COMC Christmas: NHL & NASCAR

Combining two of my three sports into one post, since I didn't get a whole lot of either of them.

First, hockey, which has already surpassed NASCAR in my list of favorites- although, while I type this up on Sunday afternoon, I'll be watching the Busch Clash or whatever they call it now instead of the Rangers/Jets game.

I only added one of my favorite NHL Player, unlike six of my favorite NBA player and three of my favorite NASCAR driver. Just how the cards shook out this time. However, this is a serially numbered insert parallel, my first numbered card of his, so it's a good one!

 My first card from 2003-04 Black Diamond on the hockey side, and my first Leafs relic. Sorry, CrazieJoe, I got this one for me!

 Manon Rheaume made history when she played in two pre-season games for the Lightning in the 1992-93 season. I wish she had gotten into a regular season game...but it was not to be. She was exclusive to Classic at the time, which did not make NHL cards. So, she didn't get a proper NHL card until many years later when they started making "history of the sport" sets, as 2008-09 Upper Deck Masterpieces was. I had been wanting to get a card of her in Lightning gear for a while and finally found one in my price range.Even though it's a painting, not a photograph, it still counts.

 I got this one because I'm good friends with someone with the same name. and it cracks me up whenever I see a reference to this guy. And, it's SN. I didn't realize until the box arrived and I was entering the cards into my listings that it was also my first card from 2012-13 Artifacts.

 I'm sad that Jarome Iginla appears to have retired, but glad I got to see him play, at least briefly, during 2016-17. When I was reading about the sport shortly after I discovered it, he jumped out as a favorite because he has done a lot of work to try and combat diabetes, one of the many things that I have wrong with me. This is also my first card from the set, and it's numbered, so winning all around here.

This is a brand new set but is exclusive (no pun intended) to Canada, so I likely won't see it for sale anytime soon. I decided that I wanted an example for my set, and I figured, I might as well get a SN parallel, and the UD Exclusives concept has existed since 1998-99- the longest running uninterrupted parallel in cardboard history. (THAT pun was intended). I also figured, since I was hand picking a card, why not get one of the Women's Team members, thus adding a new person to my collection and slightly increasing the vastly-outnumbered portion of ladies in my sports card collection? I was only half successful on that regard, because it turned out I already had a card of her and had forgotten. She got one in Sports Illustrated For Kids about a year ago. I'm still happy to have this card. And, the other one is a Multi-Sport card and this is a hockey card, so they technically count as two different collections. She didn't make the Olympic team this year.

 I pulled a Clear Cut parallel of Brayden Schenn from my box of 2016-17 Upper Deck Series 2, and I thought it was really neat. So I looked to see if I could add some more to my collection. They are a little pricey, but with how rare they are that's not too surprising. I was able to add one each from 2016-17 Upper Deck Series 1 and 2017-18 Series 1. I've always liked clear plastic cards, and these are just plain cool.

With a tip of the hat to the similarly named but not related Kin Kinsley, I stocked up on Young Guns from 2016-17 Upper Deck series 2. I got a hobby box from my Mom for Christmas, and I had remembered Kin mentioning that thanks to E-Pack, you could get most of them for cheap on COMC. He wasn't kidding. None of these cost me more than 42 cents. All but four of them are my first card of the player - Milano, Kylington, De Leo, and Johns were previously in my collection. with Kylington and Johns joining my collection on Christmas day. The Sonny Milano is actually from series 1, I meant to only buy S2 cards but my enthusiasm got the best of me I suppose. With the Auston Matthews in series 1 I doubt I'll be able to ever afford a box so the Milano should not ever be a duplicate anyway. I know, thanks to the Matthews in particular, I can never hope to complete the 530 card Upper Deck Flagship, (I count the updates as part of the set being updated, not the set it was packed in), but I will get as many of them as I possibly can.
I was in such a rush, I accidentally purchased a copy of a card I had just gotten in the box I got for Christmas. It's not shown. Oops!

Now, I move on to the NASCAR cards I got with this Christmas present. It's only 5 of them, and only three drivers are represented.

