100 Club - The Inaugural Ten

Recently I passed a somewhat significant threshold in my attempt to catalog my entire collection digitally on The Trading Card Database; that being 30,000 total cards in my collection.  I've still got a ways to go, but that number felt significant and it was an opportune time to look over my organized collection so far to see some statistics.

It turned out that I had ten different players that I'd accumulated at least a hundred cards each of within these first 30,000 overall cards.  I figured it would make an interesting blog post, at least for me, to take a look at my ten most collected players to date.  Let's see who made the list...

#10 - Mookie Betts - 109 Cards

I was somewhat surprised to see Mookie Betts sitting in 10th place, with 109 different cards.  I don't really buy any modern unopened packs or boxes of cards these days, but Mookie was someone whom I'd seek out on COMC and other sites for a while there.  Now that he's no longer with Boston I'd expect his total to stagnate somewhat, but at least he made triple digits before that happened.

#9 - Manny Ramirez - 110 Cards

Edging out Mookie Betts by a single card is slugger Manny Ramirez.  He's a name I was not surprised to see on this list at all.  Aside from his long stretch with the Red Sox, he was a hot rookie and young star with Cleveland in the prime of my childhood collecting.  His number should go even higher when I get through cataloging the one last three-row monster box of cards still to be transitioned from Zistle to TCDB.

#8 - Wade Boggs - 114 Cards

Wait a sec...

#8 - Wade Boggs - 114 Cards

Ah, that's better.  No shocker here.  As one of the superstars of the Boston Red Sox throughout the junk wax era, Wade represented Boston in hundreds of sets.  My collection of the contact-hitting specialist is varied, with a few real prize pieces (including his Topps RC from  yesterday's post, and a sweet TTM autograph from his appearance on It's Always Sunny, courtesy of Gavin!).

#7 - Nomar Garciaparra - 119 Cards

Nomah was my favorite player from the mid-'90s through his departure in 2003.  There are so many cards of Garciaparra out there it's not even funny.  I wouldn't be surprised to find that I have over 200 Nomar cards by the time I get finished cataloging everything.  Still grateful for every one that I get though!  Seems like only yesterday I was batting tennis balls in the front yard pretending to be Garciaparra stroking them out of Fenway...

#6 - Dustin Pedroia - 122 Cards

I was very surprised that Dustin Pedroia made the countdown, and in 6th place no less!  I really never search out cards of Pedey intentionally, so this is purely a result of my team-collecting habits combined with the fact that Pedroia was a star with Boston for so many years.  This Bowman Chrome Bubbles Refractor is a real beauty though!

In case you haven't noticed, the entire first half of this list was comprised of guys who spent significant time with the Red Sox, but we'll get at least a little more varied from here on out.

#5 - Sergei Fedorov - 145 Cards

We take a big leap here, all the way up to 145 cards, for the 5th spot on the list.  Sergei Fedorov was my favorite hockey player for a good portion of the '90s.  Even though I was a die-hard Whalers fan, Fedorov was such a dynamic force that I just gravitated towards him.  Still don't have an autographed card of #91, and they aren't all that prevalent.  Someday...

#4 - Nolan Ryan - 149 Cards

No surprise to see Nolan Ryan make the list, in fact if anything I'd have assumed he'd be higher.  I have one or two of those Pacific Texas Express sets composed entirely of Ryan cards that I still haven't processed yet, so it's conceivable he could rocket all the way up to the top spot someday, or at least come close.  Nolan was my favorite baseball player from the time I first became a fan.  When he retired Nomar Garciaparra took up that mantle. 

#3 - Xander Bogaerts - 194 Cards

Next up, my current favorite player, for about the last six or seven years anyway.  I've really enjoyed watching Xander Bogaerts progress as a player, and was fortunate enough to begin collecting him right at the outset of his career.  I've already got enough Bogaerts cards to push him over the 200-card threshold, it's just a matter of how long it takes me to get around to scanning and cataloging them.

#2 - David Ortiz - 206 Cards

The only baseball player that I already have more than 200 cards of is David Ortiz.  I'm willing to bet he's probably in the top ten for any Red Sox team collector by default.  Big Papi's cards just seem to multiply in the monster boxes I store them in.  He was (and still often is) in just about every set for a long while there.  I've even got an online exclusive set featuring only Ortiz cards.  I guess that's what happens when you experience a ton of post-season success and are regarded as one of the most clutch hitters in franchise history.

And now, the player who wins the gold medal for most cards in my collection.  Drum roll please...

#1 - Wayne Gretzky - 223 Cards

The Great One.  It should come as no surprise that he sits in the top spot as far as my collection goes.  In my personal opinion he's the best player ever to lace up skates, though I understand that it's difficult to compare guys across eras and positions, like Gordie Howe and Bobby Orr.

