It should be no surprise to my regular readers that I love car cards and try to get some into every COMC order, and this order was particularly good!
Starting out with my oldest car card ever, from the 1911 Turkey Red Automobile Series! This was only the second automotive set ever made that I'm aware of and has been on my wantlist for a long time. A 50 card set, I don't harbor any delusions of completing it any time soon but for now I'm happy to have it in my collection. You can see I lowered my usual standards...a card missing chunks of it is one of the things that I usually don't go for, but here I made an exception. When you are dealing with a card that's 111 years old you are more willing to compromise.
Making some progress on the 1953-54 Topps World on Wheels set. The first card shown, #2, is so far the only one I've found which called out a specific driver, this being Freddie Agabashian, as that is the car he drove at the Indy 500 the year previously. My favorite cards here though are the Pierce Great Arrow and the Colmbia. Love the Brass Era stuff.
Next up we have two cards from the 1963 Topps Sports Cars set. This set surprised me because they are Tall-Boy sized. I wasn't expecting that because I had never seen them in context before. They have always either been compressed images or just random floating in space images, not put next to any other cards. Both of these two cards have some meaning for me. The Firebird III has fascinated me since I was a little kid, it's the car on the Daytona 500 trophy although there it's solid chrome. But, I've actually been interested in this car longer than I've been into NASCAR, since I got a Micro Machines version of it circa 1990. The Chevrolet Corvette SS was a purpose built race car, very famous among sports car racing, and I saw it on display at the Saratoga Automobile Museum around a decade ago.
Considered by some the first automobile ever made, this is the Cugnot Steam Carriage of the 1770s
1895 Panhard et Levasseur
The biggest progress I made was to the 1968 Brooke Bond History of the Motor Car set. These tobacco sized cards are not particularly hard to find as you can see by how many of them I added, though I was not paying enough attention to card condition when I bought the Lancia card, more concerned with price, and got bit by paper loss on the front. Being a British set it's fairly heavy on the British cars, although it does include other countries like France (Cugnot, Panhard et Levasseur, Le Jamais Contente), Spain (Hispano Suiza), Italy (Lancia), Germany (NSU) and of course the USA (Napier, Oldsmobile, Mercer, Ford). This is a 50 card set and I'm nearly halfway on the set build...I do believe that I may actually complete this one some day.
The Topps Automobiles of 1977 set is a strange one. I have had very little luck finding any cards from this set. In fact, this is the first one I've ever been able to add to my collection. My dad was not a card collector but he did get a pack of this set, and three of the cards survive. All three took severe water damage in a basement flood from before the time I can remember, but I treasure them all the same. Being from only 1977 this set shouldn't be so hard to find, I would love to complete it some day but with how little luck I've had over the years I just don't know if I ever will.
Yes, this is a car card in my mind. Arianny Celeste is one of the hosts of Overhaulin', which is a car show that I watch sometimes. It's not my favorite show as I don't like the majority of the changes they make to the cars, and I hate the pranking they do to get access to the cars, but the way everybody comes together to help the car owner, and the reveals of the car, always gives me good feelings, so I watch...usually only the second half of the episode. She wears a lot more clothes on the car show but card options were limited.
I somehow missed the 2014 Goodwin Champions set, even though most of the other years have found their way into my collection. Occasionally I will do a random search for car company names- COMC does NOT make it easy to search non-sports cards, definitely not something they care much about- and I discovered these two cards that way.
Fred and his brother August Duesenberg founded the car company that bears their name, and while it was not in existence for very long, (1921-37) they made the classiest cars ever made in history, in my opinion. Walter P. Chrysler is probably a more familiar name to people who aren't into cars, as the company he founded is still around and still producing cars. The Chrysler Building in New York City...which I have shown here multiple times, one of my favorite buildings in the city...was also constructed by him. He actually got his start in the automobile business at Buick in 1911, coincidentally the same year as the Buick card that led off this post was produced! He also worked at Willys before taking command of Maxwell, which was renamed Chrysler, and founding Plymouth and DeSoto and buying Dodge, to form one of the Big Three automakers with Ford and General Motors. Although the company has undergone trials and tribulations, mergers, takeovers and more, you can still go out and buy a car with the Chrysler name this very day if you so chose.
It is my first card of all three people who appeared in this post, and now with Walter Chrysler joining my collection the founders of the Big Three are all represented. Henry Ford has many cards, several of which I have and Billy Durant has only one but I have it. Now they are all here in my collection.
