It begins...

All good things come to an end, and my streak of posting every day ended on this past Sunday. (now two Sundays ago as it took me a while to write this, almost three!) It was starting to feel more like "work" than "fun" so I am not going to worry about doing that sort of thing again. In fact, without the 30 Day Challenge, it is something I likely wouldn't have done in the first place.

While one thing was coming to an end, something new was beginning. On Saturday, I finally began my paper listing for my new NHL card collection. I have kept my paper listings since 1998, and it's something that I build my entire collection around. It's how I know what I have, it's how I define what's in my collection- if it has a paper listing, it counts.

Since I began collecting the NHL in January, I've not had a paper listing. Whenever I got something new, I had to go to the Trading Card Database and see if it was listed as part of my collection. I don't trust myself enough to remember. Nothing's worse than thinking a card is a new addition and finding out later it's a duplicate. Especially if you payed for it! The Database works well, but it's a slow process, and not particularly easy to do when I am sitting on my floor sorting cards- I actually prefer the floor, although as I get older I am having a hard time doing it- it causes pain that it didn't before and I sometimes need help to get up. But I digress.

A paper listing was needed. I had run out of paper so I had to put it off, even though I bought a binder to store the listing in January or February, but on the way home from my model club meeting on the first Wednesday of the month, I stopped and ran into the local Walgreen's to check and see if they had any cards. (no, they rarely do, but sometimes) and what do I happen to see but newly restocked paper. I bought 6 packages, and it probably won't be enough.

Finally, I began on Saturday. I started with 2016-17 Ice, and also did 16-17 Fleer Showcase and a couple other sets I had cards on hand from. Then I decided that I would work on the listings in chronological order, starting with the oldest set in my collection, 1957-58 Topps. I got up to 1988-89 on Saturday.

I then took a break to go to one of only two car shows I can do a year. and Monday was spent on other things...which included a trip to Wal-Mart that yielded two Parkhurst blasters and an NBA repack, and later that night COMC binge shopping with the money I had saved up since November. Eventually I got back to it and worked my way all the way up through 1995-96 Collector's Choice. By then, it was no longer fun. It was now fully into "chore" mode, as it was just past the point of being enjoyable. Not to mention that my hand and wrist was hurting badly from so much writing.

So I decided to change things up. I decided to work on listings for the sets only as I got new cards from each set...eventually, it will work out where every set is listed. I started by working on the sets that JediJeff sent me back on the 5th- the day before I started the listing, and what I needed to kickstart myself to get it going. It still took me several days to do these, I made that choice on this pat Monday and didn't finish until Thursday. Then, it took me maybe 10 minutes to sort the listings into chronological order, something I was not looking forward to but went quicker than expected. I was able to get them all typed into my collection charts on Excel and the Database as well- between the package from Jeff, a trade I made on the Database, a blaster of Parkhurst and another trade, that came out to 399 new cards. The largest listing I had previously made was 659 cards, but now I've done two 800 card listings. Thankfully, I have only a handful of each sets, or else my writing hand would have fallen off.

Here are some pictures.

Most of my NHL listings look like this...very sparse. I am still new to collecting them, though, and eventually I hope to fill in more of them. If not, I just wasted part of three weeks, lol. This is the listing for 1993-94 Power Play. I tried something new with the NHL listing, an idea that did not occur to me with my previous listings, which is double paging. It works, and I even have enough space that I can still do this if the set only has one parallel.

Here's the listing for 2016-17 Fleer Showcase, the first NHL hobby box I ever opened. Hopefully soon I can find the time to write up a Box Break Review of it and the other handful of boxes that I need to do them for. I had to single page this in the hopes that someday I will get one of the White Glow parallels, which are all SN to 25 I think. I was not lucky enough to get one from my box. I also have enough space to write the SN info and date added to my collection.

Here's a look into my NBA listing. This is 2013-14 Hoops, and as you can see, it's quite colorful. I have collected as many different colors of pens as I possibly can so each day I get cards I can use a different color. At one point I had almost 60 different colors but not all of them work anymore. I think it looks better when it has more color to it than when I do a box and they are all one color. As the 2013-14 Hoops set has multiple parallels you can see how I kind of line them up. When I first started the listing in 1998 I just listed whatever I had first, and it is all jumbled. I learned, over time, to leave room for the parallels so they are easy to read. I've even rewritten a couple of sets because they were so bad. The 2013-14 Hoops set had Red, Gold, Blue, Red Back and Black parallels, with the black being 1/1s, and I don't have any, but I did leave space for them in case I ever do get one. Each insert is listed in one color regardless of what the date is.

While I had the binders out and set up, I finally made a paper listing for 2008-09 Topps T-51 Murad. For some reason I just never got around to making a listing for that set and it's been on my To Do list for several years now. I finally did it...pretty sad it took me so long considering it's only a 230 card set. I may have even listed it as one of my goals for 2017 back on January 1st. I don't remember.