 For some reason, NASCAR cards on COMC tend to be higher priced than NBA and NHL cards. I rarely add any from there, and if you recall I've mentioned that I wasn't able to add any Dale Jr. cards from COMC in the past. That changed, as I added two numbered cards and a relic. I don't know why that changed, but I am certainly happy about it! Dale Jr. is my all-time favorite driver, and I look at his cards regularly. I don't know if its because he's retired now (I'm unhappy about that, but with his injury history I am not too terribly upset- another bad wreck might not have been walk-away-from) Interestingly, the Stealth card that leads off this section of the post, I have the base version of. I only got one pack of 2007 Stealth, so the odds of having that base card from my sole pack must be pretty low, despite only being a 90 card set. (this one's also Refractor technology!) I had to rescan my base version recently because I had accidentally cut off the bottom white border when I originally scanned it circa 2009. The card also shows the biggest problem Dale Jr's cards have had- every Cup card from 1999-2007 were censored. Drives me nuts. Luckily, when he went to Hendrick Motorsports in 2008, Budweiser did not go with him and thus, no more censorship. The Car cover from 2009 Press Pass Pieces comes from an insert set that was available only one per factory set. I got Jeff Gordon in mine, can't complain there.
The 2011 Legends Gold is just a cool card.

I make it a point not to buy current season cards as singles. I did it in the past, and then got burned by pulling another copy of the same card from a pack. More than once, which led me to swear off doing that forever, except for serially numbered cards or rare inserts. Yet, I broke that self-imposed rule for this card. Photos of cars on cards is rare. Press Pass never really figured out that a NASCAR set should show cars, and when they did throw a few out there, they went with superstars only, usually only 5 or 6 per set. Panini has done better...but still manage to do it wrong. The car cards in Select are short printed. I've done three blasters and pulled one of them. The blasters are no longer available at my local Target, sold to somebody who is not me. I figured I would risk it and buy this card. which is my first Cup car card of Matt DiBenedetto. I think it may be my first of Go FAS Racing as well, but I'm not 100% sure on that- I don't remember the new cards as well as I do the cards of the 1990s. For under a dollar, I figured I would risk getting a duplicate at some point in the future, but it seems unlikely. The Select brand returned to NASCAR in 2017 for the first time since 1995. The 1995 set (which really was all about, and had photographs from, 1994) is one of my favorite NASCAR sets and I'm one card away from completing it. Panini got the brand when they got the Pinnacle brands. Until I joined the Trading Card Database, I didn't know it had a run in baseball. I thought it was a one-and-done set for NASCAR. It has appeared in the NBA for the past several years as well. All the Select brand sets under the Panini aegis all use Chrome technology, which Panini calls Prizm.

 Racing Champions is special to me. I discovered the sport via a big box of Racing Champions cars on 12/26/1992 and they remained my favorite for as long as they had the license, which was 2005. They practically invented the concept of diecast replicas of NASCAR cars, and they did invent the concept of putting trading cards with them. I have realized, a little while ago, that when NASCAR took away RC's license is when my disconnect with the sport really began. But that's a whole other topic. I have the largest known Racing Champions NASCAR diecast collection in the world. I've worked hard to build it, and in fact, when I was mostly out of cards in the 2007-08 time period, it's because a large portion of the money was going towards getting the Racing Champions cars I always wanted but never had. I estimate that I am under 200 cars away from having every single one they produced in 1/64 scale, although I constantly find promos and variations I never knew existed. Before I got diabetes, I would buy them when I did, but now I can't afford to do that anymore. I will, however, pick up some from time to time, and I have a list of cars that I would buy if I could find them, because I looked for so long and never could.

