Christmas Cards (and not, I don't mean 2019 Topps Holiday)

Maybe a week ago I was tagged in a Tweet by @forgotaboutblay that some Christmas cards were on their way. A few days later a little bubble mailer showed up and inside was a thick brick of cards consisting of my 3 teams - Braves, Panthers & Hornets.

When the stack includes Chipper Jones cards you know you're in for a treat. I think I have this 1994 Bowman's Best, but it's such a great card I don't mind having a duplicate. I don't believe I've seen these 2005 Leaf Gamers cards before. It's printed in reflective silver foil and looks much better in hand. The same cam be said about the 1999 Fleer Ultra Diamond Mine. It's a very shiny card and from an insert set I'm not that familiar with.

Let's not forget about this 1997 Donruss Silver Press Proof parallel of former Braves slugger Ryan Klesko! Probably one of the more bittersweet cards in the stack was this 2011 Topps Chrome Refractor of Brian McCann. He announced his retirement this season after the Braves were eliminated in the NLCS by the Cardinals. This is a great photo of Brian and the Chrome Refractors are just so beautiful.

These two 2012 Panini Prime Signatures cards are think. The design is very minimal, but it works. Both are serially numbered with Jon Beason being 135/499 and Steve Smith being 120/499.

Another thick card in the stack was this 2014 Score Kelvin Benjamin Team Helmets. The helmet is made of rubber (?) and it's also a RC. Kelvin started off his career in Carolina pretty hot, but soon injuries started to plague his on the field performance. There were also issues with his attitude and diet and it wasn't long before Benjamin was on his way out the door to Buffalo and all of the Charlotte media was mocking him for his lack of a diet. It was actually entertaining radio at the time.

I haven't bought any of Panini's Unparalleled product before, but I do like this Perfect Pairs insert from the 2017 set. It shines great in hand and features two of the best defensive players ever to suit up for Carolina - Thomas Davis and Luke Kuechly.

I grew up watching many Hornets games in person at the old Charlotte Coliseum back in the day. I don't have a lot of Hornets cards from the mid to late 90's so these cards from 96-97 Fleer Ultra are great. I especially love the Anthony Mason card. He was so much fun to watch bang around in the paint. Vlade Divac came over from the Lakers in the now infamous Kobe Bryant draft/trade. Kobe was never going to play for Charlotte so I hate it when that topic comes up whether in the national or local media. The Tony Delk card is from an insert set called Rookie Encore. I remember him being an instant fit for the team and helped provide more scoring fairly quickly.

There were also a few 99-00 Fleer Ultra cards as well. Here we have Ricky Davis, Eddie Jones and Elden Campbell. I honestly don't remember much about Ricky or Elden, but Eddie was the one of the few star players the Hornets seemed to have during this period...well maybe outside of Baron Davis.

There were also many other cards in the brick that Dennis sent that I didn't share. I really appreciate being thought of and I appreciate the cards as well. All of them will find a nice home in my various collections. Thanks again Dennis, Merry Christmas!

Thank You Kemba

Thank you Kemba for 8 great years in Charlotte. Drafted in 2011 with the 9th pick by the then Charlotte Bobcats, Kemba would go on to become one of the best point guards, if not players in the NBA over the next 8 years that no one ever talked about. Playing in a small market like Charlotte, NC, Kemba was overshadowed by the likes of Kyrie Irving, Chris Paul, Damian Lillard and the likes.

Kemba's time in the teal and purple came to an end this evening as the Charlotte Hornets finalized a sign and trade with the Boston Celtics. 

Kemba Walker finishes his time in Charlotte with some impressive career numbers. He averaged 34.1 minutes, 19.8 points, 3.8 rebounds, 5.5 assists while shooting 41.8% from the field and 35.7% from the 3 point arc. In 8 years, Kemba only missed something like 6 games.

