Fulfilling expired redemptions on COMC

There's nothing worse than pulling an expired redemption card, and in one case I even pulled one the day after the due date to ship it to Topps. (as an aside, redemptions that ever expire is one of my biggest pet peeves in the hobby- there's really no reason to ever expire, other than the card company being too lazy to put them in a box and wait for the cards to roll in...Panini does this better than anyone else in the hobby! They print expiration dates for some reason but will honor them anyway)

I had the idea, when I came across some expired redemptions in my regular scanning activity, to see if I could fill them on COMC. I wasn't able to fill all of them, but I did get a lot. I am including the expired redemption cards- which I do count as part of my collection- smaller, underneath the card they finally turned in to.

This was the first one I did on there, and that's only fitting, because I pulled the expired redemption all the way back in 1996!

It's the autographed parallel from 1994 Action Packed Hall of Fame.

 The 1994 Action Packed Hall of Fame set may be the first box of basketball cards I ever did...I don't remember, it was in the first three. My local K-mart had boxes of this set, 1990-91 and 1994-95 Hoops on the shelves when I first began collecting, and I got all of them early on...this may have been in the very first box of basketball cards I ever did.

From 1996 Maxx, this five card Sterling Marlin set was available with one redemption card. Sterling was Maxx Spokesman that year, and I never had the opportunity to send it in- Maxx went out of business in mid-1996 and I didn't get the redemption until circa 2000.

 

Leave it to Press Pass to be the least inspired. The card that was due to be redeemed looked EXACTLY the same as this card, only without the foil name and 2003.  

 2000-01 Fleer Tradition Glossy. This is an autograph.

One of the worst feelings I ever had in the hobby was pulling a redemption card from a pack the day after it expired. I can't remember which card it was anymore, but I remember that it was from Topps. It may have been this one. Topps rushed the set out too early and couldn't even get all the rookies into the base set without redemptions.

Like I said above, I was not able to fill all of them...but getting these filled...especially after having one of these expired redemptions for 21 years now...it's a great feeling. In fact, this may be my favorite project of all that I worked on with COMC...and that's why it's the first I'm showing this week.

NASCAR Box #2 Breakdown

I've finished going through the cards my friend sent me a couple of weeks ago, totally unexpectedly. And what a box it was! I ended up getting 1079 new cards, which is my 6th most all-time for one day. (the first box he sent me is in the top 5)
My records aren't matching up, and I hate when they don't match in the three places I store them. But it may really be off by a card or two, because the Database shows I have one card, while my paper records- which I based my collection on the Database off of- shows I don't. But I've long said the numbers are probably off and that I just use them as a baseline anyway.

While the first box had more cards in it, this one completed more sets- 8 of them, all from 1995-97. Also, I completed a parallel and three inserts, which is very rare for me to do so. The inserts I completed include 1996 Ultra Champion's Club (5 cards), 1996 Upper Deck Virtual Velocity (15 cards) and this one, from 1997 Upper Deck Victory Circle, at 10 cards...

It's as sparkly as it looks in hand. I pulled one of these when it was new and now, 20 years later, I've completed it.

While I didn't complete this set, the largest percentage of increase was 1996 Ultra. It is a 202 card set, and I previously had 11 of them. I now have 201 of them! I'm only missing one common card, #145, Joe Gibbs. Amazingly, despite Ultra being my favorite brand, I've NEVER completed an Ultra flagship. I have completed the Ultra Power Rangers movie set, and with this box I completed the Ultra Update, but standard Ultra still eludes me. I think I may have finished 1999-00 in my COMC pending shipment but until I get it in hand it doesn't count. Maybe someday I will finish one. Heck, maybe if I get more than 21 cents in my COMC account I will pick up the missing Gibbs and complete this one! Wait a minute, I just realized I completed 1992-93 Ultra on April 1st! I forgot when I typed this up. I remembered before publishing but I decided to leave the paragraph anyway. But I am going to have to rewrite some of my April trade recap before I publish it!

Here are an example of each of the sets I completed. The number listed is how many cards make up the set.

1996 SpeedFlix, 87 cards

1996 VIP, 54 cards

1995 Assets, 50 cards. Rare to see an uncensored Bud car.

1996 Finish Line, 100 cards

1996 Press Pass, 120 cards

1996 Maxx, 100 cards

1997 Ultra Update, 100 cards

1995 Optima XL, 60 cards. I had only 1 before the box arrived!

SpeedFlix is a set I loved since new and worked hard on completing from retail, but fell short. Assets was a set I never had much of. 1996 Press Pass was the one I was closest to, I needed only about 20 of 120 cards. The big one here is 1996 Maxx. Maxx was my favorite brand and was in operation from 1988-96. This was their final flagship. I have now completed 1989, 90, 91, 92, 94 and 96. And I have a factory sealed 1988 Factory set but I don't want to open it. Completing 1995 and 1993 are priorities. I really want to get a factory set of 1993, which I know are out there. 1995 was two series and does not have a factory set that I know of.

Unfortunately, they were double paged, and most of them got damaged, but 1996 Ultra Update took the most damage.

You can see where this card stuck to the other card and damaged both of them.Everything that looks like snow in the scan is damage.

Here's the parallel I completed, 1997 Race Sharks First Bite. (45 cards). This is only, off the top of my head, the third parallel I've ever completed, and one of those was a factory set exclusive, so that's a pretty rare accomplishment for me.

 Race Sharks was such a pointless set, photos of drivers superimposed in front of a picture of the shark, but it's late 1990s so I love it anyway.

Now, here's just some scans of cards from this box that needed to be posted to the Trading Card Database.

I even managed to get two new people for my collection, one who I was aware of the fact that I was missing him...

and one that slipped through the cracks and I didn't even know I should have been looking for! No matter how good I think my records are, there's still mistakes.

And, like the last box he sent me, I took screencaps of my collection totals on the Trading Card Database both before I entered the new cards...

and after. You can see that some drivers really went up by a large number!