One thing I would change, though, is HOW I collected them. I got a lot of them second hand, loose, without cards. Others, I would get the five packs, which didn't come with cards (but usually had an exclusive car or two). That latter way is how I got the 1999 Jimmy Spencer car. If I could go back to 1999...I would have done things a little differently. I would have still gotten the 5-pack, due to the exclusive car, but I would have gotten the individually issued car as well, because it came with the card. The 1999 year was unusual for Racing Champions. Most of the cars were reissued several times during the year with a different card design. That year, and that year only, the card was shaped to fit the package, die cut and oversize. Hard to store. The issue number was not printed on the card but only on the bottom right corner of the package. Jimmy Spencer only got two of the 82 numbered issues, one for the standard scheme and one for the gold scheme. I got the gold one when it was new, but I didn't get the card for the red standard scheme until finding it on COMC. The more popular cars- Mark Martin, Ricky Rudd, Jeff Burton in particular- had lots of cards in the set, and the only way to tell them apart at this late stage is to find a copy of them for sale on Ebay. Luckily, most are easily found still. Unfortunately, both of Jimmy Spencer's cars and cards were censored, as he was sponsored by Winston.
This is the car this card would have come with, or darn close to it. RC would modify the cars as the season went along, to more accurately reflect the actual car, so the 5-pack car may not match the single packed car exactly. However, the 5-pack is the only one I have.

I try to search for Racing Champions cards on COMC once a month or so- or whenever I get some money, at least- and I rarely find any I don't already have...only coming up with this one in the last year. But it's one more I didn't have previously, so I'm still happy about that!
This card is #40, by the way.

Only one more post to finish off my COMC Christmas.

Racing Champions Cards

I discovered that COMC actually has Racing Champions cards a while back, and I picked up a few I needed this time.

 1989 Davey Allison

 1990 Dale Earnhardt

 1990 Rusty Wallace. This car/card caused quite a stink in 1990. RC issued it with the proper Miller Genuine Draft sponsorship but people with nothing better to do with their life whined about it so they censored all the beer sponsored cards after that.

In 1994 and 1995 Racing Champions and Maxx worked together to issue the To the Maxx series. There were five series of cars (all using the Chrome technology) and one series of Trucks, which were printed on clear plastic with a pinkish sheen. Unfortunately...the truck cards have gotten sticky over the years, as did the 1995 Crown Chrome set using the same technology. They are some of the few cards I actually store in plastic, this was scanned through the penny sleeve it arrived in.

Just because it's cool, here's the back of the card. Skinner would win the 1995 Truck Championship.

NASCAR Special Paint Scheme of the Month: 1995 Bill Elliott Thunderbat

Before I get into today's post, I made an error in the first post in this series. When I gave the list of special paint schemes before the silver #3, I totally forgot that for the final race of 1994 Harry Gant's Leo Jackson Motorsports team painted up his car to look like the 1981 car from when he first joined the team. It became one of the first throwbacks in NASCAR history (but not the first, that honor goes to James Hylton in 1969 running a throwback to Rex White's 1959-63 scheme)

The Special Paint Scheme I've chosen to highlight is again from the 1995 season, and one of my all-time favorites. This car was run for three races, beginning with the Coca Cola 600 at Charlotte, just one week after the silver #3 highlighted was run, then skipping Dover and appearing in Pocono and Michigan.

It was the first paint scheme to promote a movie, in this case Batman Forever. It was the first time DC Comics properties ever appeared on a race car. As a lifelong DC reader I thought that was pretty darn cool.

The best result for the car came at Pocono where Elliott finished 6th. A crash at Charlotte relegated the Thunderbat to 39th, and Michigan saw a finish of 14th, a lap off the pace.

The car was fairly popular on cards. It appears on at least 14 cards- the one shown, two more from the same set, the Racing Champions card, and a 10-card "Bat Chase" insert from 1995 Maxx. Unfortunately none of the Bat Chase cards appear in my collection, but I do have the Racing Champions card and the Action Packed cards, shown below.

Action Packed issued three sets in 1995, this one is the Winston Cup Stars set, which was I believe the final release of the year. While I was collecting at that time, I don't remember anymore for sure if the Stars or the Winston Cup Country set was the last one released during the season. The third set is the Preview set, which obviously came first.

Note that the car in the photo is lacking roof rails. That's highly curious because they have been mandated to be on all cars sine the 1989 season. Since this one was in 1995, it should have had them. I don't have an answer for that one.