I've been a fan of the Charlotte Hornets since the team's original inception during the '88-'89 season. At times it's been awfully hard to be a fan as the team has never really been able to compete against the upper caliber teams. Attracting free agents to Charlotte has been virtually non-existent so the team has had to rely on building through the draft. The Hornets had some early success in the 90's by drafting Larry Johnson, Alonzo Mourning, Kendall Gill and Baron Davis. However the team has had a lot of strike outs prior to drafting Kemba in 2011. 

The Hornets would only have a handful of players (7 to be exact) that would go on to be All-Stars. Kemba was named to 3 All-Star teams, tying the team record previously held by Glen Rice. 

Needless to say that Kemba was the face of the Charlotte Hornets. He is the team's all time leading scorer and holds many other of the franchise's records. To see him in another team's jersey will be odd, however I'm honest enough with myself to know he will have a much better chance to win a Championship in Boston than he ever did in Charlotte. As a Hornets fan it's hard to swallow mediocrity, but it's time to rebuild and that means a few seasons of bad basketball. This is the not to say basketball with Kemba was great. He literally had very few pieces around him to work with. Thanks to bad draft choices and the challenges to lure free agents, Kemba had to shoulder it all. 

I hope Kemba does well in Boston. He won't be soon forgotten for many Hornets fans, but for now the Buzz has turned around and stung the city of Charlotte and it's fans.

Cards on Cards sends cards

I can't be the only guy out there collecting cards that gets the evil eye from the wife when I come back from checking the mail w/ bubble mailers in my hands. Kerry from Cards on Cards (@cardsoncards) got my wife going over the weekend when I pulled out a rather thick bubble mailer out of the mail box. I wasn't expecting anything from him so I was looking forward to seeing what was inside...

There were two large stacks of cards that were neatly stacked and stored insides team bags and a sealed package of NBA TeenyMates. With the exception of a line Braves TeenyMates someone sent me years ago, I haven't had any exposure to these. I'll showcase the contents of that pack later however as I want to get to the meat & potatoes.

For starters I received 82 cards from my 2018 Topps Big League want list! I haven't done much with this set since last fall so it was nice to put a big dent in the list of cards needed.

Off the top of the 2nd stack were two cards of Braves players that represent the future and the past. I have both of these cards, but I don't think I have them for my 2018 Allen & Ginter set. When I'm building sets I always keep the Braves for my team collection first and foremost.

I busted a lot of 2019 Donruss, but somehow the base cards of Ozzie Albies has escaped my grasp. The others were needed for the set and are much welcomed.

Couple more shiney Freddie Freemans for the collection and a Topps Archives RC insert of Ozzie. I believe this card will go in the Archives binder as I pulled one last year for my team collection.

I don't buy a lot of basketball cards and I don't know many who do, but I do know that Kerry is an avoid Portland Trailblazer collector so I can usually bet any package from him will include some basketball cards. Oh boy, he did not disappoint either as he sent me cards for several different collections.

In the heyday of my collecting I pretty bought anything and everything. I had many of these cards, but as the collecting itch faded away a lot of my early collection disappeared. I can't remember what happened to all those cards, but I'm so glad to get some of these back. 

I made a comment on @pennysleeves blog the other day about a Robert Parish card I saw that featured him in a Hornets uni...and then this Hoops card shows up in the stack! I still don't have many cards of Anthony Mason as a Hornet so even though this Hoops card has him in a Knicks uniform, I'll take it. Not sure how many fans remember Darrin Hancock. He was drafted out of Kansas in the 2nd round of the 1994 draft and went on to play 1 1/2 seasons in Charlotte before he was traded to Milwaukee. His career in the NBA only lasted until 1997 (in Atlanta) before he would finish his career in 2005 playing for several different D-League teams. He was however electrifying to watch when he played for Charlotte, executing several fast break plays that usually ended in some kind of dunk.

I love getting cards of Hornets players from that time period where I attended a lot of games. This Kendall Gill and Kenny Gattison cards are so much cooler (to me) than the base cards they are because of the memories I have attached to them.