I would wager without checking that Wayne has more hockey cards produced featuring his likeness than any other human being.  I will never turn down a copy of a Gretzky card that I don't already own.  I still have many of Wayne's cards from my childhood collection, and have continued to add to that over the years.  I'm confident he'll be a top five player for me even once everything is cataloged.

So, those are my heavy hitters in terms of sheer number of cards.  I'll probably showcase other players in the future as I hit 100 cards for them, in fact I've got about half a dozen hopefuls that are already within ten cards of the mark.

How about you, who are the most collected players in your collection?

Twenty Random Hockey Cards

The NHL season is heading towards the playoff stretch, so let's break up this work week with a random smattering of twenty awesome hockey cards on this Wednesday.  Added all of these to my collection proper while scanning and organizing this past weekend...

Cheesy?  Sure, but this Brett Hull 'Man of the Year' card from 1991-92 Score really resonated with my 9-year-old self at the time.  The man holding the flaming stick here is currently #4 all-time in goals scored, but it's crazy to think that by this time next year Alex Ovechkin may have surpassed him on that list!

I'm not a Dave Taylor fan in particular.  This probably isn't fair to him, but he kind of always bored me as a kid collector.  I knew he was a good player obviously, but he just seemed to lack any of the flash I was looking for as a youth hockey fan I guess.  1,000 points is pretty significant though, and I love cards that honor a specific moment or achievement like this.

One of the best D-men of his generation.  Always liked this guy a little extra too given that his rookie card was one of the biggest chase cards in the first hockey set I ever collected.

Those first three cards were from the '91-92 Score Canadian Bilingual set, which features both English and French on the card backs.  This Fedorov is from the second series of the '91-92 Score Canadian English-only set.

I missed out on a lot of In The Game's offerings, as they were really prominent during the era where I wasn't collecting cards at all.  Of the few that I've picked up since returning to collecting though, the small subset of WHA cards at the end of the '07-08 Between the Pipes checklist are my favorites.  That might be the best look at a Toronto Toros sweater in my entire collection.

Guess what decade this Fedorov is from?  Yep, the '90s!

This one, slightly less busy, is from the early 2000s.  In its current state, Sergei Fedorov is the second most represented player in my hockey card collection at 145 cards.  The only man in front of him...

...is The Great One, of course!  One can never have too many Gretzky cards.  This one's from the 1995-96 Upper Deck Gretzky's Collection insert set that spanned multiple releases that season.  These look better in hand than they do scanned, classy looking cards actually.

This one came from a dime box long ago.  A dime for an '87-88 O-Pee-Chee LaFontaine?!?!  If I ever stumble upon more stars from this set at that price you can be sure I'll scoop them up as well.

Let's jump forward from that 1987-88 card to 1991-92 for a minute.  I always liked the blue border used on the high series in this Score release.  Ron Francis is another all-time favorite of mine, so I decided to keep this card to pair with the Fedorov above.

Knock 1991-92 Pro Set all you want.  Yes, it was a drastically overproduced set.  It really did have some unique photographs, though.  While a little awkward, this Mario Lemieux shot isn't far off from something you'd see in an Upper Deck release today (or maybe a Canvas parallel).  Ahead of its time, if you ask me.

Just one more high-series Score card, this time for my Whalers collection.  Amazing to think I didn't have this one accounted for until this round of sorting and scanning, but there it is.

Speaking of which, here's another new Whalers addition, from the Freshman Phenoms insert set in 1993-94 Leaf.  I liked that Leaf release, and it's rightfully given a ton of credit for having one of the best card back designs ever, but the photograph on this insert isn't that great.  Still, a needed Whalers card is a needed Whalers card.

I found a big stack of 2007-08 O-Pee-Chee in a box I was going through as part of my ongoing purge.  Packaged nearly every one of them up to send in my next flat rate box to Billy of Cardboard History.  Just to represent the set in my collection for now though, I held onto two of my favorite players; Teemu Selanne...

...and Sergei Fedorov.

Stumbled upon nine of these Hat Tricks inserts from 1990-91 Bowman, and turns out I needed all nine for my cataloged collection.  Bernie Nicholls here was the best of the bunch.

Remember how cool Topps Black Gold cards were?  I can certainly recall these being very coveted cards back in the day.

When I stumbled across this trio in a quarter bin a long time ago at a hobby shop, nostalgia got the best of me.

Lindros might be my favorite of the three.  This guy was such a big deal at the time, and ended up a HOFer despite battling some serious injuries over the course of his NHL career.

Closing it out is another quarter box pick-up, because as a general rule I'm not leaving any early to mid-'90s Fleer Ultra hockey insert that I don't already own behind in a quarter box.  Simple as that.