This is my second post of the day, the In Memorium post went live at noon.
Trying something new this year, in that I'm not waiting for the end of the year to compile this post- I'm actually beginning the composition on March 20th, and will update each month after they conclude. With March, I already had a card by then I knew would take the top spot, so no need to wait for the end of the month to begin. But first, January and February.
January was a huge month-I added 1525 new cards to my collection, with the largest batch coming from 2 full 600 count boxes I received as a Random Act of Kindness on the Trading Card Database. I also got my Christmas present COMC order, and from there is where my favorite card of the month comes from.
This oversized insert from Upper Deck commemorates the very first NHL game I saw from start to finish, on January 1st, 2017. Although I had begun watching in October 2016, I didn't catch a full game until the Winter Classic...as such, that game's commemorative insert set takes a very special place in my collection. I remember this event, where Tarasenko took a selfie with the crowd, from that day, and when I saw the card posted on one of the blogs, (don't remember which one) I knew I had to have a copy. It took me a while, but I found one on COMC as noted.
February saw even more cards roll in, 1571, 998 of them from a shoebox I bought at a card show, where I met Dan and Jerry from the Trading Card Database. One card I found that day, despite not being in the greatest shape, is a card I had been chasing for many years.
Wayne Embrey was for many years the missing person from my collection. An NBA Legend and Hall of Famer, he had scant few cards issued, and I was never able to hunt down a copy. I eventually added a card of his from 2010-11 Rookies & Stars Longevity, but this is a playing career card! In fact, he was the only Hall of Famer who had cards later than 1948-49 Bowman that was missing from my collection! And he had that distinction for quite some time, as he was inducted in 1999. I don't recall when I got the R&S card but it was only a couple of years ago- after I had made the list of missing people which I published to Cardboard History in 2015. I had been wanting this card for so long that finally adding it made it a sure bet for the top card of the month.
March...things got crazy in March. Still are, as I type this on March 20th. Every century has a major health pandemic, and it's going on right now. All sports in the world are on hold right now- cancelled outright or on hiatus until further notice. It's something the world has never experienced and hopefully it'll be in the past soon. However, it has not stopped cards from entering my collection, although at a much lower rate...only 154 cards as I type this, although 11 days remain in the month. One, however, has such an awesome photo that I don't think any card would surpass it.
I love snow...it's not something that comes up on card topics very often, so it may not be known to even my most regular readers. But watching snow fall is one of my favorite things to do. I've been known to set my chair up in front of the window and just watch it fall for hours. The Heritage Classic, an outdoor game, was played in the snow during this season, and UD chose a photo of Rittich from that game to use on his base card in Series 2 of the flagship set. And it is snowing! And he's toqued! So much awesome about this card. I ended up with 172 new cards on the month.
April saw my card intake decline somewhat from January and February, but I still added 1048 cards! 881 came to me as Easter gifts, and the rest were pulled from my stash. All but two were hockey cards! I didn't go out card hunting at all, for the second month in a row. My favorite was clearly the Clear Cut parallel I pulled from the Upper Deck Series 2 box my mom gave me.
So far, with the first third of the year down, Hockey has taken three of the months.
May was a BIG card month, as I hit the Sousafly Collection hard...I ended up adding 1797 new cards during the month, and all but about 150 of them came from that collection and my pack stash. However, my favorite new addition was actually one my Mom got for me. I had mentioned how I didn't have any of the series 2 High Numbers for the 1953-54 Topps World on Wheels set, and probably wouldn't because they are generally all above my self-imposed $20 per card limit. So, she went on Ebay and got me this one!
It was also the most cards I've scanned in a month since 2017, as I did 2501 cards. I didn't get the monthly upload on the Cardboard History Gallery done until June 13th!
June saw 874 cards enter my collection, many of them from a large purchase I made on the Trading Card Database. I don't purchase all that often, but I had a deal presented to me that I could not possibly pass up. 313 of the cards from the month came from that purchase, including the card of the month. It was most of the Chrome parallels, about half the Refractors, and about 1/3rd of the Atomic Refractors from 1996-97 Topps Stars. It is the equivalent of 44 boxes worth of parallels. The most I've ever opened of one box was 6...
