Some new Non-Sports Additions

I don't like to do a lot of "Hey look at my new stuff" posts...I like to put more effort into it, make it more interesting to read, and not look like bragging. That isn't me...I am always grateful for any cards I can get.

But I have not been in much of a writing mood lately. (Have you seen the last time I updated my other blogs?!) . All kinds of stuff has been going on, most of it not good...Honestly, I am still reeling from my remote hard drive dying, that really messed up everything I was doing. Constant health issues are taking a toll on me as well. Part of the reason I won't be going to the National, even though I have been looking forward to it for about 3 years now, when I found out it was going to be in the next state away. I've only gotten one good night's sleep in the last week because my scumbag neighbor is constantly making the house vibrate with their "music".  On Monday I only got 3 hours sleep. And this happens every day.

But I have still added some new cards to my collection, mostly non-sports. I visited my favorite local non-sports dealer for the first time since February last Sunday (Sunday before last now). You've already seen one thing I got from the dealer, now here's the rest. As usual, I spent a lot more money than I planned to....but I kept it under $100, although if I got everything he had that I wanted it would probably go into the 4 digits. I am mostly just hoping it doesn't sell out before I can save up enough to get everything. Anyway, I am going to show you most of the cards I got from this latest trip, and I'm going to break them down by subject.

I got 7 new holograms, which is the most I've added to my collection in about 18 years. (when 1997-98 SPx came out, the last hologram based NBA set) I LOVE holograms and will always go for them if I can. I have dreams of completing the hologram sets from the DC and Marvel issues of the 1990s....again, someday. I consider holograms the best "hit" in the history of the hobby...better than autographs, relics, SN cards (which I also love), etc. To me, the holograms were the glory days of my youth, so there's the cool factor and the nostalgia factor.

I thought about titling this post Hologramarama! but decided against it because I had more non-holograms to show than holograms.

History

History is my favorite subject, I am always reading something related to history. So I naturally go for history cards when I can get my hands on them. I added three new history sets to my collection and one of which I didn't even know existed before I got it.

1957 Topps Planes is a set I've been trying to add to my collection for years. I have bid on them on ebay multiple times, and I keep losing. He brought in a lot of them- probably about 100 cards- but I didn't see them until I had picked out everything else, so I only got two. I love blimps- I would ride in the Goodyear Blimp if I ever got the opportunity, and this is the very first blimp card in my collection! The Aerocycle is actually my first card from the set, and I have to say, that seems like a really poor idea. Which is probably why it didn't take off (pun intended). Both are blue backs. The set was made with both red and blue backs, and the blues are more common. I don't know why there are two versions.

1954 Bowman Power for Peace is another new set for me. It's the only card he had from the set, and now I have it. It's normally large Bowman size, which means it's taller but not as wide as modern cards, making it a little hard to store.

1958 Card-O Planes, Trains and Ships was the set I was not aware of before I found it. As you can see, it's in really poor shape, but I don't care. I don't normally accept ripped cards in my collection, but I couldn't pass it up. (it was also free, due to condition...apparently nobody else wanted it.). The corners are rounded but I don't know if they were supposed to be, or if it is just wear/damage. It's only a 20 card set, but are numbered up to 30. Several numbers were never made. I didn't realize how common that was back in the day until I started getting older cards. When I was younger anything older than 1977's Star Wars seemed forever out of reach.

I also got a handful of 1956 Topps Flags of the World. I had two cards previously but both were trimmed. (I think whoever did it was trying to make them match standard size cards, which debuted the very next year, but failed miserably) These were not trimmed, and are in better shape to begin with. I got every one he had.

#2

#18

#39

#68

#77

The Norway card is my favorite, for several reasons, which I hope to detail more of in a future post.

DC Comics
As I've mentioned several times, I grew up reading DC Comics. I had my first one read to me when I was 5 days old, and I've been with them ever since...until July 1st of this year, when my last new one arrived. The people running DC now have no idea what they are doing and have pretty much killed it. I never imagined a time I would not be getting DC Comics, but...that time is here. I've talked about this before. Luckily, there are older comics to chase, and older cards too. Including....Holograms!

The first one is from the gray bordered set from 1992 called simply DC Comics, while the next two are from the 1993 Cosmic Teams set, which has purple borders. They continued the numbering system for the holograms from one year to the next, though. The first ten are in the gray set, the last six in the Cosmic Teams set.

 Not a huge Lobo fan, but...holograms make everything better.

 Not one of Jon Bogdanove's better artistic pieces, kind of a surprising choice. You can really see the blue and red of his costume though in hand.

