would have gotten it because it was Garfield, but now, 20+ years later, it's even more fun for me as a die hard hockey fan.

I hadn't seen this since probably 1997 or 1998, until April 2020. How cool is that?

I have been putting off scanning my pog collection for a while because being round, it takes more work. I put off scanning the ziplock for about 3 weeks. But when I finally did them, it didn't seem so bad...I may have to move them up in the scanning order. Now that I found this bag, I'm pretty sure my entire collection is accounted for.

I know I never completed the Garfield set...I remember getting them out of a big tub of assorted Pogs at the local Party City, but they never had all the numbers. I'm glad I was able to get this one!

And yes, they will all appear on the Cardboard History Gallery. After all, they are just round cards. I know enough to know that now.

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. 

An upgrade hiding for 14 years in my own collection!

I have not really talked about it too much, but I have a huge stash of duplicate cards sitting in my storage unit. I don't know exactly when I last saw them, but I'm guessing it was in 2003 or 2004. I haven't seen them in years, until last year when we moved to a better storage unit. Yesterday (October 28th, not sure when I'll actually get around to posting this) I went to my storage unit and moved the model kits off them, and started going through them a little bit. There's going to be some loss- the previous storage unit was not climate controlled, so they were essentially exposed to the elements. There is a degree of "brickage" and the weight of the stuff has damaged some. Luckily, they ARE duplicates. At some point I'm going to cart them home and sort them...then compare them to my actual collection to see if there are any upgrades...or possibly variations. I know there will be...because I've found some already!

 The Brickowski from 1988-89 Fleer was one I knew needed an upgrade for a while, and I found a small stack of the set in a box with a receipt from October 2003 in it, and was happy to have one of his cards in there! Believe it or not, I specifically tried to get the flash on the card to show the bends. It has 5 bends, all 4 corners are weak, and it has surface scratches.

The Juwan Howard card was one I didn't know I needed to replace...I had, back in 2004, the last time I had been through my collection, left it next to one of the inserts from Stadium Club from around the same time period. Unfortunately, those cards have gotten sticky and damaged several cards around them, including this Howard card. I found a small stack of 2001-02 Fleer Premium- surely the duplicates from the two boxes I did back when the set was new- and brought them home, because I couldn't remember off the top of my head WHICH card was damaged, just that it was a Maverick. I was in luck! You can see the white spots on the border and on his jersey.

If anyone wants the two damaged cards shown above, I'd be more than happy to send them to you, but I'm not going to spend a lot of money on them, so it will be PWE. It's not like they aren't damaged already, afterall.

Unfortunately, I forgot to look for an upgrade for this Charles Barkley 1989-90 Fleer card. And I had a big stack of 89-90 Fleer in my hands, too...I simply forgot to look. Duh! The cards are easily accessible now, so going and looking would be pretty easy. Since I plan to go through the boxes in their entirety at some point, I probably won't make a special trip, though. This card has no less than 7 bends in it, plus the corners are all bad. I hope this isn't the best (Only) copy of the card I've got, but it shouldn't be too bad if I have to replace it at some point. I don't plan to do that until I am sure I don't have one already, and I'm not going to sort them until I finish scanning my collection...looking at 2021 or later, considering how many new cards I'm getting from friends and family members lately, but that is NOT a complaint!

About the sticking and bricking....

Ugh, that was painful to see. I'm holding two cards here, the rest are all stuck together, and pretty much all of them stuck together are too damaged to put on my tradelist. The cards that are in even stacks are mostly going to be OK...but the ones that slid around and were not even on the top, they are mostly going to be lost. Of course, I can't throw any cards away, so I'll still have them forever...unless I can find somebody who wants them...but once I get them apart, and make sure there are no variations here...I will be putting them in a box, and putting them back in the storage unit, and probably not going to look at them again for 15 more years.
I'm not sure if you can tell, or are familiar with the boxes, but Avon used to send boxes that were a great size for card storage...I prefer to use them for my duplicates, and have for years. (Luckily, my mom was involved in Avon at the time so we got them pretty much every week). There are 7 of them...all full like this one. I don't know how many card each box holds, but 2000, give or take, is my guess.

I didn't photograph them, but I also found replacements for three of the 2003-04 Topps cards that got destroyed in my flood of 2/5/15.

I found some other interesting stuff, in the duplicate stash, as well. 1989-90 Hoops has some errors and variations, but my collection is documented on card number- if my records show I have a number, then any other copies of the card go into the duplicate box. One of the cards in 1989-90 Hoops is such a minuscule variation, the #115 card of Spud Webb was originally issued with the wrong date of his free agent signing. They later corrected it. I had the corrected version all these years, but found one of the error versions in my duplicate box. I also found, in a box mostly filled with empty toploaders, a German Collector's Choice card from 1994-95 and a football card I had no recollection of ever having. Back then, actually until a few months ago, I did not count the International editions of the Collector's Choice cards as part of my collection. Now I do! And anything that wasn't NBA or NASCAR I could care less about, which is how the football card got into a box with duplicates and empty toploaders. Now, I consider them both part of my collection, and even better, the football player was one I didn't have in my collection previously!