This was the second time that Ford had allowed one it's teams to change the name of their Thunderbird. In the final race of 1992, Alan Kulwicki removed the T to make the "Underbird" to celebrate his underdog status (he won the title that year by 10 points over Elliott). This time they allowed the Thunderbird to become the Thunderbat. The usual bright red and yellow McDonald's colors were changed to black and dark blue with green accents for this special event. The McDonald's sponsorship would lead to many special paint schemes, Elliott would run several every year until 2000, the last year they sponsored him. Currently sponsoring Jamie McMurray, they have already run a special paint scheme in 2017!

The other Action Packed cards are lenticular and don't really show the card in scan, but you can see it in hand.
The Racing Champions card shows a photo of the 1/24 diecast, as shown below.

Although the car in the Action Packed card appears to have a black interior, and the Racing Champions issue has green, the real car raced with the standard red interior.

The Maxx Bat Chase cards show actual race photos, at least on some of the 10 cards. I'd like to hunt them down at some point. 

Thanks for reading, March's post will not be from the 1995 season, although I have not determined which scheme to highlight yet, these were the only two of the season so the proverbial well has run dry for 1995.

I'm posting this during this year's Daytona 500. The Truck race was decent, the Xfinity race was actually very good, here's hoping that the Daytona 500 itself will be a good one also. It's the 25th Daytona 500 I've seen live (on TV), all consecutively, so that's a bit of a big deal to me. I've seen 1986-91 as well but a copy of the 1992 race still eludes me, I've never seen that one.

A card I've wanted for 15 years

As you might know, I discovered NASCAR through the Racing Champions diecast cars, and became a fan on 12/26/1992. I've always favored Racing Champions and spent much of my life in an effort to collect every single one of them that I could. I estimate that I came up about 100 short, counting the rare Canadian only issues, although I no longer actively chase the cars I missed.

For some reason, I have not really talked about them too much on Cardboard History. It's actually somewhat surprising even to me, and I write the darn thing! (LOL)

In 1996, Racing Champions introduced the concept of chase cars when they began issuing chrome cars that were pretty rare; I have a couple of those, and I even found one on the shelves at my local Wal-Mart once. They produced the Chrome chase cars from 1996-2004, perhaps 2005, I don't remember.

In 2001, they changed things up a little bit by coming up with chase cards to go along with the cars. They came out with tire cards, autographs and sheet metal, all of which are fairly rare- a print run of 500 is the largest of any year, I believe. I never got any of them. Believe me, I looked, but they just didn't show up in any of my then-weekly trips to the stores. I've wanted one ever since.

A few days ago, one of my friends from the NUTS forum- that's NASCAR Underground Trading Society- which is THE site for trading NASCAR cards, posted up on Facebook that he had one available. I mentioned that I really wanted it, so he sent it to me. The generosity on that forum is top-notch, and not only did he send me the one I really wanted- he filled the bubble mailer with other cool stuff too, including my very first relic of a shifter boot! That'll have to wait for a future post, though, because I wanted to just dedicate this to the one card I've been after all these years.

I still can't believe I finally have one...it's a dream come true!

Another post with pictures- one of the rare times I don't have my scanner plugged in, and I didn't want to take the time to get it out. It's really a dark purple theme, with the Racing Champions logo being bright red. Not a great photo, but it gets the job done.

Thanks again Michael, you made my week/month!

2016 has seen me add a lot of great cards (OK, every card is great, but you know what I mean!) and this one is well in my top 10 favorite new additions on the year....probably top 5.

October 2016 Trade Recap

I have not been doing much trading lately. In fact, I only did one in the month of October but I received a couple of gifts from fellow bloggers/collectors that I wanted to cover, and since I plan to gift them back at some point, it's close enough for me to post it here.

I normally like to get my trade recaps posted on the last day of each month, but I have not been feeling too good and wasn't able to get it done for then.

On that note, all pictures instead of scans today.. hope to be back to scans next time. 

The only actual trade I made was with Tyler of Rekindling the Cardboard Flame. He sent me a complete set, but I am not going to show it now. It is of the base cards for the 1996-97 Collector's Choice Super Action Stick-Ums Series 2 cards, but since I had some already, I didn't open the package they came in. Normally I know what is new or not, due to my detailed (read: OCD) record keeping, but when you consider that both series look almost exactly alike, I had no idea if the ones I had were series 1 or series 2. To not throw off my collection number (any more than it surely is) I just kept them sealed, until I find the ones I had already and can cross check them and see which are new.

