The largest team upload ever!

 Being that it's the first of the month, that means it's upload day, and I knew as of May 1st that the June upload would be the largest team update ever. On May 1st, we celebrate "Glad I'm Not Dead Day", to celebrate the second chance I got at life back in 2013. And of course, when it comes time for gift giving, that means cards! And this year it was the Factory set and a tin of the New York Rangers Centennial set. 

Of course, I prioritized scanning them and I got them all scanned successfully. Those, combined with the other cards I scanned this month, saw me have 243 Rangers cards to upload this month, the largest update ever since I began my Cardboard History Gallery nearly 8 years ago. 

Here's a behind the scenes look at how I do my uploading. The computer automatically puts them in order by title of card, and I go through and upload them in order based on whatever is oldest. I tried doing it alphabetically by team but I found that wasn't much fun so switched away quickly. Then I just slide them over from one window into the team listing, and done. It's actually really quite simple, but time consuming. Doing the team update is usually my favorite part of each month, although sometimes I enjoy updating each person's album more. I have not done the people part yet, that's always the most work and I always do it last, but I am curious to see how many people from the Rangers Centennial set will be new to my collection. I'll find out soon, and share it in the New People post, whenever I finish. 

It also put my Rangers collection over 2000 cards scanned! To put that into perspective, the Boston Bruins are in second place, with 860 cards scanned. 

Pretty big Rangers collecting milestone!

 It should not be a surprise that I know how many cards I have of "my" New York Rangers. I ended March with 1,991 cards of my favorite hockey team. I'm guessing you've already guessed what that major milestone is now- yes, I hit 2000 cards of the New York Rangers! 

I hadn't actually gotten any new cards at all in April until Easter, when I received a hobby box of 2022-23 Upper Deck Series 1 and a handful of parallels from MVP- my intention is to write about them in their own post- and that pushed me over the mark. 

Barclay Goodrow got the honor of being #2000. As a bonus, this is also my first card of him with the Rangers and second overall! At least I think it is. I've only scanned one card of him, anyway, until now.

I didn't get all the Rangers in the set, but I did manage to pull a rarer one- the French parallel of Igor Shesterkin, which is the first French parallel I've pulled. (I didn't get a hobby box of the previous releases since it's returned to the set). The French parallels are one per hobby box. 

Unfortunately I didn't get the base card of Igor. I'm glad they labeled it as being the parallel on the front because odds are I wouldn't have noticed otherwise- at least right away. I usually read the card backs as I'm scanning them so I would have noticed by now, but I wouldn't have noticed the day I got it.

Before I got this hobby box, I had exactly 1 card from the set, thanks to Chris the Collector, making this the latest I've gone into the season without opening a single pack of Upper Deck s1...the NHL season ends on Friday, unfortunately. 

To put into perspective how much of a lead the Rangers have on my collection, there are only two other teams that have even cracked the 1000 card barrier, the Bruins and Canadiens. Although the Red Wings are less than 10 away and will likely hit that mark sometime on the epic adventure my brother and I are getting ready to take. I'm bringing some cards with me to open in the new states I visit, something I really like to do, but don't always remember to do. For example I missed Nebraska last year. The box I have saved to bring with me, I actually got at a Wal-Mart in Rapid City, South Dakota last year! It's crazy that I live in an area with three local teams and my stores here don't stock the Parkhurst brand, but go to South Dakota- nowhere near any teams- and they had several blasters available, of which I bought one. Go figure. 

Trading Card Database Secret Santa 2022

 Secret Santa 2022 didn't play out at all how I expected it to, first off because the person I sent it to still hasn't gotten it yet, even though I mailed it the first week of December. It went to a country I've never mailed to before so even though I have the receipt I'm not sure how much good it would do. 

I didn't get mine before Christmas either, and I usually put up the post on Christmas Eve. If you noticed it was missing, there's a good reason for that! Tt turns out that my Secret Santa was Dan, aka Vrooomed, who just happens to live in the next town over from me. Dan wanted to meet up in person and deliver it, and I was all for that, but my schedule didn't cooperate enough to do it before Christmas, and then I got sick which felt like it lasted forever, and then Dan got sick, so we didn't get to meet up until January 24th! And because of the circumstances of our lives, we ended up meeting at 9 PM in the parking lot of the local McDonald's! We had a nice chat for a half hour, Dan gave me my present and I finally completed a sale from him that I put together on the Database a week before the pandemic hit. Dan has been holding those cards for me since February of 2020! I'll get to them in another post. 