One thing with making the paper listing- it really cements the sets in my memory. Since I'm still new to the NHL I don't know the sets like I know the NBA or NASCAR sets- many of which I collected when new. Here, I'm getting 40 years of NHL history at once and it's kind of overwhelming- and I have memory problems to boot, which doesn't help. Before, when I was just going off the Database listing, I was constantly checking and rechecking to make sure I was listing something correctly, Now, since I've written it, it seems more solid in my memory. Hand writing the player's names helps me learn proper spelling for them as well, and when I realized I was writing a name I hadn't written before, it sort of set off a mental flag to check that person on my Complete List of People in my Collection Excel chart. I've found, after 19 years of tracking my collection this way, that some names are just fun to write. My favorite name to write is Rajon Rondo of the NBA...it just rolls off the pen. My favorite NHL player to write so far is Mats Zuccarello, surprisingly. Anybody with a lower case K and to a lesser extent Q is much less fun to write, but especially K. I cannot make a lower case k to save my life. Considering that this is basically just to tell me if I have a card or not, I don't always put a lot of effort into making it correct. As long as something is there, and I can make out the general intent of who it is listed, then it's good enough for me. In fact, if you look closely at the photo of the Fleer Showcase listing, you will see several mistakes. Unfortunately for me, the leading candidate for favorite NHL player has both a lower case K and Q in his name! (Henrik Lundqvist)

Thanks for reading, I've had enough writing, both literally and figuratively!

The Kindness of Strangers April 2017

Do you realize how great this hobby is, and the people in it, when I need to come up with a whole new feature to thank people who send me cards? The kindness of my fellow collectors, simply put, is amazing. I only hope someday I can begin to repay the the kindness I have been on the receiving end of so many, many times.

Granted, strangers may not be the best term to use. Some of the people I've known for years, have been chatting with and reading their writing for years...but I've never met them in person. Close enough for my purposes.

As is usually the case, I didn't scan every card, just some. It would take me way too long to scan everything and still get the post up in a timely fashion, not to mention the excessive amount of scrolling that would require!

First up is Jason German of Jason's Sports Card Blog, who I met through the Trading Card Database. He sent me a "welcome to hockey" package and it arrived on April 1st- no fooling.
The package was mostly Brett Hull...

but there was also one each of Gordie Howe...

and Tom Johnson, who is new to my collection!

While I've already built up a pretty decent collection, mostly all through gifts, the majority of my collection is 1989-current, so players from back in the day are usually new to me, not withstanding guys like Gordie Howe above who are such legends that they still crank out cards for them on a regular basis.

Just a few days later I got a package from Trading Card Database member Dicefoot, which included some of the military history cards from 2007 Topps Baseball...

I did scan all three of those. Also included were two cards from the 2004 National Trading Card Day set,...

I could swear I had the LeBron already but my records did not show that. The Jordan I am sure I didn't have previously.
Those I expected...but there was also a stack of 1996-97 Hoops, which included several I needed (I have more holes in Series 2 than any other 1996-97 set, I think) and one which was a printing error, which I didn't scan right now. In fact, I only scanned one of them.

There were also some 1995-96 Upper Deck cards, all of which turned out to be duplicates, and this Corvette card, which is double sided, and I have absolutely no idea where it came from. Canada, I think, but that's not really too much to go on. (Update: From Canada, indeed, from 1991 Hostess promo)

Finally, two cards that I thought, upon seeing them, were duplicates...

Until I turned them over, and saw that they were indeed from the Tony's Pizza promo set!

I don't remember the last time I added a new Reggie Lewis card to my collection. Just the year after this card was issued he collapsed on court and died due to a heart defect. I think I have all of his mainstream cards, just needing a few promo and oddball issues like this one. I decided to check after writing this, and I do indeed have all the mainstream cards issued of him during his lifetime. Panini has been including him in some sets since 2009-10 which I don't have but cards issued later, after the player's career or in this case life, don't count towards that to me. (not that I wouldn't and don't add them to my collection, but a card issued during a career just carries more collection weight to me than others)

On the 8th of April I got a huge package of cards from Chris, The Collector. It was mostly hockey, but some basketball as well. I got 131 new cards, and 29 new people for my NHL collection from him! The cards he sent me ranged in age from 1974-75 through 2015-16, with a higher percentage of newer cards than most of the gifts I've received. (Every card is great, don't want anyone to think I don't appreciate them all!). At some point I am going to send Chris some modern NBA cards, he's been away from the NBA for a while and doesn't have a lot of new stuff. I'm going to fix that.
Here's just some cards he sent me...

They have hockey on Endor now!

He also included two cool errors. I love error cards and I need to work on posting my error collection. It's almost totally ignored on here.

 This gold parallel of 1994 Classic #103 had the gold applied totally incorrectly. It should have been layed over the white nameplate at the top.