He did trade me two sealed Racing Champions cars, though, making the first time I've gotten any of them in trade on the Trading Card Database!

 I think the Jeff Gordon car is a duplicate- but we are less than a week away from them being in my posession for a month and I have not checked yet. That whole not feeling good thing...even if it is, I don't mind, because it's probably a conditional upgrade. If it does turn out to be a duplicate I may hang it on my wall at some point...I have not added a new car to the wall display since probably 2007.
The Mark Martin car is definitely new. I don't know if I didn't see them or just didn't get them but I don't have too many High Octane cars. These were a midseason replacement for Stock Rods using cheaper bodies with no opening features on the cars. They had their own unique cards, too. I think this is only the third in my collection.
His last post on October shows the Seattle SuperSonics cards I traded him.

Later in the month I got a PWE from Trading Card Database member wjsenke. He had some cards from my wantlist and he didn't need anything I have to offer, so he just sent them to me. He collects stuff that I don't even ever really see let alone have, but I hope that some day I'll be able to come up with something to send him back as a thank you.

I like getting cards of guys who have last names starting with unusual letters. Vincent Yarbrough certainly hits that target. I believe he has the second most cards of any player with a last name starting with Y after Yao Ming. (In Chinese culture last name comes first)
The Van Gundy card is only my 3rd or 4th of him. One of my favorite moments in NBA history is when the Knicks and Heat got into a fight and he was out on the court clinging to Alonzo Mourning's ankles.
Larry Johnson was involved in that fight, and 1996-97 Fleer is one of my all-time favorite sets. I like how Charles Barkley just stands and watches in the background.
Abdul-Rauf gets me one card closer to my goal of having every base card of the 1995-96 season! For some reason this year of Topps has never come up in repacks as often as the other years of Topps from the mid 1990s. The first card I ever traded for is from this set.
the Danny Manning comes from 2000-01 MVP, a set I thought I had completed but was actually about 10 cards away from. My paper listing shows that I last added a new base card in 2003!

Just this past Saturday, I got another PWE, this time from north of the Border and CrazieJoe from CrazieJoe's Card Corner. One of the more prolific bloggers, Joe has posted more than 300 times in 2016 alone- I think every day, actually. He got a really big lot of cards which he has been going through 20 at a time, every day. I had commented on his blog when he pulled one of those info cards that were put into packs to prevent pack feeling that I wanted it, so he sent me one. But, dumb me, I forgot to include it in the photo! I had set it in a seperate stack of cards for scanning and totally forgot to get it back out for this post. Duh...
He also sent along 4 cards I needed from 1999-00 Fleer Force, a set I loved when it was new, but now, as a scanner, not as much, as it's all mirror foil.

Even in this crappy cell phone photo you can see how shiny they are. I think this is the first time I've ever shown a Dickey Simpkins card on Cardboard History. This guy won three NBA Championships with the Bulls, yet is most well remembered for the Bulls mis-spelling his name as "Smipkens" on his jersey during the dismal 1998-99 campaign. As far as I know there is not a single card that memorializes the funniest typo I'm aware of in NBA jersey history. The worst part is, nobody noticed. A fan in the audience pointed it out! (It just happened again this week- Eric Bledsoe of the Suns started a game with his jersey spelled "Beldsoe" They realized there was a problem and had a new, correct jersey waiting for him at halftime. I think Simpkins wore Smipkens the whole game)

And that's that. October was a fairly light month for me for cards, if it wasn't for the box of Hoops my Mom gave me for my birthday, it actually would have been the second smallest month since I got back into the NBA full time in October 2012; the 288 cards in the box really boosted the numbers. Yes, I'm OCD enough to know, lol. I only got 81 cards in August 2014, that was a rough month as my mom was in the hospital for pretty much the entire month and into September. Even though I maintain a stash of unopened cards I just wasn't interested enough to open any, I guess. Some of my unopened stash predates then, maybe I should work on them a little more...