Dan and myself, I am on the left. Note the wrapped box, which is my Secret Santa present

Lots of Rangers cards in here! Most of these are ones I scanned before I took the photos. The Leaf Steel cards are really cool. 

Both English and French versions of the 1991-92 Pinnacle Amonte card, and a great photo of Adam Graves with the Stanley Cup from 1994-95 Stadium Club highlight this batch

the Stadium Club Members only of Brian Leetch is the only non-hockey card here- it's a Multi-Sport card. 

the white Lady Liberty alternate makes an appearence, and my first Green StarQuest from hockey! 

The Line 2 Line card is SN, and those Epix cards are sooooo confusing. There's 4 versions of each, I think. This is my first of any player from this sport. The NASCAR versions are much easier because there is only one version. 

After getting this batch of cards I may have to do another post on the Richter Scale!

I really should have planned out the photos a little better when I was taking them. The Christian Dube card is also SN. The more I see Pacific cards the more I'm liking them.

More Richters including a die cut insert and a Silver Script parallel...however my favorite card in the entire package is in this shot and it's one of the very few non-Rangers related, and I think you can guess which one. 

the famed Hot Dog card from 1995-96 Pinnacle of Olaf Kolzig! I don't think I've ever mentioned it before, but this was one of my most wanted hockey cards! 

In total I got 85 new cards for my collection, and a big boost to my late 90s/early 2000s Rangers, which was an era I had the least from. 

By the way, how do you like my new photo backdrop? It's a Rangers blanket I got for Christmas. 

So, even though life conspired to keep the Secret Santa exchange from happening for a month, I'm thrilled with the new cards and owe a big thanks to Dan! 

K'Andre Miller joins the collection!

 When I first got into hockey, I found it so strange that the teams would draft players, but they wouldn't come play with the team right away. I was so used to the NBA, where if a player didn't make the team as soon as they were drafted, they would likely never play for that team, with most generally ending up playing professionally in Europe or the G-League. 

Hockey's different. It's not uncommon for a player to not join a team for years after he was drafted. 

The first player where I really experienced that for the Rangers was K'Andre Miller. Drafted back in 2018, he finally joined the Rangers in time for the 2020-21 season. With the state of the hobby I got very few cards this year, and didn't have any of his...until I ordered the Star Rookies box set, a 25 card factory set, of which half were people I didn't yet have in my collection...but the most important to me was K'Andre Miller. 

 I'd like to believe this will be the first of many cards I add of him to my collection, but with the state of the hobby I just don't know what the future holds. 

I even scanned a whole page of this set just specifically to get this scan for this post, despite the pain it causes me at this time. 

The Rangers now have a good coach for the first time in a few years, and we got rid of the GM who has been trading our players for magic beans, so I'm hopeful for a good season next year. 

1965-66 Topps....finally!

 I've mentioned a few times that I really like the design of the 1965-66 Topps NHL set, but that I didn't have any. I've come close, even having some on the table in front of me at the two card shows I went to in 2019, but I went with older cards instead, picking up a 51-52 and 54-55 Parkhurst instead of going through the stack of 65-66s. 

In fact, it was one of only two Topps flagships not in my collection yet in any way, with 1958-59 being the only other one, although 1961-62 has not actually gotten to me yet, it's in my COMC file for over a year now, awaiting shipping. 

I decided it was time to change that, so I went to ebay and as usual I had it sorted "Lowest price+shipping" and lo and behold, the very top card listed was a Ranger! There wasn't any serious flaws with it, so I took it as a sign...and took it home. 

That's a really fine card for $3 and change! I don't know why I didn't do that sooner, in fact. Perhaps I will have to see what the prices are on the 1958-59 cards some day...

Interestingly enough, I scanned a card from 2001-02 Topps Heritage in the same scan I did for this Don Simmons card, which uses the 58-59 design, so even though I don't have any, I do have the design of 58-59 right in front of my face!

It turned out to be my first card of Don Simmons too, he doesn't have many as many 60s players don't. 

In this time period, O-Pee-Chee actually produced the cards for Topps. This is only my 17th card issued during the Original 6 era, not counting the one or ones waiting for me in Washington. (I don't remember if it's just that one or more than one, like I said, it's been more than a year since I actually bought it.). I'm actually surprised it's that many,

My 5000th Serially Numbered Card - and two other milestones hit as well!

