Met an NHL Player for the first time today!

 A small local card show was held in Poughkeepsie, NY today, and they brought in former Ranger Stephane Matteau as a guest. I was tipped off to this show's existence by my friend Dan, aka Vrooomed on the Trading Card Database, and made plans to attend...which of course, as you can tell from the title, I did! 

It's funny, I have only been an NHL fan since late 2016 and I've met a player now. It took me 15 years to meet a NASCAR driver and it's 25 years this year and I still haven't met an NBA player! 

Stephane Matteau played in the NHL for 16 seasons, of which only three were with the Rangers. However, his first year with the team was very notable, as the Rangers won the Stanley Cup for the first time since before World War II. He scored the goal that won the Eastern Conference Finals in OT so while he may not have been a Ranger for very long, he sure did make an important impact! 

That was really pretty cool, and it's very rare for me to get an autograph in person. 

As for the show itself...that was a mixed bag. First off on their Facebook page they say autographs are free, but that's not true, it's $20 if you bring a card from home, and the "free autograph" only comes free with the purchase of a picture, so none of the three autograph signers were actually free. I don't mind paying, as I'm sure there was some expense for him to get here...I overheard him talking to one of the baseball guys and he said he came up from Florida. But, don't say it's free and then when you walk in the door say that it's not. 

The show was well attended and well stocked. Prices weren't too high as a general rule on single cards, but higher than I feel they should be for the quality of modern cards. Almost all the cards were modern...I saw only two dealers with vintage and none that were solely vintage. Basketball was well represented but it was almost all Prizm stuff, which shouldn't be much of a surprise because that's what Panini is pushing. I would say basketball was second only to Baseball which was the most well represented, and football was also very well represented albeit less than baseball or basketball. Hockey was slim pickings though I did manage to add a great card. NASCAR was barely there- I saw three single cards, which I bought all of. There were quite a few multi-sport cards, mostly Goodwin Champions but some Leaf stuff, I even saw one dealer had golf cards in his box. Wrestling was there but less than 10 cards that I saw. Non-sport traditional cards were very slim- I saw two dealers with Marvel cards and nothing else. Gaming cards like Pokeman and Magic were there but didn't appear to be moving. 

Parking was a nightmare. The hall was plenty large enough but the parking lot was small. My brother dropped me off and came back later. The show was small enough that we actually left and came home, then went back for the signing, which was at 2 PM. The show only opened at 11 AM, so that should give a size description. 

Although the bait-and-switch aspect put me in a bit of disgruntlement at the start of the show, I do consider it a success. Even if I hadn't met Stephane Matteau, it would still have been a success in my eyes. It is the first show this program has done, so I suppose there are some flaws that have to be ironed out. It was also the first show I've gone to since February 2020 so that's cool. 

Now, I'm sure you want to see the cards I got, so let's take a look! It would take a long time to get these scanned so I'm going with photos...scans will come eventually!

This is the card I brought to get signed. I need an unsigned version for my collection too...I got this one off of COMC on Ebay just specifically to get signed. I looked through his gallery on the Database and when I saw this awesome photo holding the Cup I knew it was the card I was going to get. 

This was actually my last purchase of the day...but the first out of the bag. I won't turn down a numbered Klay Thompson for $1. The Jordan card is my first from the semi-bootleg Hanes set from a couple years ago. My second Obi Toppin card (the first comes later in this post) and a shiny card of Karl-Anthony Towns, which I have not even checked to see if it's a base parallel or insert card yet. 

Another shiny card of Paul George from the above dealer. The three autographs came from a dealer's 3 Autos for $10 box, the Thomas Vincour was the only NHL card in the box. The Nicolas Batum is just a cool looking card and the Lorenzen Wright is from the Scoreboard buyback autograph insert from 1997, the first buybacks I'm aware of in the hobby. It's my second from the set, I got a John Wallace when it was new, now 24 years ago. 

The same dealer that had the autographs had these as well, and the McDyess 1996-97 Topps Chrome Refractor was in the dollar box! I don't even know if I need it but at that price I was not going to take any chances. The Kidd PowerDeck is a rare find. The Guentzel is my first UD Exclusives card from last season, and the Newman is the first of three NASCAR cards to appear. 

Sorry this photo is so crappy. The Jakob Poeltl autograph came from a 4 for $10 box as did the Evans, Blaney, Booker, and the bottom two cards in the previous photo and the top two cards in the next photo.