On a non-card related topic, I know most everyone in the card blogosphere is surely looking forward to game 7 of the World Series tonight. If I was going to be awake I would have gone to my model club meeting, but that's not going to happen. I also really wanted to watch the CMA 50th Anniversary award show. I don't really watch award shows too often, but this year, I probably would have. They released a special music video for it that may just be the greatest music video ever. I think I may be the only blogger who prefers country music and this one video epitomizes everything right with country music...I think it's the first music video I've posted on Cardboard History and I know it doesn't really have anything to do with cards (a few of the artists do appear in my collection, though). But it's good enough that I needed to share it. Seeing some of the retired legends making appearances here is a thrill, too..

I saw it for the first time on Monday and have already watched it about 10 times. Maybe more.

COMC Bonanza Part 4: The End...and the Beginning?

Editorial Note: I wrote this post up back in June, but with all the stuff that's gone on- my remote hard drive crashing, the huge NASCAR gift, continual health problems, deaths of family and friends, and neighbors causing trouble, I just have not been in the mood to write or even post out of my completed drafts, of which I have more than 20 posts ready to go.  I need to force myself to post or else it will just slip away from me so here you go. I sure wish more of the things going on were good things like the NASCAR gift...

This is the final post in the COMC Bonanza series, and also shifting a MAJOR stance on something that has held true for some 28 years. Read on...

Here are the first three posts. 

While the first post showed cards that were needed to complete sets, the second post showed SN, AU and Relic cards, the 3rd post showed the sets and people I added to my collection...this post is going to show the other cards that don't fit those above categories, cards I just liked and wanted to have as part of my collection...and then the change.

 I was 5 cards short on the Die Cut parallel of 2001 Trackside, and I got 4 of them. (Not shown: The censored cards of Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt Jr.). The last card I need is Dale Jarrett's car, but the one on COMC was ridiculously overpriced- I think he wanted $18 for it, or maybe it was just $8. The card shouldn't even cost $1, so I left it.

 Card #100 from 2010 Premium, showing the 2010 Daytona 500 victory celebration.

 The short prints in 2010 Press Pass are a pain in the butt. I got two (Not shown: Juan Pablo Montoya) and still have 2 left to hunt down, to complete the set.

 This is the Salute to Dale card I mentioned in post #1. It was a three card set, of which I pulled multiple copies of each of the first two cards, but this one was short printed.

I discovered that COMC has Racing Champions cards! I didn't expect that (most people ignore them, because they did not come in packs) and they actually had three I needed. This Stock Rod, I don't even know what SET it goes to. That's surprising, as I worked for almost 25 years to get every Racing Champions issue I could. The last time I found a set I didn't know existed was probably 1999. Not trying to brag but RC was my specialty. I have since found out they were exclusive to stores that were either not in my area or that we didn't go to. The TRU promo is neon by the way!

And now...a major change for me. I've been in this hobby since 1988. I was 4 years old, and I've never stopped collecting. Even when I was mostly out of it in 2007 and 2008, I was still in a little bit...I've always considered myself a collector, even if I wasn't able to add to my collection.

In that time I've never sold a single card. Not one. I've given away thousands, traded away thousands more, but I've never sold one....until now. I had a lot of fun going through COMC and picking out cards. Most of which you've now seen over the last 4 posts. It proved to be immensely fun for me. I spent $200 and I got 144 cards, 139 of which were new, and the others replaced cards that were damaged, including two of the worst from my flood of 2/5/15. It took me about 5 hours to create the order of cards, and they have given me literally days of enjoyment. I got the order on June 22nd and I'm STILL working on them now, and enjoying every minute of it.

It got me to thinking. I've been adding cards to my collection non-stop for years. I viewed it as something to be proud of that I've never sold any cards. But I got to rethinking that. Seeing how much enjoyment it gave me to hunt down these cards- most of them that I got were common cards, to fill sets, even ones I wasn't able to complete- it gave me great joy. What if my duplicates that I've been storing all this time could bring somebody else that same feeling of joy? So,  I started to dig into my duplicate stash, which is extensive, but not as extensive as it could be, as I've given away lots of cards. I selected a random assortment of cards (mostly random, anyway) that were duplicates, and which I had not entered into my tradelist on the Trading Card Database, and selected 100 cards, which is the minimum that COMC requires. By the time this post gets published (I usually write up posts several days in advance- to be honest all the posts in this COMC bonanza series were written on the same day) my first shipment of cards for sale on COMC will be in possession of the USPS en route to COMC. There's nothing too spectacular there- I made sure to put in a couple of Jordan, Kobe and LeBron, but all college sets. And one thing for sure is that they are all duplicates. A card I only have one copy of is still going to be part of my collection as if my life depended on it! 