The Atomic Refractors don't really scan all that well, so I actually took a video of this card in the sunlight. Two of the greatest to ever play the game on some amazing technology.
375 cards came my way in July, and the absolute best was already shown- my Henrik Lundqvist autograph that I got from Kenny!
I never thought I would ever get one of these! I'm not sure this can be topped, this may be my card of the year.
August...nothing can top July, but let's see what is my favorite addition of the month. Only 94 cards to choose from, too, a very light month. In fact, the first time since August of 2014 that I didn't get at least 100 new cards in a month. August 2020 is when I started to go fully into scale modeling mode, which would last until it got too cold to build in October, when I'm working on this post for the first time since June. I'm actually going to go with one I pulled from my pack stash this time:
I always liked the alien Green Lanterns and the stories that dealt with the GL Corps in space, and this is one of my favorite alien GLs solely because he looks so cool. I am slowly working through a box of 1993 Cosmic Teams I bought in 2019.
September was fully model mode, although I still managed to add 146 cards. Starting in August, lasting all of September and into October, was the greatest time period in my modeling career. I did almost ZERO card related things. However, I did make one trade- in which I sent out empty toploaders and got back some great Allen & Ginter cards, which completed two of the inserts. Two of them, from the 2017 World's Fair set, show things I've seen in person, but I am going to go with the Unisphere. Funny thing, I've been so focused on models, I have not scanned it yet as I write this caption on October 28th. It showed up in the mail on September 3rd. I finally got it scanned on December 23rd! Actually, I scanned it on something like December 12th and just got around to editing it, since I've been working so hard on other stuff, like the Recovery project.
October, normally a big month since it contains my birthday, wasn't this year...sort of. I got 196 cards, and all but 85 of them were from the Topps Now NHL Playoffs set. I was all set to use one of them, but then I got a birthday present from Database member and friend Bevans, which included this Rangers card from 1969-70 O-Pee-Chee. I have so few 60s Rangers cards, this being my 13th from the entire decade (though I do have 3 from the 50s.) But this is a playing career card of a Hall of Famer- one of the greatest goalies ever. The last card issued during his career and lifetime...Nope, can't beat that!
November saw me add 280 cards, the vast majority of which were from an entire 100-pack box of Tim Horton's cards my friend in Canada sent me- which I still have not written a post about yet! My favorite cards out of that set are the lenticular team cards, which are also the rarest not-hit insert, as I pulled only three of them in 100 packs. I am going to go with the Lightning, they did just win the championship, and they were the first ones I saw.
This card looks so much better in hand than it does in scans.
December was once again dominated by Christmas with 435 of 931 cards I got in the month arriving on that day. 291 more arrived on the day my two Black Friday purchased boxes arrived. In total I ended up adding 9009 cards on the year, which is a massive amount. More than I got in either 2019 or 2018. In fact, 2020 is my 6th highest total that I have documented, although my records are really only fully accurate from 2010 to present. Christmas once again provided my favorite card of the month:
Sheet metal pieces are my favorite, and these are both three color!
Overall though, my favorite card is the Lundqvist autograph. No surprise there, right?
Overall 2020 was a great year for me for cards. Pretty amazing since I haven't gone looking for cards since February, haven't gotten a COMC shipment since January.
I achieved my goal for the year on January 5th, and my 2021 goal? I met that on December 6th 2020! I specifically have no goals for 2021 now, at least not not for cards. I do have a goal in scale modeling. That is to build more than 25 1/64 builds.
My 2020 there was even better than my 2020 in cards...I set a new personal record by finishing 62 models, breaking my old record of 60 which I set in 2000, and which I thought I would never break. Now that I've figured out what I'm doing, the record I set this year could fall...easily...as soon as next year! Only time will tell...
My 2020 completions.
I keep some yearly lists on the Trading Card Database that you might enjoy looking over. Some cards appear in multiple lists.
In this decade, the current decade as I write this (but perhaps not when I publish it I didn't plan to drag this out to October) so much changed for me...some for the better, but most changes were not an improvement. I nearly died in 2013 from a disease I didn't know I had (diabetes). Some other health related stuff I'm trying to distract myself from with the hobby. On the plus side, I joined the Trading Card Database in 2012, I launched Cardboard History in 2014 and put a massive amount of work into creating the Cardboard History Gallery in 2018, 19 and 2020- hopefully I finish in 2020! (Update: Nope) I began going on Adventures with my brother in 2018, and I also significantly stepped up my photography hobby, taking 10 thousand photos in a year for the first time in 2017, and, if all goes according to plan, blowing that out of the water by taking over 40 thousand photos in 2019. (Update: I ended up taking 41,288 in 2019) In the hobby, all the major sports now have exclusive licenses, and most real sets have been replaced by memorabilia delivery systems, which is not a good thing.
