2019 In Review

A pretty obvious title for an obvious subject matter for the last post of the year. Don't worry, there will still be cards to look at, but let's look at how my goals were for the year.

When the year started, I gave myself three goals to work on.

Goal 1 - Post and Share all the 2018 US trip cards I got

Well, that was an easy one to succeed on as I just had to post through cards - kinda the point of the blog, so easy success on goal #1.

Goal 2 - Trade Away 5,000 Cards

As late as October, wasn't sure if I was going to quite get to this goal this year, but after trading away about 1,200 Panini stickers and sending a bunch of Magic cards and others (845 total) to Australia, I ended up close to 6,000 cards traded for the year...actually, just squeaked another big box in for about 700 more cards, so ending up just north of 6,500.

Goal 3 - Complete 10 sets

This was the first year that I set this as a goal, to actually actively work to complete some sets. Usually they happen by fluke and in getting trades that happen to bring the last cards across I need, but a little focus goes a long way as I blew this one out of the water.

Star Trek	1996 SkyBox 30 Years of Star Trek Phase Three
Star Trek	1996 SkyBox 30 Years of Star Trek Phase Three - The Card Game Promos
Baseball	1988 Donruss Bonus MVP insert set
Baseball	1998 Mr. Sub Roger Clemens
Baseball	1988 Donruss
Baseball	1988 Donruss Diamond Kings Subset
Baseball	1988 Stan Musial Puzzle
Baseball Baseball	1991 Fleer Team Logo Stickers 1991 Leaf
Baseball	1992 McDonalds Blue Jays Gold Insert Set * 5
Baseball	2008 Topps Boston Red Sox
Hockey	1990-91 Score American
Hockey	1991-92 Score Canadian English
Hockey Hockey	1997-98 Upper Deck McDonald's 1999-00 McDonald's Upper Deck - The Rookie Year
Hockey	2018-19 Upper Deck MVP Western Stars
Wrestling	2016 Topps WWE
Wrestling	2016 Topps WWE Now Then Forever 15 card NXT Prospect cards
Wrestling	2017 Topps WWE Women's Division
Wrestling	2018 Topps WWE Women's Division
Wrestling	2018 Topps WWE Women's Division - Mixed Match Challenge
Wrestling	2018 Topps WWE Women's Division - Power Couples
Wrestling	2018 Topps WWE Women's Division - Royal Rumble 2018
Wrestling	2018 Topps WWE Women's Division - Women's Champion

No matter how you count this, more than doubles the number of completed sets I got. Some were small and received by trade, others were from getting the last cards I needed, but either way, it worked.

Tomorrow I'll go through my few goals for 2020 and hopefully it will be just as successful, but right now, let's get to some cards.

There was a good 50% off everything sale at firstrow.ca, so I picked up some Leaf and wrestling random packs, an autograph pack and 4 Pokermon assorted packs, all for $50 Canadian. Not sure even at that price it will be worth it as I expect the autographs are in person, so harder to prove, but I have only ever heard nice things, and Curtis at the site personally guarantees the autographs (I believe because he gets them himself, not buying from others).

Today, we start through with the most exciting cards of the bunch....to my 9 year old son, some Pokemon!

Boo to seeing an energy card, but nice to see a couple names I recognize from way back with Meowth and Jigglypuff.

Speaking of old school - Professor Oak! I watched the first couple of seasons of Pokemon which were on when I started university and there was nothing else on that early in the morning (they weren't new at the time, but in solid repeat mode.

Hah, even Mistry too.

The cards are good for what they were, 60 cards for about $4, and for kids that are 6 and 9 years old, they will get more than $4 of enjoyment out of these so a solid start to the package - more tomorrow to go along with the goals I set for 2020, but one last quick share...

A last minute trade came in through TCDB from first time trade partner DrDirt who sent along a couple nice Toronto rookie cards.



This is my first Cavan rookie card and being Gallery, I generally like the look of those cards, and this year is no exception.

A great little PWE trade near the end of the year.

Ending With Styles

Last pack from the CNE, last keepers from those packs, a nice Stink card, a couple hockey pickups and lastly, the artistic AJ Styles card. So far, a pretty nice pack to end on.



Not sure how I didn't yet have this Leaf card as I do have a bunch from 1992-93 Ultra, but just happened not to have Zezel here. He was a pretty good player, on SNES NHL '94 - or atleast one I always found played better than the 64 overall rating. Not like Ken Baumgartner who should have been rated a 1 overall but was somehow a 38.