I don't know how it will work out. I hope it will work out well, but I'm not going to be asking for much on these. I am planning to ask for 30 cents a card for base cards, most of which they are, 40 cents for parallels and 50 cents for inserts- regardless of player or card subject. I wouldn't even ask that much if COMC didn't charge 25 cents per card, to be honest.  I'm aware that if all 100 cards sell, which I think is unlikely, that would give me a profit of ....wait for it....Five dollars. It's not a lot, but it's $5 more I have to spend on cards than I have right now. (A little more, actually, as there are some non-base, but you get my drift)

One of the reasons I've decided to do it is that I don't have anywhere near as much money to spend in the hobby that I once did, or would like to have. There are lots of cards I want- thousands upon thousands- but can't afford. I'm specifically targeting a card from Panini Eminence. The cheapest one on there is $150. The most I'll spend on a single card is $20...maybe $25. If I can come anywhere close to that, to me mentally I could justify it because it wouldn't really be spending $150...it would be trading a bunch of cards and then adding some cash to the deal...even though I don't know who the cards will be going to. It works for me, mentally.

I do have some trepidation. This is a major change from the stance I have held pretty much my entire life. I'm not going to be selling cards on Cardboard History (though a link to my COMC listings WILL appear, when it's ready) nor on Ebay or the Facebook groups, but I will no longer be able to say I'm solely a buyer. 

The other possible con I can think of is that, if it works well and I end up funneling most of my duplicates to them, I won't have anything new to trade, or to fill out random trades with new people I meet. I just "met" a collector through the Database and I've sent him about 350-400 cards...cards that, otherwise, would have been in line to eventually get to COMC...if I like doing it. 

Pros are that I won't have to store the dang things anymore. I have somewhere north of 150,000 cards in my possession, and that's not even counting the ones that are too badly damaged to list on my tradelist or offer up on COMC or elsewhere, which outnumber my tradeable duplicates by about 2 or 3-1. And I keep finding cards I didn't even remember having in my storage units, of which we have 3. (Some of which were duplicates and are now headed to COMC!) 

Another pro is that it opens up a wide variety of people I would not have access to otherwise. I basically know only a handful of people in the hobby...it's not like it was back in the early 2000s when Trader Retreat was going strong. Most of the NASCAR collectors I know already have everything I've got to offer, so hopefully the NASCAR collectors perusing COMC will be people I don't know who want my cards.  

The biggest pro, though, is that I should be able to turn some of my duplicates, of which I really have no need, into cards I DO need, so in a way it's really like just trading them. As I stated my goal is to get a Eminence card, but that is not something likely to happen this year....especially as I'm starting out small with the very minimum COMC allows a seller to send in. And, knowing myself, I'll spend it on the first serially numbered Elton Brand I see anyway.


Here is a photo of the cards I selected, most of them chosen simply because there were easily accessible, IE, the Donruss cards, which all were duplicates out of a blaster my mom bought me last week.  

after taking this picture, I put the cards in the penny sleeves that my COMC order of 6/22/16 arrived in!

 With the $25 minimum it would take me a while to send them all my duplicates...I literally could not afford to pay the fees required to list them, which is humorous in a way. 
I have to admit, I selected a lot of college cards because I had no intention of ever listing most of them on my Tradelist on the Database. Let them deal with them, LOL.  I won't be sending in anything on my tradelist currently either, it was way too much work to get them listed so they are going to stay there until I trade them all away. (IE, never)

I hope it's a success, so I can turn these duplicates into new cards for my collection!  

Editorial Note Part 2:The "last week" I mention in relation to the blaster of Donruss is now over a month ago. I finally got the cards into the mail today, July 30th, even though I printed out the shipping slip on June 28th. Over a month...tells you a little about my mindset right now, but I will keep going forward. 