 DC Master Series Foil of Hawkman.

 Primal Force was a great book, unfortunately it got cancelled after only about one year, and the characters mostly never appeared again.

 A base card, an insert and a two-panel promo from Power Chrome Legends '95. I still think I have a complete set of these somewhere lost in storage, but the heat has affected them, so I will still pick up base cards when I find them cheap enough.

 An insert from 1996's Superman Holo Series. I now need only #H1 to complete the 4 card insert set!

I actually passed on a couple of other cards from this hologram set, not too often I pass up Holograms, but I wasn't sure if I had them already or not. I knew I didn't have this one. The Holograms were one per pack. The movie was not good, but at least it gave us holograms.

Marvel Comics
I never really got into Marvel. But I have more Marvel cards than DC...Marvel always did a better job with cards than DC did, and in fact, many years DC didn't bother to have cards at all. Marvel took a break from cards but is back in full force now. The largest selection of cards I got this trip are Marvel cards.

A hologram from 1991 Marvel Universe and one from X-Men Series 1, the latter gold. I don't know if they are all gold or if this is a parallel. My first hologram from each set. This Gambit one is the first hologram I found that day.

 Four cards from 1993 Marvel Masterpieces. I like this set because each card has two different color foils, and the colors are ones you don't see too often- light blue, green, purple, red all appear on these four cards. I got some of this set when it was new but not too many.

 Four Holofoil inserts from 1994 Marvel Masterpieces. These are really nice in hand. Very sparkly. I had Captain America previously so I now have half the set.

 Four inserts from 1994 Marvel Universe, my favorite Marvel set. I am actually closing in on completing it. I'm six cards short of the base set, two short on the Power Blast set (Punisher) and I think three short on the Suspended Animation insert, which were all printed on clear plastic and have all yellowed badly. I loved the cartoon these Suspended Animation cards were all based on by the way, although it's been about 20 years since I've seen an episode. Somewhere I have an actual cel from the cartoon I won in a contest circa 1993.

This one is from the 1995 X-Men Chrome set, it looks really cool in person so I got it. Much better than the scan. This is only my second card from the set- I have one other insert card, no idea where I got it as I know I didn't open any of this set.

There's one more Marvel card that needs the other scanner, but I don't feel like getting it out for one card so it'll have to wait for another post. 

Star Wars
I may have had my love for Star Wars pretty much killed by the horrible decisions they have made under the Disney regime, but there's still classic Star Wars to collect from the good times.

 Card #1 and three of the 6 embossed inserts from 1996's Star Wars Finest. I didn't realize the Solo kids got cards in that set, for some reason I didn't get any when it was new, and in fact I only had one card from the set before these. I need to hunt down the card for Jacen.

This is actually a post card advertising 1997's Star Wars Vehicles set. As my family can attest to, I've always loved the B-Wing so it was cool to see that it was chosen over the more popular and well known X-, Y- and A-Wings. The card is kind of flimsy so I'm surprised it's survived as well as it has for the past 19 years. The cards in the actual set are unfortunately mirror foil. Technically it's an ad and not a card but I counted it as a card- close enough for me.

Everything Else
I picked up some other random cards as well.

 A Canvas insert from the 1996 Amalgam set. For those who don't know, in 1995 DC and Marvel had a collaboration where the characters fought each other (I still have several ballots, including some never opened) and then, the year after, they collaborated again to make Amalgam, where the characters were merged with the other company to make new characters with traits of both companies. This character is very obviously a mix of Wonder Woman from DC and Storm from Marvel. They created a shared character named Access who was supposed to appear in both companies books, but he only appeared in one comic from each company and then they started fighting again.

This three-card panel advertised the comics AND the card set, and I don't think I have to tell you who were merged to make Dark Claw. It's the size of three full-size cards, but that doesn't really show up well on the blog.

The Fire Engines set is the largest automotive set in history, running 500 cards over 5 sets and two card publishers. This is a Prism insert from 1993's series 1, and depicts a 1938 American LaFrance owned by Denver, Colorado.

I have no real idea what this card is. I bought it thinking it was from Marvel, but..it's not. It is from something called "Cyberforce" and appears to be based on some independent comic. As a DC loyalist I have no real idea. It's clear plastic and kind of holographic, similar to 1995 Maxx Crown Chrome NASCAR set.