Hey, some Topps/O Pee Chee baseball. Would have maybe expected a bit more O Pee Chee in these packs since the CNE dealer is Candian, but just didn't seem to be the case.

Phew! With that, the CNE packs are done, and as expected, did a good job on adding some wrestling cards if nothing else!

I want to turn to the last bunch of cards from the Australian box - all the Magic card glory.



My favourite card of the package is the first. Dark Sphere being a decent card from The Dark - personal fave even if it isn't the most expensive or rare of the bunch.



Also love getting cards from one of the joke sets, like Unglued here. Just great how they can poke fun at themselves with cards like Giant Fan just blowing parts of the card around.



I will say, those Myr tokens are problematic. The backs are advertisements, these three being different, but I am not sure how many different ads there are. I think it is over 10 different ads, but I am not sure if they are all available on each card.




Metalworkers are one of my favourite artifacts and here we get a big baddie type as well. 10/10 - bigger than a Colossus of Sardia.



Phew - that was a great bunch of artifacts, and the big push for why I wanted to do the box for box trade. Really appreciated the trade with JC Kazama, and all of the cards here and that I showed already. Hope to be able to trade again in the future too.

A visit to Cobb County

If you ever too a trip down to Cobb County Georgia, you'd run into this man, or so his wrestling theme song suggested....



I really liked Big Boss Man as a kid. Whether he was a good guy, or a bad guy, I enjoyed both as he was a great character. Much better than Big Bubba. It was also one of those characters that actually survived fairly well from going through the rock and wrestling early 90s, to a slightly transformed version which was more tough guy / SWAT inspired police man of the later 90s attitude era.



The Leaf adds today are excellent as they are both new to the collection. THought I had the Hat Trick Damphousse, but apparently not.



I enjoy A&G generally, but don't really buy a lot, so happy to pick up a new to me insert.




Not only do we get the golf Canadian content, but a nice Crosby photo which is outside the usual on the Pinnacle card as well. Pinnacle may not be my type of card, but they do get some of the photos right for being outside the in action skating pose.

One pack left for tomorrow, then a year review and we can wrap up 2019!

I have a couple minutes today to at least highlight the card spoils from Christmas, which is usually stuff from Santa with a quick sprinkle of something else from the kids.



Santa's gift of a few packs for the Magic collection including Ice Age which dates back to 1994, and the collector edition for the newer Throne of Eldraine set.



Some stocking stuffers which include more packs for the unopened collection which is a nice variety.



Another stocking stuffer, and a box of hockey cards from the family. Happy with the adds, and the packs I am opening will go aside for a later time, but this let's me get the unopened pack additions put in.

Steckeler for additions

I've said before, these Pinnacle sets are not my favourite, but this is still a new add for the Leaf collection. David spent most of his time with Washington and Anaheim, but lasted just over a season in Toronto.



The pack added more than average to the sets I am slowly working on including a few from 2005-06 Ultra which I got a bunch of from the Santa Lot originally, so nice to get a few adds all in one pack like this.



The traders, including another Payne, have some Topps Total cards as well as a few more American Pie cards including Phelps and his 8 gold medals.

Also - must be a Kolzig hot pack with the couple Kolzig cards here too.

Still, not bad overall, even if I ended up with another Payne Stewart golf card.

Speaking of great overall, I have the rest of the wrestling cards I received from Australia here and ready to share. Again, these are from JC Kazama at TCDB and give me a great start on the 2010 WWE Slam Attax Mayhem set.



As is typical with these sets, the first section of the set are foil cards covering things like the champions.

Shows how high up Jack Swagger was at the time, almost equal to John Cena on the cards, but that didn't last too long for him. Also good to see that, given a 100 point system I presume, Triple H breaks the mold so to speak.

Still no love for Kofi considering the scores of the other champions.

We go past the signature moves, into the roster cards starting with Raw and a decent Edge and a very underrated Goldust.



I think they got most of the scoring right on these, give or take, well, other than that Gail Kim should have probably been best of the women here (Maryse improved and a year or two later may have been higher scoring, and Melina was alright, but wouldn't say she was top).



Again, overall decent on the scoring - and there being a couple of the top women's division wrestlers here.



Okay, Dusty Rhodes is definitely underrated with those scores. I'll call that WWE bias I guess.



We finish with the match specialty and event cards as well as weapons. Not sure how these play in, but there they are.

I had none of these cards before and now well over half. Sweet!