Box Break Review: 2017 Donruss NASCAR

Donruss makes it's triumphant debut in NASCAR with the 2017 set, and it positions itself as the flagship NASCAR release. There's a lot to like about this set, here's my breakdown of what I got in my hobby box.

My initial thoughts on the set: I'm actually surprised. The base set is 189 cards long, which is the largest set we've gotten since 2011, and most surprising is that the subset concept has returned in a big way! Race Kings, (and Queen, for Danica), Rated Rookie, 1984 Retro, Cup Chase, Pit Crew and Nicknames all appear as subsets in the base set. I fully expected them to be inserts, but I am glad that they were not. What I'm not glad about is the fact that most of them are short printed. I got only three of the Race Kings, 1 of the Rated Rookie, and two of the Nicknames cards. 1984 Retro was almost plentiful with 6 base cards. Pit Crew and Cup Chase are not short printed and I completed both of them. I would have liked to have seen them be not so short and cut down on the duplicates. My box yielded 106 duplicates, some of the cards giving up three examples. That's almost two full base sets.

Most of the Cup drivers have a driver card and a car card...but not all. And some of the choices are downright odd. Kyle Larson does not have a base card. Carl Edwards does not have a car card. Aric Almirola is not included in the base set at all yet appears in the autograph inserts...he also has a card in the 1984 subset but that's it.

Strange.

The design of the base card is superb.

The borders match the team colors.
The backs of the cards are bright and colorful but the second most disappointing aspect of the set (with the first being the lack of car cards for everyone and the odd exclusions as mentioned above).

There's a LOT of wasted space here. Some of that wasted space could have been removed and career stats included. Even just a total, not a season-by-season breakdown, would have been appreciated. We have not gotten a set with real stats since 2008, so it's desperately missing. What I do like about the back is that Panini has included hometowns. This is good info and something they usually ignore on the NBA cards. The colors are bright and vibrant, which I like. Mears is the only driver who has this green color. He's another driver who has a base card but no car card.

And the car cards...this is, by far, the BEST part of this set.

Not only do we get 21 car cards, they each show TWO cars! Most show the regular scheme and a special paint scheme, some show two special paint schemes, as this card does. (by the way, this was my first card from the set). Quite a few of the cards feature the Throwback cars from Darlington. 39 of the 40 cars in the race ran Throwbacks- it sure would have been nice if we got to see all of them. But this is the most car cards we've gotten in years. Discounting the 2011 set, the one time Press Pass actually got it right, you'd have to go back to the late 1990s to get this many car cards. Seriously. Expect a post dedicated to the car cards alone at some point. They are so good I'll probably post all of them together.
The backs of the car cards are the only ones that are not color coded.

They are all gray. The Pit Crew subset, which is also horizontal, and shows cars, has team color card backs.

Here is the Race Kings subset, which comprises cards #1-27 of the set, including the Race Queen card for Danica, Card #7, which I did not get in my box.

They feature the painted look like the various Kings inserts are known for...except this time they are base cards, of course.

Rated Rookies take up Cards #28-36, although most of the drivers in this subset have cards already. I got one base and one Green, and I am showing the latter.

A good Green to get- Byron is a surefire superstar, and if we had a real points system, would have won the Truck championship last year as he won 7 races, and dominated the season. He is one of four drivers to have a Rated Rookie subset card and a base card. Note that the border shows tires- but treaded tires. NASCAR has used slicks almost exclusively since 1971, but they do have treaded tires for Eldora and the road course races. The card numbers on back are also in a design reminiscent of tires.

The 1984 subset is cards #137-184, and here I have chosen to show a Gold parallel, of AJ Allmendinger.

The Golds are the most common parallel, I got 4 in my box. The gold foil scans as black, but trust me- the SN and the bar his name is printed on is gold foil. This subset falls a little flat to me. They aren't bad, by any means, but it would have been so much better if instead of the current drivers, we got actual photos from 1984, which predates NASCAR getting cards on a regular basis. There are some legends in this section of the set, but I don't have them so I don't know if they include photos from 1984. I know there are a couple of drivers who retired in the 1960s in the subset.