I like the colored parallels so I got the Domboya. The Karlsson was the only Golden Knights card I saw in the entire show. The Jalen Smith card is clear plastic which you know I like and is also my first card of him. Honestly, I never heard of Sam Morrill and I'm guessing most people haven't either which is why his autograph was in a $2 box. That doesn't matter though as he's one more new player for my project of getting at least one card of every NBA player! 

This was my first look at the new Recon set, which only came out last week, I think. Yes, a 2020-21 set is still being released a month into the 2021-22 season. These cards are not great and I don't think I would buy them even if the prices weren't stupid high, so these may be it...well these and the ones in other photos. This is my first card of Obi Toppin and Immanuel Quickley. 

I had an uneven number of cards so this guy gets a photo by himself. I mostly got this card because it was $1 and a player I didn't have in my collection. 

I made two larger single card purchases and the last was this autograph of Chris Kreider. It's from 2012-13 Fleer Retro but has a very mid-90s Fleer or Ultra feel. The dealer had a row of Kreider autographs and by this point I was low on money, so when he said this was the lowest priced, I was happy to take it home. 

This was my big purchase of the day, a Ryan Blaney Autographed 1 of 1! I broke my self imposed $20 per card limit on this one, but I had been wanting his autograph and it's a 1 of 1... had to do it! Wish Panini had used a less-goofy picture but it's panini, you can't expect much, LOL. 

Scalped wax was very common at the show...and I won't do that. I did get these packs of cards, which even they were overpriced at $5 per pack, but I know these will probably be the only time I ever get to open a pack from these sets. 

I bought this hand-colated repack and in retrospect I shouldn't have. It was not worth the $18. Even $10 would have been pushing it. Six of the cards were college so I didn't even get 20 real cards, and the one parallel I got is my all-time least favorite player. So yeah, not great. The RJ Barrett card showing turned out to be my favorite of the pack. 

Even though I got the least amount of new cards vs. money spent at any show, I am pretty happy with it, and meeting Stephane Matteau set the bar pretty high. 

Christmas Cards Part 2: This time I actually show the cards

I've been talking about my Christmas cards quite a bit, but not really showing them...it's time to change that!

Now, considering I got 892 cards- the 13th most in a day for me ever, at least documented- I can't show them all. I could, with the exception of the Topps stickers, but that would take forever to scroll through. I have them all up on the Cardboard History Gallery by this point so you can browse them there if you want to.

I will show the "Hits" and at least an example of every set I got some of.

What I really wanted the most this year was a box of Upper Deck Series 1, and I got one...and it was just as great as I was hoping it would be. My favorite card of the box, and quite possibly of the entire Christmas day haul was this one:

I love the UD Exclusives parallel! It's the longest running parallel in cardboard history and it's only the second NHL example I've pulled...although several others have been added on the secondary market. The fact that I pulled a Ranger makes it all the better. It's SN 13 of 100, which is a little hard to see- the 100 is over the linesman, mostly. Kind of a cool coincidence that it was SN 13 on my 13th largest day ever!
I also pulled the base card:

Aside from the serial numbering, the silver team and position bar changes to red on the UD Exclusives card, and the foil changes from silver to gold.

Although the Fast is without question my favorite card, this is probably the most important card I pulled...in fact, it's the first time I've EVER pulled a Young Gun of the #1 draft pick! Not only the first one I've pulled, it is the first one in my collection, total! Although I'm missing a few big ones, including his brother Quinn, by pulling this one I have a bit of hope of actually completing the full set this year. I know that Series 2 is going to have at least one expensive card, and from my favorite team at that, so I'm hoping I can pull a Kaapo Kakko.

 The 30th Anniversary of Upper Deck is a fun one- and has inspired a 30th Anniversary of Upper Deck post, which I have not even begun to write, but is formulating in my head. I don't actually have every Upper Deck flagship in my collection yet- I'm missing 2004-05, which was produced during the lockout year and is somewhat hard to find- so I don't know how I will handle that yet.

 This is a nice looking set as well. I suspect it may be based on a past insert from UD's history, but I can't place it, since I'm still relatively new to the NHL.

 The Shooting Stars is less interesting but it's my first insert of last year's Calder Trophy winner, so it's worth showing.

 The UD Canvas insert is ok but it seems like just a way to get another card of the stars produced. This is my first card of Suzuki, who was who the Golden Knights gave up to get Max Pacioretty. It is my first card of his.

The very last pack actually produced a relic! It's the second UD Game Jersey card I have pulled on Christmas Day, at least in hockey- the number goes up with NBA included- following Frederik Andersen two years ago, which was the first hockey relic I ever pulled.

UD's flagship has a great mix of action photography and detail shots. This is one of the latter, and gives a great look at Marc-Andre's helmet art. He usually never stops moving long enough to get a good look in game!