Considered the "dark period" in Charlotte basketball now, the Bobcats never really caught on with the city of Charlotte or it's fans. I have several ideas why, however I still count them as part of my Hornets collection. There was one lone Bobcats card in the stack and it happened to be a RC of D.J. Augustin. I liked watching him play the short time he played for Charlotte. He's still going strong (for Orlando) and gave the Hornets a fit in the backcourt this season.

I knew of Roy Hibbert from his time spent in Indiana, but I hardly remember him suiting up in the team and purple for the Hornets. However Panini made a card of him for their 2016-17 Complete set. I love getting cards of players that had a brief stint with a team as it makes it more fun when looking back. Do you like getting cards of players like this?

Panini releases a lot of sets and it's hard to keep up with what is out there and what the cards look like. Their Element set has some nice looking cards, such as this base card of Michael Kidd- Gilchrist. I think this makes the 2nd base card from this set I now have. Dwight Howard's time with Charlotte was short so he doesn't have too many cards of him in an actual Hornets uniform, so this insert of him was a welcome addition.

With the exception of the Tony Parker, all of these shiny cards look much better in hand than the pics. I especially love the Optic RC of Devonte Parker RC. I don't know what type of Prizm parallel this is, but it's really sharp. The multi-colored Optic parallels aren't my favorite looking, but anytime I can get new cards of young players like Monk and Bacon...I'll take 'em. I believe both of them are just now starting to scratching the surface of their potential.

If all of the Hornets cards weren't enough, Kerry tossed in not one, but two autographed RCs of P.J. Hairston. I find it ironic that P.J. was yet another former Tarheels player that owner Michael Jordan paraded through Charlotte. I swear the Hornets have had so many Tarheel players that never did anything. Probably the best former UNC player that came through was Raymond Felton in the early Bobcats years...so Jordan can't take credit for him.

In addition to the Hornets cards, I also got a new cards for my NC State Wolfpack Alumni collection. Nate McMillan was born in Raleigh, NC and was drafted by the Seattle Supersonics in the 2nd round of the 1986 draft. He went on to play 19 seasons for the Sonics before he went into coaching. While I believe I originally had all 3 of these cards, I don't have them in my current NC State Alumni collection so these will be nice additions.

My favorite card in the whole package though has to be this Courtside Draft Pix card of former NC State point card, Chris Corchiani. While Chris' NBA career may not have gone as he would have liked, he was magic in the backcourt during his college years. Watching Corchiani interact and play with Rodney Monroe was a thing of beauty. For some reason it kind of reminded me of watching John Stockton and Karl Malone play together. I don't have many cards of Corchiani period, and this card is a beauty. You probably can't tell, but the front of this card features ink that has a slight metallic sheen, something cards from 1991 just didn't feature that often.

Thank you Kerry for all the great cards. While I love getting new baseball cards, I also love getting new basketball cards from time to time and this package was a very nice surprise. I owe you one!!

Thanksgiving Surprise

The week of Thanksgiving I was receiving a few bubble mailers each day as I've been grabbing cheap autos and RCs of various players lately, however one of the mailers was noticeably thicker than the others which I wasn't expecting. Then I saw the return address and I instantly knew who it was from...Cards on Cards.

2018 hasn't been an overly great year for me in terms of blogging. My activity across all my blogs is down and as a result so is my trading activity with fellow collectors and bloggers. I blame this on wanting to spend more time doing other things and of course work...gotta blame work. For some reason Kerry at Cards on Cards had been putting aside cards of Atlanta Braves, Carolina Panthers and Charlotte Hornets for me. I always love to see what people send me and I always appreciate what I'm sent, regardless of what era it's from. Let's take a look at a small sampling of what he sent me.

One of my favorite cards is this shiny Freddie Freeman from 2018 Topps Chrome. I sat Chrome out this year so I have very little Braves from the set. This International Affair card has a simple design, but looks beautiful. This is one of those inserts that works better for Chrome than flagship in my opinion. 