Goals for 2015 Update: I should have set higher goals

Back at the start of the year, I wrote a Post about my card collecting goals for 2015. I was going to post an update on July 1st, or thereabouts, but I realized that I had already surpassed two of my goals and modified another by the end of May, so that I was going to post about it now.

Goal #1 has changed. I got most of the tradelist posted, and while I still have more to do, I have decided that I'm going to actually give most of the NASCAR duplicates to a good friend of mine, which saves me the trouble of posting them, and repays the kindness he's shown me over time.

The NBA duplicates that I'm sure on are entered, but I'm going to hold off on the new duplicates for a time. I have found more cards that got damaged than I realized- both in the flood on February 5th or otherwise- and I don't want to trade away a needed replacement without realizing it. It will be some time until I am ready to enter them in...talking years here.

All that remains is the non-sports cards, and they are still hanging over my head. I'm not sure exactly what I've entered and what I haven't, so there is some work there ahead of me.

#2. was to get my scans of card backs posted close to or equal to the card fronts on the Database. I accomplished that sometime in May (I forgot to take note of it) but I not only got the backs caught up, I have now surpassed the fronts! This is mainly due to other people posting fronts but not backs of cards.
Here is a screencap that is accurate as I type this but will be outdated within 5 minutes of hitting post.

My third goal was to hit more than 11 Elton Brand cards for the year. I have more than doubled that total...and some of them are quite rare, including 2 numbered to only 10 copies extant. I have a Page where I am posting scans of each and every new Elton card I've gotten in 2015. As of right now I'm at 30 new Eltons for the year. Of those 30, 7 are autographed and 5 are relics, including my first Logoman patch - of any player - and my first autographed relic of Elton. I had only two autographs of him before this year. I cleared my 12th card - and the goal - on February 11th, so it was the first goal of the year to fall. I hope to keep up this increase in my Elton collection- I cleared 400 different NBA cards of him in May- the next goal is 500 different. I expect that shall be my main goal for 2016.

The One of each person/set goal is progressing nicely as well. I'm down to 65 NBA sets missing and 6 NASCAR sets - 7 counting 1972 STP. I've cut the missing NBA people down to 450, and NASCAR has been halved, to only 38 missing people. I need to work more on the NBA people missing...and of course we are only a few months away from the 2015-16 rookie class, which always leads to more people missing as Panini ignores some of them in most sets but puts them in high priced sets I can't afford.

I had one other goal I forgot to write about - I knew I was forgetting something back in January but I remember, and in fact am working on it, right now.

I am working on a total calculation of how many cards in my collection. I know it's not accurate- I know my counts are off- but I am working to correct them. In 2015 I've gotten an accurate count of my other sports and those I am pretty sure on. I know the NBA count is off, possibly by more than 100 cards. I won't know for sure until I finish scanning them all and then resort them by set. I'm sure the NASCAR count is off as well but not by as many.

But what's been the biggest mystery count wise has been the diecast cards. The ones that came with Racing Champions, Action, Winner's Circle, Johnny Lightning, Hot Wheels and other brands of die cast replicas. There is a problem, though. Some are missing. I know I have them, but I don't know where. Surely in one of my storage units, but that's equal to not having them. I know which ones are missing, to an extent. I know which cars I have and therefor which cards I have, but I don't have the cards physically in hand...and there are sure to be ones I've forgotten. Do I count the ones I know I have, but can't currently locate? And do I count the sort-of cards that tend to be in the same vein, but not necessarily cards? I'm specifically talking about the Team Caliber Certificates of Authenticity, the stickers Winner's Circle and Hot Wheels issued, etc. I have yet to decide.

I must decide soon because I project finishing scanning the cards I can find within a week.

I suppose I should start thinking of goals for 2016...I blew past 2015's goals much easier than I expected, and the 500 mark for Elton isn't out of the question for 2015, although extremely unlikely due to lack of funds...and lack of his inclusion in any card set since 2013, despite the fact that he is still in the league. 2016 is also my 20 year anniversary of collecting the NBA, so I want to do something special for that, which I still  have not decided on.