The Nicknames subset finishes off the checklist with cards #185-189, although some of the nicknames are kind of a stretch.
This is a Blue parallel of Daniel Suarez, denoting his Xfinity title last year. It uses the same photo as his base card.

Despite being the second easiest parallel to find based on serial numbering, I only pulled one blue from my box, but two Greens, which have 100 examples less produced. Since green is my favorite color I am happy by that.

There are also variation cards. I could do without these, mainly because they share the same number but are totally different otherwise-different photo, different text on the card back, and a nickname on the front. These are basically no different from the nicknames subset but instead of being part of the base set they just have the same number as the base card- stupid.
I pulled one from my box, and it was Kenseth. Interestingly, the base Kenseth card came from the same pack.

There are several parallels I didn't pull, but I did manage to pull an Artist Proof card, which has only 25 copies produced, making it the rarest non-printing plate parallel in the set. It features a black theme, with black text, black border, etc. The card is holofoil. Another Kenseth.

It doesn't really show in the scan but the card is refractor-like in hand. It's a nice card.

Now, that covers the base set. But there are a lot of inserts, and all of them have parallels. The relics and autographs have gold and black foil parallels, and the standard inserts all have Cracked Ice parallels which are all numbered to 999 copies, I wasn't able to pull all of them, and in fact the Pole Position insert, I pulled ONLY a Cracked Ice, no standard. The Cracked Ice look much better in hand than they do in scans. Here are, without further blathering, all the standard inserts I got. None of them yielded more than one card per set.

The inserts all feature gold foil on the standard version and holofoil on the Cracked Ice versions. The Call to the Hall set is the only one that includes photography from the 2017 season. Everything else reflects 2016, which makes sense when you consider that the set came out the week the 2017 season started.

Now, each box promises one autograph and two relics, and I got exactly that. My autograph came out of my first first pack, and is my first and currently only card of third generation driver Todd Gilliland.

Interestingly, the Rubber Relics set includes more than one card for some drivers, who had more than one standard sponsor. Jimmie Johnson is one of them- this card is for his alternate, Kobalt car. The back mentions a specific race but it's unclear if the tire piece used comes from that race or if they just chose to highlight that race. I suspect it may actually be the race the tire is from, because for Johnson it highlights a race he finished 16th in- nothing special for the multi-race winner and 2016 Champion.

The Logano card, part of the 1984 Retro Relics insert, does not say what the material is but it feels like firesuit. I really wish Panini would tell you what it is they are putting on the cards. With NASCAR it's easier to figure out what the material is- there's no mistaking tire or sheet metal, for example- than for the other sports, which feature multiple options that use the same basic material, there's no real way to know, unless you get a patch and can match it to the jersey photo.

Overall, this is a GREAT set, and a worthy flagship. It's not perfect, but I will say it's Panini's best effort so far. I completed the non-SP base cards from my box, with many duplicates to spare, but I still want to pick up a blaster to see if I can get some of the short prints or maybe a parallel.

Five drivers made their cardboard debut in this set: Todd Gilliland, Alon Day, Julia Landauer, Matt Tifft and Noah Gragson. The latter four appear only in the Signatures series, while Gilliland appears in the Rated Rookie subset. I added 8 new people to my collection, which is a very high number for a NASCAR box. I don't know what the record is, but this may be it, not counting when I first started collecting and everyone was new, of course. New to me were: Gilliland, Byron, Kate Dallenbach, John Hunter Nemechek, Cameron Hayley, Daniel Hemric, Christopher Bell and Ben Kennedy.

Thanks to my mom for giving me the box as a surprise gift! 