The other set I really wanted was this year's O-Pee-Chee. I missed it totally at retail (the overpowering smell of Starbucks makes me sick, I can't go check cards anymore), and feared I would miss the set entirely this year. That would not be the case, thanks to the hobby box I got! It is the first O-Pee-Chee brand hobby box I've ever opened in full!
I showed the blue parallel already, in the post about completing my 2020 goal already.

 This is the base design. The borders are white although they scan kinda funny. It's a solid design, and with 600 + cards, it's the largest set of the year...usually. It depends on how large the update in Upper Deck 2 will be, Topps Stickers might beat it this year.

 Oskar Linblom was recently diagnosed with Ewing's Sarcoma, which is a form of bone cancer :( I hope he has a complete recovery, they say this one is treatable so I'm glad to hear that. 2019-20 was only his second full season.

 The Mini this year is not really a mini anymore. It's normal card height, but instead of being 2 and a half inches wide, it's 2 even. That's it. I got 4 of them in my box, and to be honest, I would rather have gotten 4 more base cards.

The Caramel insert also has parallels- it was issued in 2019, after all- and I pulled P.K. in this one as well. I don't think it's actually wood, rather, a covering over the top of the card. Again, I would rather have gotten another base card, although I can't complain about adding two more P.K. Subban cards to my collection- he's among my favorites, and one of the few players I will actually search for cards for (my normal single card buying technique is to sort by cheapest and add as many as I can until I run out of money) Since O-Pee-Chee is a very early season release- as in, it comes out during the Pre-season, or slightly before, all the players are listed with the teams they played for last year. The Predators traded P.K. to New Jersey during the off-season but he will likely have to wait until next season's release to get a OPC Devils card...maybe in the Update.

 Playing cards again. Meh.

Suddenly, I feel very old.
The Retro parallels fall one per pack and I like them...it would take at minimum 600 packs to complete the set, and with 24 packs per box, you're looking at 25 boxes to get them all, IF you get no duplicates...yikes! And yet, the gallery was already complete on the Database. I didn't get to post a single one. Extra yikes!

You are supposed to get two black bordered Retro parallels per box, and one Gold base card parallel...but as you can see, I got three black borders, and no gold borders! (I've already purchased the cheapest one on COMC, just so I could have one). Even better, the Black parallels are SN to 100 copies, and this is, I believe, the FIRST SN Golden Knights card I've ever pulled from a pack myself! It was in the very last pack, as well!

I'm not quite sure if the Topps sticker box I got was hobby or retail, or even if there is such a distinction, but at 630 cards, it's currently the largest set of the year. And with 50 packs in the box, I got a lot of them...but for some reason they seem to think because they are stickers they should have poor collation. I got a lot of duplicates, including three copies of one card- although unlike most card products, I got those duplicates of a superstar, in Jack Eichel. I have chosen not to scan the majority of the stickers now, since they will make great spacers for my scanning waves...but I did scan three pages worth.

 I think literally half of every NHL set I've opened a pack of had Jake Gardiner or Morgan Reilly as the first card of the set...and this one was no different!

You know I'm going to show my favorite player when I pull him out of a box break. I got the foil sticker of him as well but have not scanned it yet- I want to scan them in the order I got them, for some unknown reason, other than I'm a weirdo.

The foil cards are cool. They are holofoil, so they not only look nice in hand, but they scan well too. They fall one per pack.

I got one fatpack of MVP, and got two of the three cards I wanted most from the set! (The one I didn't get? Lundqvist. Having had enough of that, I went ahead and bought it on COMC with the $100 my brother gave me for spending there as my Christmas present from him.

 I like this year's Artifacts set, but with just a cut out of a player over a computer generated background, on every single card, it's my least favorite of the 5 NHL sets from the current season represented in my collection. Still, new cards are new cards, and I'm glad to have them!

Hey, look at that! An actual artifact! I've gotten 5 blasters of Artifacts since I began collecting hockey (maybe more, I can't remember) and this is the first actual artifact I've pulled.

 The 2015-16 Star Rookies box set is awesome. 25 cards, 23 of which I needed, I wish UD did this every year.

I got a little stack of numbered parallels from last year's artifacts, and a couple of the numbered base cards as well. That was nice, as you should all know my SN addiction by now.

 I had no idea that the CHL set was released in blaster form. I was thrilled to get that because I love collecting cards of lower levels of the sport. I'm going to have an expanded post on that soon(ish; by the end of 2020 at least) but I had to include a couple here. And example of the base card, and check out that team logo. It's a seal! The Saint Johns' Sea Dogs.