Lost and Found: Panels!

Digging in some more boxes, and found some cards! I knew I had some of these, but no idea where...but some were a complete surprise to me, in that I didn't ever remember them existing!

That's 7 SI for Kids panels, 4 Marvel panels and 1 TV & Movie panel. Of these I remembered some of the the SI for Kids panels but not all of them- there's one more I've held back for a future post- the all-Jordan page is from a publication called Sports Illustrated for Kids Extra, a title I had absolutely no memory of whatsoever.

I did not remember having a panel for 1994 Marvel Universe, probably my all-time favorite comic set, and without question my all-time favorite Marvel set. I'm six cards short of completing it- I need to hunt them down.

Back in the day I separated most of the SI For Kids cards, damaging them more often than not. I'm glad I didn't do all of them. These were all still in the magazines except for the top one, which I found a second copy of still in the magazine. I also found another duplicate and a duplicate copy of the Jordan card issue. Not sure how I got duplicates as I had a subscription, which I let lapse in 2000.

I only have vague memories of Reboot but I remember it being pretty good.

Lost and Found: Since 2007!

I found something overnight that I had been looking for for literally a decade...and it turned out they were within a foot of where I store my card collection the whole time.

Back in January 2007 I finished making my paper listing for my NASCAR collection. My paper listings tell me what I have in my collection, they are actually the most important thing I've ever actually made. I started creating them in 1998 and I didn't finish until 2010, if you can believe that. I don't know when I finished the NBA, I did all of non-sports in 2010, and I worked on NASCAR starting in 2003 and eventually finished in 2007. (It stands to reason I finished the NBA in either 2002 or 2003 but logic doesn't always play a role in my actions).

I distinctly remembered taking a pack of oversized Star Wars cards out of a box so I could put NASCAR cards in said box when I was finishing my NASCAR listing. But I hadn't seen them since. I didn't remember what set it was, or what any of the cards were, just that it was Star Wars and that they were the oversized cards Topps loves to force on us.

I never saw them again, and feared they had been lost forever- not thrown out, just lost. Things have a tendency to go missing, for no apparent reason. There are multiple model parts I've had before lunch, gone to eat, and come back to never see them again, for example. I have no animals or small children in the house, so I can't explain it.

Now, today, I was working on my card storage area. It's been a bit of a mess to be honest, because let's face it: I'm not very organized, a bit scatterbrained, and when you add in the fact that I need help to physically move them, it's gotten to be a bit jumbled. But that is no more. I finally, after 29 years in the hobby, roughly 22 of them using the white boxes to store my cards, have them sorted. The boxes are sorted by size and I have the boxes scanned facing one way and the waiting to be scanned facing another. I have a mish-mash of all sizes of boxes, ranging from 5000 count to 135 count, and before, they were all in basically whatever order I last touched them in.

As I was finishing up, I decided to investigate what was on the box next to where the cards are, and I found some long lost stuff. I think, with this long preamble, you can guess what I found...

Unfortunately, the Disney shenanigans have pretty much killed my love of Star Wars. 2016 was the first year in my life I did not watch a single Star Wars movie. (My earliest memory of anything is watching Empire Strikes Back). 2017 will join it.

Oh, but there's more. I found some NBA cards I didn't know I had! I have no idea where these came from, but they must have been late in my first run with the NBA. I quit on the league sometime between September of 2006 and Christmas 2006, but I don't know exactly when. These probably came in that time period. I didn't remember ever seeing them before in my life, so unlike the Star Wars cards, I didn't miss them because I didn't remember ever having them! They were in large white envelopes so they must have come from some sort of repack.

Amazingly, this Karl Malone card was NOT damaged despite being stuffed into a standard sized toploader!

Unfortunately, two of the autographs were college.

 way to phone it in on photo quality there, Sage.

I also found something that normally would be a very big card...if it wasn't a knockoff.

The Lucky 13 set was an exchange program Fleer did in 1996-97, and Kobe was the biggest name of them all. Unfortunately, this is not the real card but a knockoff. You can tell by the poor quality of the colors, and the slight blurriness of his name and the copyright info on the back. The UV coating also feels "off" but that can't be captured in a scan.

Although the back looks OK in the scan, it's not, in real life you can tell.

This was in the display case of my local card/comic book store with a pricetag of $34.95. (I know this because it was still in that same toploader when I found it) but after I explained the issues to the store owner (who fully admitted to know really knowing cards) he gave it to me. I was just wondering whatever happened to this one and now I know- it's been sitting in a box since 2006, unseen by light or human eyes.

One last good find- a Star card of Isiah Thomas. Back in the mid-2000s when I got this I would have considered it a knockoff like the Kobe or the college cards, and not counted it as part of my collection. Now I know better, that I have broken free from the Beckett bias.

I'm really not a fan of Thomas, but I'm still glad to add this card to my collection proper.

The crazy thing? I must have moved this box a dozen times, probably more, without ever looking too deep into it. It was not a large box, but on top was some model stuff, so I must have assumed that the whole box was model stuff. I was, quite clearly, wrong.