A Shoebox full of hockey cards

Recently I sent Shane from Shoebox Legends some Buybacks for his baseball Frankenset that I found in my local dealer's stock. He sent me a thank you gift that he described as "a few cards" but turned out to be a few hundred! Or close to it anyway- he sent me 178 new cards, which included another lucky 13 new sets and a whopping 51 new people for my collection! The cards ranged in age from 1979-80 up all the way to 2015-16. There were so many great cards it's hard to pick a favorite, I can't do it. But here are some highlights!

I think I need to lead off with what is only my third NHL relic, and to make it even more interesting- it's dual sided! It's rare for me to show a front and back of a card but here, it's a must.

This is also my first relic card from the Pacific company. The card is surprisingly not super thick- only about half a card thicker than standard. It's great though!

This, I believe, is my first serially numbered rookie card for the NHL! I love SN cards. I am drawn to them like moth to a streetlight. It's my 8th or 9th for the NHL, but it is my first of both this person and set. Overall in my collection I've got more than 3000 SN cards. I'm addicted to them, and I never plan to seek treatment for that, LOL!

I really like the Black Diamond cards. I enjoy the etched look, even if they don't really scan well. They never have, but in hand...they look good. This is Tyler Bozak, by the way.

This Parkhurst card is actually an insert in 2000-01 Be A Player Memorabilia. Why it was not issued as a standalone is beyond me, but I was not collecting hockey at that time, of course, so I have no idea. It's a 250 card set so it certainly could have stood alone.

I scanned this 2000-01 UD Heroes card because it was not yet posted to the Trading Card Database. It is now!

I think this Quest for the Cup card came from Shane, but it may have come from Julie or one of the other two people who sent me hockey cards during the past couple of weeks. I can't keep them all straight anymore, so just enjoy the scan, LOL

Now, since hockey is actually pretty popular among card collectors, most of what he sent me is already posted to the Trading Card Database, which means I set it aside for later, when I finish scanning what has not been posted yet, I will go back and scan my copies of the cards anyway for my own website and possible blog posting. But it might be a while. So here is a photo I took showing some of them...every card on my scanner came from Shane. I highlighted the 1979-80 cards because they are vintage, but there are other 80s cards in the stacks.

I made sure to get a different card from the Black Diamond set in the picture as well but the camera flash kind of obscures it. I realize now looking at the photo it's actually from the 2014-15 set, while the one I scanned is 2013-14. Close enough, they use the same technology.

Thanks for all the great cards Shane, it's very much appreciated! If you ever decide to start collecting the NBA or NASCAR I would be glad to send you a similar mailing!

A cracked....hockey stick?

Recently Julie from A Cracked Bat and a Hot Dog sent me a box of cards...I had no idea what would be inside said box, but it turned out to be hockey! Lots of hockey! It looks like we are starting to convert Julie to a hockey fan herself, and that's very understandable because the game is very addicting, as I have not gone a day without watching it since November.

In the box, Julie sent me a lucky 13 new sets, ranging in age from 1984-85 O-Pee-Chee (also the oldest card in the box) up through 2016-17 Parkhurst! There were also- I think- 22 new people for my collection! I thought I had everybody in my collection documented, but I found one player that was not on my chart yet the Database showed me it was my 8th card of him, and another player who the Database said was my first yet he appeared on my chart. (it's possible he was on the promos I have not been able to list due to not being able to find a checklist, though, because everything else is listed). In total, I got 99 new cards, and I still have one pack left waiting to open. The cards covered a wide variety of sets and players, and scanning all 99 of them would take me a while- so I'll show just some of the highlights.

I'm also so far backlogged- from mid-February through earlier today I had not typed anything into my chart, and I was sent three large boxes of hockey cards in that time, including this one from Julie. So I may not have the cards attributed to the correct person,so you may see one from Julie in the post from Shoebox Legends, coming soon. But I think these all came from Julie.

I think this one might be my favorite- or the last one I will show. I just can't decide.

 Henrik Lundqvist has quickly become one of my favorite players, and this is my first rookie card of him...only my 5th card of him overall. This is also my first card from 2005-06 Power Play.