Last card for today is actually a NASCAR card, but it kind of fits in Non-Sport too. It's a postcard, postcard size, and was issued by Press Pass for Christmas 1995. It may have been a boxloader in 1996 Press Pass, I don't know. The Press Pass flagship was usually issued very early, and by the end of their run the flagship set was getting released around Thanksgiving of the year before. it feels like the 1995 set more than 1996 though, and has the same font as 1995...plus a 1995 copyright. Either way I had to have it!

As someone who loves NASCAR and Christmas, how could I not? Don't be too surprised if you see this one again come Christmas time.

And that's it for today. I'll try to get back to actual writing someday. You may be seeing some of the "Sets in my collection" series coming up again soon.  I have about 20 of them written and ready to go, and I am just not in the writing mood so I may have to move them out of the queue. They've been waiting since late 2015 when I got on a writing jag and did about 30 of them in one day, some of which have since been posted.

April 2016 Trade Recap

April's trade recap is on pace to be one of the largest since I began doing recaps of a month!

The first trade arrived to me on April 2nd, when I got a package from BOBZCARDS on the Trading Card Database. I posted about this in a rare baseball post earlier this month, where I stated he only had two cards or 8 depending on how you want to look at it. (no comments on that, so I can only assume nobody cared, but...it's my blog so I'm going to talk about them anyway!)

These are what I was trading with Bob for...

Two promo panels from 1990-91 Hoops, still in panel form! (although in both cases the Taco Bell ad is a little "loose" on the connection). I had never seen these before but this is one of my favorite sets. I wonder if there are more than just these two panels out there...

The cards are not numbered, so I count them as one panel. I am actually glad I didn't get these until later in my life/career, because if I had gotten them when I was younger, I would have separated them. I'm still kicking myself for separating the Fleer promo panels, and the 1996-97 Collector's Choice Mini-cards. Not to mention years worth of Sports Illustrated for Kids! At least I had enough sense not to separate the 1980-81 Topps cards I have. (I use Photoscape to edit the scans down into each individual card, and can finally see them in numerical order that way)

On April 6th, two more trades arrived to me! The first was from Jon of A Penny Sleeve for your Thoughts. I have traded with Jon in the past and I always get topnotch stuff from him.
The first card out was 1993-94 Upper Deck #162, which was the last card I needed to complete the set! The set, at 510 cards, is now the second largest I've ever completed, after 1991-92 Hoops at 590, which I detailed in a previous Trade Recap.

Following that were two Hoops cards, one each from 2015-16 and 2012-13, my two favorite years of the Panini-era Hoops. I am inching ever closer to completing both of them.

After that was a big stack of 1991 Marvel Universe. Now, I'm a DC guy, but Marvel has done much better with cards over the years, doing comprehensive sets on a regular basis while DC has been absent from cards for years. (DC's managerial team is highly inept but that's a whole different topic!). For some reason I never got any of the 1991 Marvel Universe cards. I have a complete 1990 set, I am 6 cards away from the 1994 set, and I have several packs worth from 1992 and 1993, but 1991 was totally absent from my collection, until 2015, when I found a couple of bent but free examples in a local dealer's "junk" box. Jon sent me more than 50 of them! Here are just three of them.

Following that was a graded copy of Elton Brand's 1999-00 Stadium Club Chrome rookie card. I already have the card, but, perhaps surprisingly, it's the first graded Elton in my collection. As you probably know by now, Elton is my all-time favorite player. It is going to be one of the rare instances where I keep a duplicate as part of my collection. Normally duplicates- even of Elton- become trade stock so I can get more non-duplicates. This one will remain part of my collection.

Also on the 6th, I received my first completed trade from SportsCardForum. As I mentioned recently, in my first HOST of April, I joined the SportCardForum in the last week of March. Since then, up to April 7th when I am typing this portion of the post, I have completed one trade, one small purchase and had completed another trade but then got talking with the other person and realized we each had a lot more cards the other person wanted so are building it into a much bigger trade- that way we only have to ship once, and considering the other person lives in Slovenia, saving on shipping is a good thing for both of us!

The first trade was all 2015-16 Hoops cards, getting me very close now. Although I'm still waiting on them to arrive in the mail, I'm only two away from the complete set after this month's activities!
Here are some of the cards I got (but not all)

Photo from game held in Africa, one of two in the set

Only card to depict the Rockets' Chinese New Year jersey I am aware of

In a funny coincidence, the trade from SportsCardForum included a copy of the same 2015-16 Hoops card Jon sent me, so I went from having no copies of the Paul Pierce card, to having a duplicate, in the same day!

Update on Hoops: After writing this post, I completed 2015-16 Hoops, the final card I needed arriving in the mail on 4/30/16.