That New Windsor card show turned out to be even more monumental than I thought! As I mentioned at the tail end of my card show report in the last post, I hit 5000 Serially Numbered cards at the show, which is a major deal to me...but I hit two other milestones that day as well, but didn't realize it at the time.

The big one, though, is 5000 Serially numbered cards! My addiction to them is well documented. I don't know why, but I love them. For example, whenever I get some money on COMC, I usually sort by SN - Lowest First and then pick off as many as I can before I run out of money.

This has been a long time coming. I got my first serial numbered cards in 1996. I do not know what my first SN card was, because it's before I began keeping records. I do know, for sure, it's from the 1996 Crown Jewels Elite NASCAR set, the first set to have the parallels serially numbered...at least, the first one I had access to. The same set the previous year also SNd the parallels, but I didn't open any of it in 1995. I still haven't opened any packs of 1995 Crown Jewels, in fact.

You can look through almost all of the SN cards in my collection on my Cardboard History Gallery. I say Almost because there are some I know I have but are not scanned yet. In fact, I'm not even sure this truly is #5000, because I went by what I had scans of (4993 cards) and what I remembered having but is not in the album (4 cards) but there may be more awaiting scans. I don't really know. This one, however, will always be considered the 5000th because I believe it is at the time I got it.

The fact that it's a Nets card, my favorite NBA team, was both totally unplanned AND the reason it's #5000. When I was going through the box of cards Dan brought for me to look at, there was a small stack of this set. I have too many to remember which I have, but I KNEW I needed this one. It's the only one out of the stack I got, and it turned out to be #5000. (#5002 was also a Nets card, and also came from Dan, but was from the Crystal parallel of 2003-04 Fleer Tradition. I have not scanned it yet)

The other milestone actually was a surprise to me. I knew (thought!) I was fairly close to one, and about 400 cards away on the other sport, but I totally messed it up in my head. I thought I was about 400 away from the next NHL milestone, and about 50 away from the next NBA milestone. Uh, no, wrong! I was actually about 40 away from the next NHL milestone, and I'm 400 PAST the last NBA milestone! Yeah, I totally got that wrong. Wrong direction even. Of course, by now, you've figured out that I hit the next NHL Milestone, and it is card #18,000 in my NHL collection. It's expanding rapidly, and I have my fellow collectors to thank for well over half of them, because guess what...this one ALSO came from Dan! And it's funny, because it's from 1974-75 Topps, which is one of the rarer 70s sets in my collection. It had been the 2nd-least present in my collection, in fact, ahead of only 1970-71. I added 36 of them at the show, bringing me to 34 total, which now moves it past 1977-78 and 1979-80, and even 1976-77 which I feel like I have a lot of! It also moves it into a tie with 1978-79, which happened because I added to that set at this card show as well. I have been inspired by this part of the post and will have a full post on this topic at the conclusion of the 2019-20 NHL regular season.

 Even more interesting, is that 1974-75 Topps now has two Milestone cards in my collection! One of Shoebox Legends' giftings to me put me over the 16000 NHL marker and it was not only a card from this set, it was ALSO an Atlanta Flames card! In fact, it was Keith McCreary's card! What are the odds of that happening? Considering there are more than 1,469,000 hockey cards to choose from, I'm guessing that's infinitesimal.

But wait, there's more! I also hit 2000 cards added to my collection this year, which feels like a lot...because it is. I'm not sure if it's truly more than usual, but a quick check of my Excel chart shows me it's earlier than normal - I hit 2000 on March 16th last year, May 24th in 2018, March 9th in 2017, April 19th in 2016, January 31st in 2015, June 15th in 2014, and that's the year I began keeping track of the exact order so I can't check any farther back than that. I know there are some years I didn't hut the 2000 card barrier at all. So it is faster than most- 2015 being the outlier, as a friend sent me more than 4000 cards that day, and it's my record for most cards in a day ever. (I'm STILL processing them! Most remain unscanned). It's funny, also, that I have kept that Excel chart showing the exact order I got everything since 2014, but composing this post is the first time I've ever used it to check how my collection is growing by date like this. I didn't even remember which year I started keeping it until I actually pulled it up and looked.  I think the fact that it's growing so fast is because of a few things, one being my renewed desire to do card stuff, after being in a massive burnout for most of 2019, and the other is getting large boxes from SumoMenkoMan and Shoebox Legends on a regular basis. I in fact have not even gone through most of the boxes they've sent me yet because I don't want to get as overwhelmed as I did back in 2015. Another reason is that I'm actually starting to work through the stash I had built from 2015-17, for use in the Card of the Day project in 2018, the same project that put such a burnout on me. When I built the stash I didn't know if I had enough to get me through the entire year getting one new card a day. It turns out I stashed so much stuff that I could probably have kept the project going for 5 years or more...but one year was enough. In fact, I wanted to bail on the project by May or so, but I pushed through, because that was my 30th anniversary project and I wanted to complete it. Never again, though. Anyway, the 2000th card of the year came from...guess who? If you said Dan, aka Vrooomed, then you are correct!
And it turned out to be a really nice one! It turns out to be the only autograph of a current New York Ranger in my entire collection- now that Jimmy Vesey was sent off to Buffalo.