My first card of McDavid!

Here's that 1984-85 O-Pee-Chee I mentioned. To me this qualifies as vintage. I know others have different systems but I define anything older than myself as vintage, and anything made after I was born non-vintage. Since I was born in October 1984, this BARELY qualifies, as the season would have been a few days running before I was born, I think, but I should point out that don't limit myself to one area or era and I am thrilled to get any card from any year.

These semi-holograms from 1992-93 Upper Deck are neat cards. But they are partly hologram so that goes without saying. Except I said it!

My first cards from 2001-02 Ice and 2015-16 Ice, both of which are printed on clear plastic. I really enjoy the clear plastic cards!
The back of the Rinne really shows it well.

Those are just spectacular. I can't think of a better word to describe them.

There were three packs of 2016-17 Upper Deck series 1, and this was my favorite photograph. I seem to be favoring the wide angle shots.

I managed to beat the odds and pull a Young Gun!

Considering they are one in every 4 packs and I pulled one from 3 packs, I would say that's beating the odds.

These Summit Ice parallels are also pretty spectacular in hand. Mesmerizing, almost. She sent two, here is the one that scanned better.

It's Jari Kurri if not clear.

But the one giving Henrik Lundqvist a run for his money is this one. I am, if nothing else, consistent.

Holograms will always be my favorites, or contending for them, when I get one. To me, Holograms are the best insert concept ever made. Well, considering the SPx brand, sometimes base cards too. This gift contained some serious star power too- Mario Lemieux is no slouch, and Wayne Gretzky may be the Great One, but there was more than one card of him in there. I didn't scan any of them though...so backlogged, of my own doing. This is my second card from the 1991-92 Upper Deck Award Winners insert. 7 to go. I also have the aforementioned Gretzky.

Thank you so much Julie!

As an aside, this is what is going on today.

That's somewhere around 18 to 20 inches of snow. Somewhere under there is my brother's Chevrolet Cobalt...with possibly 10 more inches yet to come! (think it's done though) The snow eventually did cover the rear quarter panel but this picture is better. As long as we don't lose power, I will be happy.

It was also 2 months ago today I revealed I was now an NHL fan. In that time my friends from the Trading Card Database and the Blogosphere have sent me over 1000 different hockey cards. Incredible. Thanks to everyone! I hope to be able to repay that kindness someday.

I'm Done!

Finally! Tonight I finally finished a project I've been working on - and have been going through periods of putting it off and working hard on it, but usually more of the former than the latter, until this past month.

I've referenced working on a big project a couple of times, and now I will reveal what it is: I have my entire NASCAR card collection posted to the Trading Card Database. I started the project way back on October 5th, 2012. (The Database has this in the stats feature, I didn't remember). That's a long time to be working on something, but this is a pretty big project- I do have some 28,000 different NASCAR cards, after all.

When I first joined the Database I entered my entire collection, and uploaded some front scans that I had made for my own website. I scanned my entire NASCAR collection, but fronts only, from 2009-early 2012. But...I did a really lousy job on it. Pretty much every single card needed some form of correction. I've been working hard on it the past month, and I scanned the backs of, edited the fronts of, and finally posted, about 3000 cards...just in the last month. When I started this big push, I had uploaded 27,000 something racing items...now I'm at 33,629. That's all from cards I've collected over the last 25 years.

I have been saving the "original" files just to see how many I needed to correct and post. I'm sure this number is not accurate, because a. I don't remember if I did any before I started saving the originals and b. Some of the sets were so bad I just outright scanned them anew.