So, there are twenty hockey cards that, despite my purging, I just couldn't let go of.  Hopefully you enjoyed at least one or two of them.  Thanks as always for stopping by!

The Best 17 of 2017!

I thought a list of the top 17 cards to be featured on the blog here in 2017 might be a nice way to close out my tenth year of blogging.  After all, everyone enjoys a good list at this time of year right?

The rules are simple, single cards only, and they have to be cards that made their debut on the blog in 2017.  I should also mention that the caption/ranking number below each card in the top 17 is actually a hyper-link that will take you to the post where the card originally debuted, just in case you missed one or two during the year and want to go back and read more.

Before we get to what I deemed to be the 17 best cards though, here are three honorable mentions that were left behind on the cutting room floor so to speak...

I have a minor obsession with hockey's "other league" from the '70s, the WHA.  Because of this, I have a long term goal to acquire every one of the O-Pee-Chee WHA cards released during the decade.  I've been focusing on the very first release to start, which were actually included in the final series of the brand's standard NHL set in '72-73.

I landed one of the bigger names here with Cheevers, and the card might have made the official countdown were it not for all that white space (or pink space in this case, I guess).  In any event, this is a part of my collection that I expect to get more of my hobby attention in 2018.

My finest (pun intended) Bogaerts card of 2017 here.  I think what kept this card off the list was Xander's lackluster 2017 season.  I love that you almost need sunglasses in order to stare at this one in direct light.

A 1/1 buyback featuring the great Mark "The Bird" Fidrych.  This was the final card to be axed when I was compiling the list.  One or two buybacks did make the cut, however.

#17 - 2008-09 O-Pee-Chee Buyback - Lanny McDonald 1989-90 Autograph

Sure, a hard-signed autograph of a HOFer is pretty much always a solid addition to any collection, but this one's on the list mainly for reasons of nostalgia.  Takes me back to the days of ripping packs that my dad picked up for my brothers and I.

In years past you probably would've seen many autographed cards in this countdown, but they're one of the things I've cut down on somewhat over the past twelve months.  In the end only four made the cut, speaking of which...

#16 - 2016-17 Fleer Showcase Buyback - Nicklas Lidstrom 1992-93 Ultra Autograph

A hard-signed auto, limited to 25 copies, of one of the greatest defensemen of his era, which just so happens to be the era that I grew up in as a childhood fan.  Oh, and it's a buyback from one of the sets I remember most fondly from collecting as a kid.  Also, in my opinion I practically committed theft by taking this home with a winning bid of $13.51.  A highlight of the year for me for sure.

#15 - 1935 Diamond Stars - Pie Traynor

I'm a huge fan of the Diamond Stars set from the '30s.  I knocked off the Red Sox team set a couple of years ago now, but this year I finally got around to picking up another in the form of HOFer Pie Traynor.  This was a total impulse buy, ran across it by chance and thought the price was unbelievably low, and just went for it.  I certainly don't regret it.

#14 - 2014-15 Upper Deck French 25th Anniversary Buyback - Sergei Fedorov RC

Here's another iconic card from my youth that, like the Lidstrom auto, I managed to acquire in buyback form in 2017.  I dubbed this my favorite Fedorov card when I posted it back in February, and that's still the case here in late December.

#13 - 2015 Topps Buyback - 1960 Pumpsie Green RC

The earliest card calendar-wise to make the list, I actually posted this one on the very first day of 2017.  For a buyback lover like myself, it doesn't get much better than a RC of the player who at long last integrated the Boston Red Sox.  This was sent to me in trade by my buddy Douglas of Sports Cards from the Dollar Store, and is firmly entrenched in my buyback franken-set!

#12 - 1989-90 Topps - Brett Hull Autograph

This one makes the cut for many of the same reasons as the Lanny McDonald auto a few cards back.  One of the more iconic cards from my collecting youth, having a copy hard-signed by the man himself makes me grin every time I look at it.

#11 - 1964-65 Topps - Glenn Hall

Another of my all-time favorite hockey sets here, I adore these difficult-to-store tallboys.  I actually made some decent progress with a few cards from this set over the last year, but HOFer Glenn Hall here was the obvious choice to make the countdown.  Shipped to my door for significantly less than the cost of a retail blaster, it was absolutely one of my bargains of the year.

#10 - T206 - Jake Stahl

Any time you add a new T206 card to your collection, it feels significant, and Jake Stahl here is my only new one from the last calendar year.  It represents my fifth Red Sox T206 card overall though, and that's a team set I'm positive I'll make more progress on in the coming year.