2010
2010 Topps Empire Strikes Back 3Di
2011
2011 Topps American Pie
2012
2012 Topps Galactic Files
2013
2013 Topps 75th Anniversary
2014
2014 Press Pass Redline
2015
2015 Upper Deck Avengers Age of Ultron
2016
2016-17 Upper Deck
2017
2017-18 O-Pee-Chee
2018
2018 Topps US Olympic Team & Hopefuls
2019
2019-20 Artifacts
2011 saw me get back into Non-sports cards in a big way, thanks to a random purchase of the last 4 packs of this 3Di set that my local Target had. I was extremely frustrated with Press Pass at this point and was no longer enjoying NASCAR cards...2011 and 2012 were dedicated almost solely to non-sports cards. Not only that, I now had internet access and a whole new world of information was opened to me that was not available the last time I actively collected non-sports cards in 1996. In 2012 I joined the Trading Card Database and listing my collection on there, based off my paper listings, reminded me of how much I enjoyed the NBA aspect of the hobby, which seemed like such a long time ago although in actuality only a break of 6 years. I've been collecting the NBA again ever since, making up for lost time, at least attempting to. However, the card I've chosen for 2012 is from my favorite Star Wars set ever, Galactic Files. Running 750 cards over 2 years, (series 2 came out in 2013) it accurately covered the entire history of Star Wars...only to have it all thrown out when Disney bought it in 2014. (you won't see Star Wars again on this project, because of it.) 2014's 75th Anniversary of Topps set is a bit of a stretch- the company was founded 75 years previously but didn't produce cards until 1948-but I still enjoy it for it's overview of the company's non-sports history, although at 100 cards is disappointingly small. For 2014, the year I began Cardboard History, I decided to go with the first card I ever showed on here, all the way back on 11/22/14. For 2015, I've chosen a card from the Avengers movie of that year. I never thought it would be possible, but the Avengers series has surpassed Star Wars as my favorites of all time...and got me buying Marvel cards for the first time since 1994. In 2016, the 4th era of my collection began when I became an NHL fan. {The first era, 1988-1995, is the Beginning era. The second era, 1996-2006, is the NBA era. The third era, 2007-2015 is modern era, and beginning in 2016 is the NHL era. I believe this is the final evolving of my collection, unless the card companies realize there are more than just six sports and start giving cards to all the other sports I enjoy watching...in the Modern Era and NHL era I am fully, officially collecting 4 sports (counting the Olympics as one sport) and non-sports.} This was the first NHL card from my first current season pack after I began collecting. Choosing the last three years were actually the hardest. So much of my collection is built around memories, and the cards are still too new to know what's going to stick in my head, what's going to bring me a wave of nostalgia in the future...to be honest, I chose 2017 just so I could get my favorite NHL player into the project, and 2018 just so I could have the Olympics in the project at all, and the 2019 card for the sole, simple reason that it was the most recent card I got while composing this series!
So, what does the future hold? I don't know, of course. I do now that I will continue collecting, and writing about collecting, for as long as I'm able. I don't know what will be produced but if current trends hold true the NHL will eventually overtake the NBA for largest portion of my collection. After only 3 and a half years the NHL is already neck-and-neck with Non-Sports cards for third largest portion of my collection. Non-sports cards are on a downward trend, with most sets released being for TV shows and movies I have no interest in seeing, which includes Disney era Star Wars. NASCAR, too, is not getting very many cards produced so it's only a matter of time before the NHL surpasses them as well. Even though I do think it will surpass the NBA at some point, it's not going to be soon...not likely in the 2020s, as the NBA still has an almost 80 thousand card lead.
I hope, that by the conclusion of the 2020s, I will have finished scanning my card collection and have gotten the Cardboard History Gallery fully formed where I can just worry about keeping up with new additions...
I do know for sure that, although this project is now complete, I do plan to publish update posts when I fill in those missing years...probably waiting until I get 5 years to post at a time. Complete, but not done...not by a long shot.
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