But I had to edit 6,945 scans...at least. I saved them in the original file when I really began to work on it...dated November 11th, 2014. (My scanner creates a file for each day it's used, and I just kept putting the fronts to be edited into it)

Since the second week or so of February, I've been working on this exclusively. At the start, it was going quickly as I developed a system that worked- I would do three "pages" of 9 scans, then get the previously done fronts and edit them, any that had to be rescanned were pushed to the next round of three scans. Originally I feared that the new changes NASCAR made would drive me away from the sport and I was trying to get them done before the Daytona 500. That clearly didn't happen as I am getting ready to watch qualifying for race #3 of the year in just a few moments. But by time the 500 came and went I was fairly close to completion and thought I could get them done in a week. Now, two weeks later, I finally finished. Near the end I was not enjoying it- I just wanted it to be done so I could move back to something more fun, but I pushed through because I was so close to finishing. There are still some cards that have gone missing that I need to locate and scan as well. The last card I had to do:

2007 Stealth #47. One of the few Finest style NASCAR sets. I had to rescan this one, because the original scan I made in the 2009-12 project was so badly skewed that the majority of the red stripe at the bottom was cut off the scan. Of course it had to be a Finest card that needed to be redone, making it require extra effort. I still messed up because the white stripe you see at the bottom is actually part of the card. I'm not sure if it's a design feature or my card is miscut.  I only ever got one pack of this set, too. I also had to do two mirror foils- even worse. One of them was again so skewed that I could not use the scan, and the other one- well, it turns out I never scanned it at all! I discovered at least 2 dozen cards that I somehow missed scanning- and more than half of them were Dale Earnhardt Jr....my all-time favorite driver. I can't explain that one. Since I only went through and picked out the cards that were not yet done to the Database, it makes me wonder what else may have missed being scanned? Eventually, I'll find out. Because even though I've got them all on the Database, finally, they aren't all fully scanned. Eventually, years from now, I will scan the backs of the rest of them that somebody else posted before I had the chance to. But that's a super-low priority, as I have a ton of other cards that have not been scanned at all yet, and they get priority. I may not look through the cards that were done by somebody else again for 5 or more years, which is kind of a weird feeling.

I've always broken my collection down into 4 major categories: NBA, which is by far the largest section, about 50% of whole. NASCAR is the second largest part, and Non-Sports trails NASCAR by thousands of cards. The 4th overall section is "everything else", which was a bit of a catch-all of hockey, baseball, football, other forms of auto racing, multi-sport sets, college sets, and whatever else I have but doesn't fit anywhere else. Now that I am collecting the NHL, I have to break that out into it's own section as well, and split the overview in 5ths instead of quarters. I can't really count the NHL though because I'm just getting into it...the final quarter is almost all done and posted. or at least what I can post. Lots of cards that were posted before I got them still await scans but again, they will wait. I still have the other racing to do, and I have the box within arm's length so I will be working on them soon. Baseball, football, multi-sports and others are done. College basketball is barely touched, because it's my least favorite. Non-Sports is almost done. There are a lot I can't post because I cannot find checklists, but the last that needs to be done are the Power Rangers cards. The fronts are all done but not the backs. They will be targeted soon as well. All that leaves is the NBA, which I'm just past halfway on...but it was going fairly quickly because I've been setting aside for later a lot of sets that I know are complete on the Database.

I am predicting 2021 as the date I finish scanning all the cards that need to be posted to the Database. That doesn't count new additions of course, because that fluctuates and may or may not already be posted- I wouldn't know until I got the cards. I'm not the only one working on it, naturally.

But does all this mean I can jump back in to scanning my NBA cards? (which is something I enjoy MUCH more than fixing my crappy early scans) Not by a long shot. I've been working so hard on the NASCAR project that I have not taken the time to type in any of the new additions I've gotten to my collection in a month...normally I get them typed in no later than the day after I get them.