#9 - 2011 Topps Update Cognac - Jose Altuve RC

I'm not sure I can think of any athlete, period, who enjoyed a better 2017 than Jose Altuve.  This card is the Altuve I'd prefer to own over all others, and unbelievably I was able to haul in this one, slabbed a PSA 9, for less than $20 shipped.  Of course, that's because I bought it before 2017, but I didn't get around to showing it until last month, so it's eligible for the countdown.

#8 - 1954-55 Topps - Harry Howell

Sure, any HOFer from the very first Topps hockey release is a big enough deal to make the countdown.  This one's even more significant for me personally though, as it's one of the better cards that was handed down to me from my Dad.  For that reason it's one of the few cards I'd hang onto even if I decided to sell off my entire collection for some reason.

#7 - 2017 Topps NOW - David Ortiz

The only two Topps NOW cards I purchased this year were both from the same game, the David Ortiz jersey retirement game on June 23rd.  I picked them up because I actually had the good fortune to attend this game with my lifelong best friend, his longtime girlfriend, and my wife.  It's the only time I've ever attended an event in person that's depicted on a card that I know of.  It was an awesome and memorable evening in Boston, and I'll always think back to it when I come across this card.

#6 - 2016 Leaf Lumber Kings Game-Used Stick - Pat Verbeek

I'm not generally a big game-used or relic guy, yet the next two cards in the countdown are exactly that.  What can I say, I'm a man of contradiction I guess.  This fantastic piece of Pat Verbeek's stick was sent to me by Douglas of Sports Cards from the Dollar Store as well, the second card in the countdown that he's personally responsible for!  Beyond cool to have a piece of the stick of one of my childhood idols.

#5 - 2008-09 In the Game Between the Pipes Super-Sized Pads - Gerry Cheevers

When I saw Dave of Wax Stain Rookie post a relic card from this set earlier this year I knew I needed to find one for myself.  Just a couple of weeks later this card was waiting for me in my mailbox.  Might be my favorite relic card in my entire collection.  Cheevers' WHA card may have missed the countdown, but he still placed in the top 5 thanks to this beauty.  I can almost feel the pucks bouncing off this vintage pad.

#4 - 2016 Topps Buyback - 1975 Topps Nolan Ryan 1/1

The pinnacle of my buyback franken-set to date.  I'm not sure I'll ever acquire a buyback nicer than this one, it's essentially a lock for spot 500 in the binder (yes, I do actually keep it in the binder).  Considering how much time, and how many posts, I devoted to buybacks in 2017 it's no surprise that my best one sits inside the top 5 in this countdown.

#3 - 1957-58 Parkhurst - Jacques Plante

I don't think this one requires much explanation.  Simply a beautiful vintage hockey card.  As soon as I became aware of its existence I pounced.  I'm not the only collector to have that reaction either, as my posting it inspired at least one other collector to grab their own copy.  Truth be told, the top 3 here are neck and neck, and this could have easily been my #1 overall card of the year.

#2 - 2016-17 Fleer Showcase Buyback - Jaromir Jagr 1992-93 Ultra Autograph

In one of my riskier plays since I got back into collecting, I spent a good deal of change on an un-redeemed redemption for this card towards the beginning of the year.  I eagerly entered my code into Upper Deck's redemption site and then waited.  For months and months.

When I arrived home from work one day this autumn and found an envelope from Upper Deck in my mailbox, I felt like Ralphie getting his Little Orphan Annie Decoder Ring in A Christmas Story.  Only my package didn't come with an after-taste of bitter disappointment, instead I'm still in a state of disbelief that I actually own this card.

And now, the 2017 Shoebox Legends card of the year...

...

drum-roll please...

...

...

...

#1 - 2011 Topps Update Cognac - Mike Trout RC

As I said, pretty much any of the top 3 could be interchanged, but I gave the edge to this fantastic rookie card of baseball's best player.  Though this card only appeared on the blog here in May, I actually bought it back in 2016.  I'm glad I did too, because if I hadn't I don't think I could ever afford one given what they go for now.

Barring a major injury, Trout is just going to continue to rack up the accolades and statistics over the next ten years plus.  It will be fun to watch him do so knowing that I've got this gem in my collection.  I don't have any sentimental backstory for this card, I just plain treated myself after wanting a copy for years.  I think it's a worthy card of the year regardless.

Lastly, I just wanted to extend a truly heartfelt thank you to all of the wonderful people that stop by here to read or leave comments, trade cards with me, run their own blog, or otherwise just make positive contributions to the hobby.  I know as well as anyone how valuable time is, and I'm grateful that anyone takes a few moments out of their day to read my ramblings about baseball cards.  Wrapping up my tenth year you'd think I'd be tiring of this, but that's not the case, and all of you are the major reason why.

Happy New Year's, and I look forward to interacting with you all in 2018!