Next up is a small sampling of players from what I call my "Faith Brothers" collection. Fitting that all of these are from Cardinals players, but hey, that's OK. Personally I love the Jaime Garcia Bowman and Bowman Chrome cards.

Following up on the baseball edition of "Faith Brothers", I got a few more cards for the football version of this sub-collection. Of these 5 cards, my favorite hands down is the 1992 Score Sam Mills Dream Team. I've never seen this card before, so cool. I don't have many Sam Mills cards either so I love finding new things. For those of you outside the Carolinas, Sam Mill is the basis of the team's "Keep Pounding" mantra/slogan thanks to his battle with cancer he fought as a member of the Carolina Panthers. 

I also really appreciate the other cards too, especially the cool Domino's Pizza issue of Rodney Peete and the silver parallel of the Minister of Defense, Reggie White.

I never collected a lot of basketball cards, but I absolutely loved Upper Deck's inaugural NBA set. However I never had a chance to pick up packs of the sophomore release and I still only have a few random cards. Upper Deck had some great photography as shown in the Kendall Gill card. One day I'd love to pick up a box or two and sit down and try to build the set. The early to mid 90's NBA was a lot of fun in my opinion.

With all of the off season moves the Charlotte Hornets made, combined with some early success has me watching more NBA than I have in a very long time. It's been really fun watching the Hornets and their young players play. I've been wanting to pick up RCs and other cards of some of these younger players, but I typically don't buy packs of basketball cards. Kerry came to the rescue with RCs of Malik Monk from Elements and Dwayne Bacon from Donruss Optic. These were the Hornets first and second round draft picks from a year ago. Neither got much of a chance to play last year under coach Steve Clifford, but with the staff changes both young guns are finally getting a chance to show their skill. Even though the team moved on from Dwight Howard, I still find it cool to have a few cards of his in a Hornets uniform.

Lastly we have a few cards of Kemba Walker. If you haven't had a chance to watch him play you are missing out. He's one of the best point guards in the NBA that nobody talks about. He is consistent night in and night out and is the face of the Hornets. He is already quickly becoming one of the best Hornets players statistically as his play has improved year over year. There have been a lot of trade rumors surrounding him, but it appears he wants to remain a Charlotte Hornet and bring the city their first NBA title. How can you not root for a guy like that? The NBA All-Star weekend is being held in Charlotte, NC this upcoming February and I fully expect to see Kemba representing "Buzz City".

Huge shout out to Kerry at Cards on Cards for the surprise package...I owe you one buddy!

On the Receiving End of a Group Break

I'm often on the hosting end of group breaks and even though I usually claim my team in the break, it's different than being the participant watching the packs being busted. Recently I decided to jump in a very cheap 2018-19 Panini NBA Hoops group break, claiming the Charlotte Hornets. I'm not a huge NBA fan, but I've followed my hometown Hornets since their inception. The changes made in the off season has resulted in some exciting games in  this young NBA season. This excitement has carried over to cardboard and my desire to pick up some new Hornets cards. What better way than to claim them in a group break?

I went with Hobby Legends, bidding on a half case break they had listed on eBay. Not surprisingly I won the Hornets slot for just a few bucks. I missed part of the live video on YouTube when the packs were busted, but I saw a good bit of the cards pulled. It was fun holding out that hope that my team would get one of the 3 autos from each box. It never happened, but it did keep me hanging on during the video!

I'm not going to bother sharing the base cards, outside of these two RCs of Miles Bridges and Devonte Graham. I was happy to get cards of these early rookies. Panini did a good job w/ the Hoops brand this year. I particularly like the wood court background and how it extends past the white border onto the right side of the card. The team color is also a nice touch.

What modern set would be complete without a smattering of parallels? I ended up a with a purple foil parallel of Marvin Williams and a holofoil parallel of Malik Monk, numbered 21/25! The purple foil looks great for a Hornets player, but not so great for other teams. The holofoil is really nice in hand, however I don't think I would've bothered buying either card.