It's even SN, to 99 copies. Note to self: Look for more current Rangers autographs. With only $2.28 in my COMC account, it may not be something I can work on yet...but as soon as I hit publish, you know I'm going to be checking.

Cards from bloggers near the borders and North of the Border

I've got some packages from three bloggers to show today, but, I'm not able to show the coolest part of the first package. Because I don't remember which box I put it in....again! This is the second time in the last year that I've forgotten which box I put something in before I could get it scanned and post about it- the first was a trade with Kenny that I still haven't found.

This time it's a package from Corky, of Pack War. I'm not sure how close he actually is to the border, but Arizona is a lot closer to the Mexican border than I am. He had gotten his hands on a box of the Parkside Big3 League, which is the first card set issued for the league that is made up primarily of retired NBA players. He offered to send me his duplicates, and I was glad to accept them...and it turned out to be almost a complete set! I really wish I could show them here, but, I can't find them right now. I had been periodically tweeting at the Big3 league that we needed a card set, and although I was completely ignored, the cards got made, so maybe it did get through? Who knows, but the important thing is the cards now exist. What I can find is a sampling of this year's Panini Prizm, which was the first time I saw the set.

I lost some of them as well, but some needed scans for the Database and those I didn't lose.

 My first Kemba Walker Celtics card. Weird seeing anyone wear #8 that's not Antoine Walker, but even weirder seeing a different Walker in #8!

 We may see a player win both MVP and Most Improved Player this season. And we may see Phoenix and Sacramento literally crying for decades for not choosing him with the 1st and 2nd pick in the draft.

 The Warriors may not be much fun to watch right now, but Draymond is still a favorite. Once Steph and Klay return, it'll get better.

 Neat shot on one of the few people to bring hope to Sacramento.

 Herro (pronounced Hero) has been a pleasant surprise, better than expected. But now injured.

Even a couple cards from the Dominance insert, including Klay and Russell Westbrook, who I still can't get used to seeing with a Rockets logo on the card.

Next, we move to near the Canadian border, and the first package I've ever received from the legendary Greg, aka Night Owl. I recently sent him some cards and he returned the favor...and, even though we don't really collect the same things at all, he managed to find some cards to send me...even an NBA card I needed!

I did a box of this set, the first NHL box I ever did in fact, but only got one Ranger in the entire box. I've added a few more after the fact but needed this one!

 The more I see the design of 1993-94 Score series 1, the more I like it. I don't have many...about a dozen if I recall correctly. It's proven nowhere near as common as the Score sets of 1990-91 and 1991-92, but slightly more common than 1992-93.

...and the NBA card I mentioned! I don't have many cards of Solomon Jones at all. Even fewer still showing the Hawks' yellow alternate of that time.

Finally, we move to north of the border, to an actual Canadian in Douglas of Sportscards From the Dollar Store. I had not been expecting anything from him, but got a nice package of mostly Nets- but also including a really nice card of somebody who would eventually join the Nets, and two Henrik Lundqvist cards I needed! In fact, it brings me to 99 cards of my favorite player, so the first hockey player to break the 100 card mark is so tantalizingly close. And it will be my favorite player for sure, the only question is, when and which card? Time will tell...and there will be a post about it, whenever it happens. Anyway, here's some highlights of what he send me:

 2015-16 Prizm...I actually have some packs of this in my stash waiting to be opened.

 2016-17 Absolute Basketball, only my 4th card from the set! Trevor Booker is fairly rare to see as a Net as well.