In this photo (which is crappy because I forgot to turn the flash back on) you can see the large trade I made with SaveDaKid on the same Database, which I posted about in my February trade recap. In the middle of the top row is the package from CommishBob I also posted about quite a while ago now. On the top right is a mailing from Julie @ A Cracked Bat and a Hot Dog, which will get a post. Bottom left- the largest stack- is a mailing from Shoebox Shane,  (who I have not gotten into my email to properly thank yet!) and it's probably about 200 cards, which will also get a post. the bottom right stack is a trade with yet another Trading Card Database member, bevans, which is mostly hockey but includes some vintage NBA as well, as you can tell by the 1973-74 Topps Don Nelson card visible. But wait, there's more! I also got a full 300 count box from yet another Database member, which I forgot to include in the photo...not to mention the cards I got from $30 a Week Robert and the 4 packs I've opened since mid-February.  I'm looking at typing 500 or more cards before I get back to scanning.

I know I have a lot of typing ahead of me- I keep track of the exact order I get each card, even though it serves no real purpose other than my OCD, and I also keep track of which people are in my collection, and I know there are more than a few new people in the hockey stacks. Steve Payne is one of them, in fact!  Plus, of course, I have to enter all of these cards into my collection on the Database, and determine which ones are already posted and which ones I can scan. But I don't mind...doing this kind of stuff is pure happiness for me. I might even get all the typing done tomorrow. it goes very quickly. I'm not going to rush it (don't want any mistakes) but it is a quick process.

I do have to take time out to locate some cards for yet another trade on the Database. The box I thought I had them in turned out to not be where I thought it was so I need to look for it. The fact that most of the boxes look pretty much exactly the same from the outside complicates things a little, but looking through cards is never a problem. (unless I can't find the cards needed for a trade)

Thanks for reading, now I think I will start typing in my Excel chart...or maybe sorting out the other forms of racing to see what needs to be done...scanning cards is a project I hope never ends...

Sets in my collection #23: 1942 Gum Inc. War Gum

Nearing the end of a HUGE project. Details hopefully tomorrow, by the weekend for sure. Since I don't have the time to look at the boxes of cards I've gotten, or to type up another post in my NBA encyclopedia, here is a post in my Sets in my collection series that I wrote up back in 2015 and has been sitting in my queue ever since.

This is a pretty spectacular set. It's 132 cards and it was issued right in the midst of World War II. Remember my comments on the 1939 World in Arms set? Well, Gum Inc. has changed it's tune, now going all-out for the war effort...the USA was now at war with Germany, Japan and Italy. While still mostly objective, current slang terms now appeared on the cards, especially in regards to the Japanese.

It's also a large set for that time period, at 132 cards. I have 9 of them. (6.8% according to the Database) This is another set I want to complete some day. As a history buff and a card nut, this set is a clear favorite of mine.

Here are two card fronts, and one back. I couldn't post just one!

#66

#70

Note also the "Buy War Bonds and Stamps for VICTORY" on the bottom of the card.

Cards are slightly smaller than current standard size, but that appears to have been Gum, Inc's standard at the time as all three sets I have from the company are the same size. Gum, Inc, of course, later became known as Bowman; but the card size in the Bowman era was different.

I actually didn't know this set existed until I added it to my collection. I had mistakenly believed I was purchasing Horrors of War- known as the king of non-sports sets (also produced by Gum, Inc, in 1937) and not realizing the truth until I got home and started researching it online. While Horrors of War is still high on my wantlist (I don't have any yet) it actually turns out that had I known this set existed, it would have actually ranked higher on my list of sets wanted for my collection! (Between writing this in November 2015 and now I've added three Horrors of War to my collection)

Lost and Found: Since 2007!

I found something overnight that I had been looking for for literally a decade...and it turned out they were within a foot of where I store my card collection the whole time.

Back in January 2007 I finished making my paper listing for my NASCAR collection. My paper listings tell me what I have in my collection, they are actually the most important thing I've ever actually made. I started creating them in 1998 and I didn't finish until 2010, if you can believe that. I don't know when I finished the NBA, I did all of non-sports in 2010, and I worked on NASCAR starting in 2003 and eventually finished in 2007. (It stands to reason I finished the NBA in either 2002 or 2003 but logic doesn't always play a role in my actions).

