Vintage and Serial Numbered local additions

I don't like to do a whole lot of "Hey look at my new stuff" posts, but that's pretty much what you are going to get here...because I got to visit a local dealer that I don't see too often and got to raid his bins, naturally targeting two of my favorite things- vintage and serially numbered cards. It's so rare for me to see this dealer, I was not collecting the NHL the last time I saw him. Here are some highlights...

 My first card from the set and of Mahovlich. 1968-69 Topps.

 1974-75 Fleer Cloth Stickers. These are not too common, and all 4 in my collection have come from this dealer. How can you tell this set is from 1974-75 and not 1973-74? The Jazz were an expansion team debuting in 1974-75. The adhesive has attacked the cloth on these unfortunately, every single example I've ever seen. Each team got two stickers, a logo and a logo over a basketball.

 An SLU oddball? Yes! OK, it's not numbered or vintage, but does date from the 1989-90 season. It does have a slight bend, but for under a dollar I'm not going to complain about that.

 Again not numbered, but not a common insert. From 1995-96 Skybox, one of the first sets I got as an NBA collector and it was new, it is only the second card from this insert in my collection.

 UD Exclusives is the longest running parallel in trading card history, debuting in 1998-99 in both the NBA and NHL and continuing to this day in the NHL, and lasted I believe until the end of the UD license for the NBA in 2009-10. This is my first UD Exclusives NHL card, I have about 15 or 20 from the NBA, but I've not actually counted.

 This is SN but hard to see the number, over the word Authentic.

Green foil? SN to 99? $2? YES!

I also added 9 more of the 1973-74 Topps Sticker insert. These were apparently one per pack and although I would not classify them as "easy" to find, they are not as hard to find as most of the other 1970s inserts. In fact, I even ended up with a couple of duplicates because I didn't remember which ones I had or which ones I picked up that day- ended up buying two of the Knicks/Bulls card the same day. It's slated to go to COMC in my next shipment unless somebody wants to trade for it now. (as usual, I'll take anything offered)

I really wish they had put the team logo and team banner on the same card instead of mix-and-matching them. I have no cards in my collection for the Capital Bullets, and this one will be counted as a multi-subject card as are all in this series.

 I didn't realize this was card #1 when I got it- I knew I didn't have it, and the price was right, so I got it. I like to have #1 cards for sets, for some reason.

 

This is actually my first card of Tony Esposito, my third from the set.

 I wasn't sure if I needed this card or not- I thought I did, so I took the chance, and it turned out that I was correct- I did need this card! Not anymore! 

 These cards are super thick, and every base card in the set is SN999, not just the rookies. This is only my second card from the set and of Taurean Green.

My third card from the 2009-10 Topps gold parallel. The last Topps NBA set, the cards are generally out of my price range due to the presence of the Steph Curry rookie card in the set.

 My first card of both player and set. 2005-06 Hot Prospects.

My first card of Jessiman, but not of the set. This is the same set as the Emerald Bouwmeester shown above, 2011-12 Artifacts.

There is one other numbered card I have not scanned yet as it's a mirror foil card and they are best done as a page of all foil together. It's a die cut parallel of Xavier Henry. I'll get it scanned at some point.

Thanks for reading!

Executive Decision

I've decided that I am going to integrate my stickers and "other" cards into my NBA collection. Back in August I put up a post wondering about it, and got very little turnout to it. But, to answer the question Angus of Dawg Day Cards posted in the comments, yes, there are players who have stickers but no actual cards. At least one that I am aware of, JaMychal Green of the Memphis Grizzlies. Despite the fact that he is a starter on a playoff team Panini has not included him on any actual cards. There are other players which have only "super premium" cards, but have stickers, like Joffrey Lauverne. Finding the sticker would be much easier than a single card out of a $300 pack.

I made this decision because I purchased ten packs of the new 2016-17 Panini Stickers set, and opened up only a handful of them. I realized they really are Panini's flagship, not only do they include a lot of players, they include actual documentation of the previous season- what a trading card should be.

Here's a couple of examples.

A subset honoring the Christmas Day jerseys/games, the All-Stars, and the NBA Playoffs. This is stuff that is not covered on the actual cards.

The team cards return in two forms this year.

The basic team logo is not mirror foil- a big plus! and the jerseys are a nice touch even if they are generic numbers and not a specific player- although I don't mind that, because now I can consider them a team card without a second thought. (16 and 17 are actually fairly rare numbers to see worn, 15 and lower and 20s-34 are the most common...the topic of another post I've had in my head since before I began Cardboard History, but need to do more scanning before I can begin it.)

Here's a basic player sticker:

Not bad. Nice clear photo, an easily read name, and the team logo is in full color and not too distracting. No pointless stuff on the front like in some other years.

Two things I don't like- they are small. Smaller than the Bazooka Minis, but larger than tobacco sized cards. A unique size. And they are flimsy. The mirror foil stickers, which are seeded one per pack but are part of the base set, curl up badly because they are so flimsy.

As for the backs of the cards not having any information...eh, so what? That mattered to me in the 1990s, it matters less to me now, when I realize documenting the game is more important than anything else. Now I've got cards in my collection that have blank backs...I probably did in the 1990s too but I don't remember. My lines of thought are not always recognizable even to me. The fact that Panini doesn't bother to include stats on actual cards has made them missing from the stickers less of an issue as well.

I've also decided to include the two Adrenalyn XL sets. I resisted these because they were a card game. But when Angus (again! 😃 ) asked me why I didn't include these in my collection, the answer was...I just didn't. That's not a really good reason, so I've decided to include them...even though they are game cards and not actually trading cards. Close enough. If I can include coins, poker chips, disks that may or may not have been ice cream lids, and more, why shouldn't I include stickers and game cards? The answer, of course, is that I should.

As an added bonus, I actually have a player from one of the Adrenalyn XL sets who is currently listed as being missing from my collection, and I've already got both years represented in my collection....although I know there is a version printed in Italian that I don't have represented....and that leads me to my last big hurdle....the International cards. I've referenced these several times before...Upper Deck produced versions in up to 6 languages in one year, Fleer also issued a European set, and Panini has issued sets for Europe and China as well, not all of which appear in my collection.
But I have a 550 count box of them that's pretty full and they are currently counted as a separate collection.

I think it's only a matter of time until I integrate them into my NBA collection. I just have to find them first. As they have not counted as officially part of my collection I didn't keep good track of them and while I do have them fully documented on the Trading Card Database I don't have an actual count or a paper listing.

But I think I will be doing that when I find them...just because they are different doesn't mean I should not consider them part of my collection, after all.

With this move, I now add 128 stickers and 21 Adrenalyn XL cards to my collection. Not too bad to up my collection total by 149 without having to actually do anything, hah!

Here's an example of the 2009-10 Adrenalyn XL set