 Red parallel of 2014-15 Totally Certified, numbered to the unusual print run of 279 copies, on the back. I think the Red parallels that year were the nicest looking of all the colors I've seen in hand. The Nets seem to collect players named Jefferson as well. Besides Cory, there was also Richard and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, all since 2001!

 Although this is a college card, it's part of an NBA set...2014-15 National Treasures, and it's a base card! Only my second card from the set, but my first base card. Yes, a base card #d to 99. National Treasures is well outside my price range.

 Always nice when the first card out of the pack is a SN card with a design you don't even recognize! It turns out this is from 2016-17 Panini Day, a promo they did that I as usual didn't get to take part in since nobody around here does any promo stuff. Unfortunately he's no longer in the league, they traded him and the new team, I don't even remember which one, cut him instantly. I HATE when that happens.

 hard to believe the Nets were already two teams ago for Russell. He was traded to the Warriors for Kevin Durant, and a half season later moved to Minnesota at the trade deadline in trade for Andrew Wiggins.

 A large portion of the mailer was from last year's Chronicles, a set that is broken into three segments (and a few dozen subsets). The first main part is available in all packaging versions. The second section is Serially numbered cards, and the final section is made up of cards that are only available in specific packaging versions. There are 9 Nets cards in the "all packaging versions" section, and I now have all of them thanks to Douglas! I had exactly 1 beforehand, which turned out to be the only card of Dzanan Musa in the main section. I'm not sure if the allegations against Kurucs are true or not, but I suspect if they are it may explain why he was a key member of the team last year and is barely off the bench this year.

Even a card from 2012-13 Crusade, the Nets' first season in Brooklyn. Kris Humphries is retired now, but was routinely booed, including by the home fans, for his involvement with the Kardashian family, including being married to one of them. I don't know which one, or at least don't remember. I knew at one time.

Finally, cards #98 and 99 of my favorite player.

One last thing...I'm sure I mentioned it already, but the last time SumoMenkoMan sent me a box of goodness, he included some packs of this year's Upper Deck. I've completed the veterans out of series 1 but I'm still chasing Young Guns. I pulled a very good one, and I've finally gotten it scanned.

Kubalik leads all rookies in goal scoring, and even got one past Igor Shesterkin last night. I expect him to be a finalist for Calder Trophy (aka Rookie of the Year) at the conclusion of the season, although there are 4 rookies who have strong cases for it. It's unusual to have that many players would could easily win the award and have it be "right". At least I'm not used to it. I since added a second card of him from the Rookie Box Set. The others are Quinn Hughes, Cale Makar and Elvis Merzlikins, in case you are wondering. If Igor had gotten the call up earlier he'd be in the mix I am sure, but that's not possible now.

Thank you all!

Randomish Rangers from COMC

I like to sort by various subjects on COMC and just pick off cheap cards I don't have yet, and one of my topics to search for is Rangers. Of course, I don't just pick up anything- I pick out cards I'm unlikely to get any other way.

 This is a promo for 197-98 Zenith, and it's also my first card from the set. COMC stated "corner ding" but they neglected to mention that it had a big spot of adhesive on the front, which looked like price tag residue. Luckily, I was able to save it. The corner ding is unnoticeable and not as bad as some that they don't say anything about.

 2001-02 Topps Chrome Refractor, only my second card from the set. {I got two more Refractors from the set in my Christmas order, and they got posted first!}

 I love the clear cards in Ice. Since 2005-06 has the rookie cards of Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin and Henrik Lundqvist, I have about 0% chance of ever getting to open a box of them, so I'm picking up the clear rookies on COMC when they pop up cheaply.

 I did a random search for Promo and these came up (also where I found the LaFontaine). Never had seen them before. So, I added it to my collection. It's a 2012-13 Universal/GTS promo.

 epack exclusive Compendium. If we could buy compendium as a real set, it would be my favorite of every year, because it gives every player a card...which is what it should be.

 I don't even remember how I found this one, but it's my first card from 2018-19 SPx and I think my 2nd of Andersson.

 I don't really like these gold foiled parallels from Upper Deck, which are epack Exclusive, but I still pick them up from time to time. Usually only for Rangers, Golden Knights or a select few favorite players. They tend to be very cheap on COMC.

While I was looking for the Zuccarello Green parallel I posted in my Hockey Favorites post, I saw Kreider there for about 30 cents and added him as well.