 The other base card design, for the rookies, which are one per pack...short printed, but not as SPed as the NHL issue.

There are red parallels, I got 4 in my box. I wish the Moose Jaw Warriors had a moose on their uniform, but not to fear...

...the Halifax Mooseheads to the rescue!

I really did not expect a hobby box of Victory Lane! I told my family I would be happy with anything NASCAR, but I expected a blaster at most. Not a hobby box! This is a base card- they are all mirror-etched foil, which means they do not scan particularly well.

 Love this insert!

 Pedal to the Metal fall 2 per pack, and at 100 cards, is the exact same size as the base set. It's not a parallel, it's it's own insert, which is kind of strange, but...Panini.

 Always nice to pull an SN parallel, even nicer when it's door numbered! This is only my 4th in my entire NASCAR collection, two of which I added in December 2019. The other came from my COMC order, and the post covering it is written (and has been since before Christmas) but I am not sure when I will get it published.

 Not a huge fan of Chase Elliott, but a 4-piece relic card I am always happy to add. That is, clockwise from top left, firesuit, tire, presumably more firesuit, sheet metal.

Odd they used a photo from 2005 when Joe is still active, but again, Panini does Panini things. And I'm thrilled to have it, I've always been a fan of Front Row Joe.

 Unlike a lot of NASCAR fans, I like the Dillon brothers. So this was a nice pull! Firesuit, sheet metal and tire once more.

And Ty makes an appearance on the non-autographed Triple Swatch design! Ty was actually in the first pack I opened...while Chase was in the last. Once again, we have firesuit, tire and sheet metal. The tire has some lettering, while the sheet metal has some race damage.

This was a great box! Now, I was expecting a blaster and I did get one of them too, of Prizm!

 #!()@ variations.

 Blue parallel, SN to 75!

 Camo parallel, which are exclusive to the blasters, which gives you three of them.

 An insert that actually shows a car will always be my favorite.

 Yay for clip art! Where's the Statue of Liberty? Now that Dale Earnhardt Jr. has retired, Martin Truex Jr. is my favorite active driver...although I like most of the drivers.

 Ryan Blaney has the capability to become my favorite active driver some day. Both he and Darrell Wallace Jr.- who I didn't get any cards of on Christmas at all- do, and they are both 10 years newer to the sport than Martin, so they should be around a while. Ryan won Halloween in 2019 by dressing as Princess Leia from Star Wars...in the chain mail bikini! This is the Prizm Parallel to the Variation by the way. It looks nicer in hand than in scans.

A Red, White & Blue parallel, which is one per blaster and not SN again, after being SN'd last year. Jimmie, who has won more races than any other driver in a year that starts with 20- and the second most in my lifetime-has announced 2020 is his final season.

When I was listing my NASCAR cards in my Excel file, I realized that I hit 34,000 unique NASCAR cards on Christmas day! The Milestone card was this one-

And as you can see, Paul Menard was thrilled for me.

I didn't get very much NBA this year, and I'm actually ok with that. The NHL now has my full attention, and NASCAR will get my full attention on race days when it starts up again. I'm still an NBA fan, but it doesn't hold my #1 top spot anymore, as it did for a long time. The NHL and NASCAR is just non-stop action, all the time- the NBA is non-stop reviewing lately, and it's taken some of the fun out of it...the broadcasting is also terrible, which does play a role even though it shouldn't. I used to struggle with what to watch live...now there's no struggle. It's hockey...and I watch NBA on repeats, if I feel like it. There are some nights I don't even bother, which I know I should not do, but I just can't get motivated like I once did. Now, with that said, I am still an NBA fan, and the NBA still commands at least 1/4th of my entire collection. But going forward the NHL is likely to be what I'm spending most of my collection focus on.

 Those Cavs alternates from last year were so cool.

 Vince Carter made history last night (for me writing this, 2 nights ago for when I have it scheduled for) by being the first player in NBA history to play in four different decades- the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s. In his (also a record) 22nd season, he has announced this is his final year.

I only got one new player in the base cards

but one more in the parallels, below, and this insert is my first card of him.

 Always happy to get a new card of Kevin Love, an extremely distant cousin.

Two cards SN to 25 copies, from single retail packs! That's pretty amazing. And the Poole is not only my first card of him, it's also SN 25/25!

And that's the highlights of what I got! It was a great Christmas, with a lot of great cards, and an even better scan-through percentage. I still have cards I got for Christmas 2015 that I have not scanned yet...possibly even earlier. I'm getting there...slowly but surely.