I distinctly remembered taking a pack of oversized Star Wars cards out of a box so I could put NASCAR cards in said box when I was finishing my NASCAR listing. But I hadn't seen them since. I didn't remember what set it was, or what any of the cards were, just that it was Star Wars and that they were the oversized cards Topps loves to force on us.

I never saw them again, and feared they had been lost forever- not thrown out, just lost. Things have a tendency to go missing, for no apparent reason. There are multiple model parts I've had before lunch, gone to eat, and come back to never see them again, for example. I have no animals or small children in the house, so I can't explain it.

Now, today, I was working on my card storage area. It's been a bit of a mess to be honest, because let's face it: I'm not very organized, a bit scatterbrained, and when you add in the fact that I need help to physically move them, it's gotten to be a bit jumbled. But that is no more. I finally, after 29 years in the hobby, roughly 22 of them using the white boxes to store my cards, have them sorted. The boxes are sorted by size and I have the boxes scanned facing one way and the waiting to be scanned facing another. I have a mish-mash of all sizes of boxes, ranging from 5000 count to 135 count, and before, they were all in basically whatever order I last touched them in.

As I was finishing up, I decided to investigate what was on the box next to where the cards are, and I found some long lost stuff. I think, with this long preamble, you can guess what I found...

Unfortunately, the Disney shenanigans have pretty much killed my love of Star Wars. 2016 was the first year in my life I did not watch a single Star Wars movie. (My earliest memory of anything is watching Empire Strikes Back). 2017 will join it.

Oh, but there's more. I found some NBA cards I didn't know I had! I have no idea where these came from, but they must have been late in my first run with the NBA. I quit on the league sometime between September of 2006 and Christmas 2006, but I don't know exactly when. These probably came in that time period. I didn't remember ever seeing them before in my life, so unlike the Star Wars cards, I didn't miss them because I didn't remember ever having them! They were in large white envelopes so they must have come from some sort of repack.

Amazingly, this Karl Malone card was NOT damaged despite being stuffed into a standard sized toploader!

Unfortunately, two of the autographs were college.

 way to phone it in on photo quality there, Sage.

I also found something that normally would be a very big card...if it wasn't a knockoff.

The Lucky 13 set was an exchange program Fleer did in 1996-97, and Kobe was the biggest name of them all. Unfortunately, this is not the real card but a knockoff. You can tell by the poor quality of the colors, and the slight blurriness of his name and the copyright info on the back. The UV coating also feels "off" but that can't be captured in a scan.

Although the back looks OK in the scan, it's not, in real life you can tell.

This was in the display case of my local card/comic book store with a pricetag of $34.95. (I know this because it was still in that same toploader when I found it) but after I explained the issues to the store owner (who fully admitted to know really knowing cards) he gave it to me. I was just wondering whatever happened to this one and now I know- it's been sitting in a box since 2006, unseen by light or human eyes.

One last good find- a Star card of Isiah Thomas. Back in the mid-2000s when I got this I would have considered it a knockoff like the Kobe or the college cards, and not counted it as part of my collection. Now I know better, that I have broken free from the Beckett bias.

I'm really not a fan of Thomas, but I'm still glad to add this card to my collection proper.

The crazy thing? I must have moved this box a dozen times, probably more, without ever looking too deep into it. It was not a large box, but on top was some model stuff, so I must have assumed that the whole box was model stuff. I was, quite clearly, wrong.

100 Word Challenge

$30 a Week Robert had a 100 Word Challenge. He sends you cards, you write 100 words about them. Hard for me. Like to type. 

Welcome to Hockey!

Gold Parallel of Ray Bourque. Like 1992-93 set a lot. 

Etched John Vanbiesbrouck.  Neat helmet!

Shiny Brett Hull. Think first of this uniform in my collection. 

Pavel Bure Fire on Ice. This card GLOWS. Looks like it is lit up with neon lights. Think may be my favorite. 

Vintage Bryan Trottier! My third card from 1979-80, what a great design.  Always love vintage, rare to see non-white border in 70s. 

Thank you!