This card from 1996-97 Skybox was caught in the packaging. One of the more common errors but I still love to get them. (second or third most common). It showed better on the back scan, so that's what you get.

On April 15th, I got a package from EP of the new Old Red Sox Cards blog and it was a very, very good one. It was mostly vintage, with a focus on 1973-74 Topps.  One of the cards in particular is of a "Hometown Hero", Rich Rinaldi, who is from Poughkeepsie, NY, literally the next town over. He only got two cards and this is my first of his!

At one point I had considered the 1977-78 set complete, but now that I know better I have broken out the set by gray back and white back. This is a white back card, joining the gray previously in my collection.

There was also some 90s goodness, too...

I love Refractors! They always are great.

At some point I will try and put together a thank you package for him, but it's going to be tough to find some Red Sox cards he needs, especially with my limited local shops, but I will see what I can do. It might take me a while but I will send a thank you back eventually...I can't not!

When I got home from a short two night stay in New Jersey, for my modeling hobby's largest show, I had three packages waiting for me. One that will get it's own post, a package that included a bunch of Stadium Club cards I needed from 1998-99 and 1995-96, including Dirk's rookie,

 And a large, heavy box that had this in it!

  

These were all factory sealed when I first opened the box! What you see, in this poor picture is a box of: 1993 Hi-Tech Indy, 1993 Maxx Williams Racing, 1993 Press Pass, 1990 Maxx Factory Set, 1995 Skybox Indy 500, 1991 Pro Trac's Formula 1 and 1992 Maxx Motorsports Hall of Fame. The Williams set, the IMHOF set, the F-1 set, all were not previously represented in my collection. The two Indy sets had one pack each in my collection before, and the Maxx Factory set (which is the glossy version) had two cards, out of 200, in my collection. The 1993 Press Pass set is the only one that was a duplicate. You can believe I'll be posting more about these in the not too distant future!  

Happy Mother's Day! My mom is a regular reader/commenter on my blogs, posting as Hotrod Mama. I wouldn't be a card collector without her influence and support of my hobby!

Sets in my Collection #24: 1948 Bowman

We finally have come to the sports section of my collection. Not surprisingly, sports cards take up the majority of my collection. Even though I have been an avid collector of non-sports cards, there are simply far more sports cards to choose from, with 3 to 4 times as many sports sets produced...every single year...compared to non-sports sets.

My favorite sport is basketball (It was NASCAR for many years, but no longer) and I have more basketball cards than any other topic - and far more sets than any other topic as well.

One thing I was very much proud of in my first time around with the NBA was that I had at least one of every set issued, or at least, I thought I did. (I discovered when I joined the Database that I had missed two!). I began the project of getting at least one of every set in 1996, and completed it in 1999. Surprisingly, 1948 Bowman was not the last set I found! It was next to last, but I thought it would be the hardest to get. I am currently working on getting that back, but it's going to be more difficult than it was the first time around. Now, there are sets that are ridiculously priced ($1200 for 5 cards) that will be tough to track down. My goal still remains to have at least every set represented in my collection, but I digress.

1948 Bowman is still a rare set, and I have only 7 of the 72 cards, or 9.7%. There is no way I'll ever be able to complete the set, unless I win the lottery. The George Mikan Rookie card literally sells for more than we paid for our car. Percentage wise, I believe this is the least I have of any set from 2004-05 and earlier. (2004-05 was the last year I did a box of every set) Of the 7 cards I have, three of them have been added to my collection since I started collecting the NBA full-time again in 2012. Having access to Ebay, something I did not have the first time around, has changed the accessibility of vintage cards for me. (As an aside, I now consider the break I took between 2006 and 2012 to be one of the bigger mistakes I've ever made)

This was the only set ever issued for the BAA- Basketball Association of America- and the first basketball release of any sort. The BAA was the basis of the NBA just two seasons later; the NBA counts 1946 as it's first season because they use the BAA stats. There would not be another basketball set of any sort issued until 1957-58, 9 seasons later.

1948 Bowman is issued for the 1948-49 season, not 1947-48. When talking about sets for professional basketball and hockey one year as a descriptor is wrong.

The 1948 Bowman cards are smaller than current standard size, and are square- not the traditional rectangular. A standard size was not yet determined in the late 1940s, that would not come until the late 1950s, and even then there are still variations.

I believe that the images used in 1948 Bowman were black and white images that were colored later, not actual color images. I could be wrong on that though.



Many of the players missing from my collection got their only card issued in 1948 Bowman. With the length of time between early sets, and the later companies ignoring most everyone pre-Magic & Bird in their sets with retired players, the only card they ever got was the 1948 Bowman card. Gilmur, shown above, is one of the people who got only one card. (this could double as a One-Hit Wonder post!). He played only 5 seasons, between 1946-47 and 1950-51. He passed away at age 88 in 2011.

While the next several sets will again be non-sports cards, now that sports have made an appearance they will soon take up most of the posts.