On April 19th the big package from my new friend in Slovenia arrived...it was a big one, and covered a wide variety of sets- just check out this breakdown of the trade below!

• 7 cards from 2012-13 Hoops
• 17 cards from 2004-05 Upper Deck
• 21 cards from 2014-15 Hoops
• 4 cards from 2010-11 Panini Season Update (I now need only one to complete the set)
• 7 cards from 2012-13 Panini
• 15 cards from 1994-95 Flair
• 5 cards from 2012-13 Past & Present (and almost 10 more that I forgot to remove from my wantlist when I got them in 2015)
• 4 cards from 1998-99 Stadium Club
• 6 cards from 2001-02 Hardcourt
• 5 cards from 1994-95 Finest
• 3 cards from 1997-98 Metal Universe
• 3 cards from 2006-07 Bowman, all of which are new people for my collection
• 2 cards from 1996-97 Stadium Club
• 2 cards from 1997-98 Stadium Club
• 4 cards from 1996-97 Fleer
• 2 cards from 2006-07 Topps
• 1 card from each of the following sets: 1995-96 Flair, 1996-97 Z-Force, 2003-04 MVP, 2000-01 Stadium Club, 1999-00 Skybox Apex, 2014-15 Panini Prizm, 2004-05 Hoops, 1999-00 Flair Showcase, 2002-03 Ultra, 1999-00 Stadium Club Chrome, 2009-10 Crown Royale, 2009-10 Upper Deck, 2008-09 MVP, 2014-15 Select, 2012-13 Hoops European, 2013-14 Panini European. The final 3 sets are new to my collection, and the cards from 09-10 UD and 08-09 MVP are also new people! 

Here are some highlights:

 This Mile Ilic card also completed the letter I for me...I now have at least one card for every person who has a last name beginning with I to get an NBA card, at least as far as I know!

 The back is shown instead od the front. There are two ways to tell the European card from the American card, one of which shows in the scan. The line of copyright says designed in the USA while the American version says "©Panini America Inc., ©2012 NBA Properties, Inc., Printed in the USA". The other difference is the card itself, which is glossy on both sides and is a different thickness. I had no idea there were different versions of 2012-13 Hoops.

 I did know that there was a 2013-14 Panini European seat based on the American Hoops design, but I was not able to get any before this one.

On April 23rd, I ended up getting a lot of cards. I visited a local place that has multiple card dealers, and I also received a trade in the mail from cabz05 on the Trading Card Database. This trade saw me take in 25 new cards, and also moves him into the lead of people with the most trades with for me on the Database- this was our 3rd deal. First out was a selection of historical inserts from Allen & Ginter. I know these are technically baseball cards but the non-sports they include is really something I love. I know this year's set will have a lot of Ancient Rome in it so I may not be able to resist chasing the set some, but all these are from 2014. My favorite is, naturally, the one about Rome.

I finally got around to putting the cards I needed from 1990-91 Hoops onto my wantlist on the Database- and I got three people offering me the missing cards in the span of a week! Cabz05 was the first and from him I got all but two of the cards I needed from one of my all-time favorite sets- a trade I am waiting on should complete it for me!

I also got 5 of the cards in the 6 card NBA Schoolyard Stars insert from 1991-92 Fleer. I already had card #2, which means I now have the complete insert set! That's not something I have happen very often.

5 cards from 1992-93 Ultra now brings me under 10 needed to complete the set! This is another set that made it onto my Top 20 Countdown.

I received two trades on the 28th, both from the Database. The first one, which was larger, left me a little unhappy so I won't say who it was with- the cards were physically dirty and just put loose into a bubble mailer- a couple of them also came with water damage that was clearly like that before they went into the package. It was mostly common cards from the 1998-99 through 2000-01 season, with the largest part of the trade being 1998-99 Hoops, not a set I particularly like anyway. The highlight of the trade was an Andrei Kirilenko rookie from 2001-02 Ultra, which is SN. You can see in the gold foil area of the name where I used a damp paper towel to clean the card- it look like it needs some more work. I find this strange because I've traded with the person before and that other time was perfect. I have not decided if I want to say anything to him yet- perhaps he will read the blog and contact me.

I also received a trade from  jlcre2003 on the Database, which was a small trade- 6 cards total, 4 coming to me and two going to him, (it's all he asked for) but the highlight of that trade was a card of Shavlik Randolph, which is my first of him. It isn't too often I can trade for somebody missing from my collection but it worked out perfectly here.

This was the largest month for me for trades in over a decade! I have no real idea the last time I made this many trades, but it was likely around 2004 or 2005.
Thanks for reading!