Two inserts were pulled for my team, Amplifiers and We Got Next. Any new card of Kemba Walker is welcomed and this foil Amplifiers, while odd, was a welcome sight while I watched the packs being ripped. The We Got Next Miles Bridges insert doesn't do much for me if I'm being honest. Glad to have the card, but another theme I would have passed over.

I do want to mention that when I received my group break cards in the mail, the guy that runs Hobby Legends included a few extra random basketball cards as well as a pack of UltraPro card sleeves. Cards were well packaged and he shipped them the day after the break. I was very impressed overall w/ the service I received and for that reason, I may give them more business in the future.

The other break I joined was for 4 boxes of 2017-18 Panini Cornerstones from a different YouTube breaker. I must not have read the description very well because apparently it was just for the hits. I hate breaks like this and I think they are a scam. I ended up with one card...which is better than nothing...but I was hoping to flesh out my Charlotte Hornets collection with some newer cards - even if they were base cards.

Thankfully this non-numbered Michael Kidd-Gilchrist jersey card was pulled for the Hornets and represented the lone card for my team. The jersey looks more navy blue than teal or purple and it makes me wonder if this is a hold over piece of jersey from Charlotte's Bobcats years.

This ended up being a lot of fun as I'm always looking for ideas on hosting breaks. Once the holidays settle down I may have to try this again and if I do, I'll share the outcome here.

Does Winning Effect Your Collecting?

This has been a question I've often thought about. Does a particular player's performance on the field/court/ice or a team's performance effect your collecting?

Let's take two of my teams as an example. The Atlanta Braves were supposed to be continuing their rebuild in 2018, yet as of 06/05/18 they find themselves in first place atop the NL East. Granted their lead over the Washington Nationals is a small lead and there is a lot of baseball left to be played, it's been so much more fun watching my team play.

On the collecting front, the Braves success alone as generated more Topps Now cards than any other season since that program began. I find myself finding ways to purchase most of these cards, plus searching out other Braves cards from this year and years past. Last week I was in Atlanta to celebrate my wife's birthday and we saw Mike Foltynewicz pitch himself into the Braves record book. This lead me to checking out some of his RCs online in between innings! The same can be said of utility player, Charlie Culberson after he hit two walk off HRs in the same week. He only has a few cards in a Braves uniform at this time and his on the field performance has put those cards on my radar a little bit more. Needless to say, I've always found entertainment in collecting Braves cards, I just feel that 2018 has been one of the better years.

I'm not the biggest basketball fan out there. I do try and follow ACC college hoops and of course I get excited every March for the NCAA tournament, but I don't actively watch a lot of NBA games. I grew up a Hornets fan and back in the early 90's the team was still new in Charlotte where I lived that there was still excitement over the team. Despite their win/loss record, the team was fun to watch. I saw many games live at the old Charlotte Coliseum and watched them on TV. Then the owner took the team and left town. True the city would get another NBA franchise a few years later (Bobcats), but it just wasn't the same. Even when the Bobcats were re-branded the Hornets, the play on the court left a lot to be desired.

I probably watched more Hornets games this past season than I have in awhile, but man was it hard at times watching my team get clobbered or only to lose the game in the final minutes or seconds. Kemba Walker and Dwight Howard made it fun to watch, but even their performance could only hold my attention for so long. I guess because of the team's play I found myself rarely searching out new Hornets cards. I didn't buy many singles and I can't remember the last time I bought a pack of basketball cards that wasn't marked down. Part of me wants to have more current Hornets cards, it's just hard to get excited to look for them. Perhaps if there were more card shows in the area where I could dive through dime boxes or if the team could actually string together a winning record it would be different. Or would it?

Most of the readers also know that I'm a Carolina Panthers fan as well, but my collecting of the team really hasn't changed since they came into the league.

Overall it just seems to be a little more interesting to collect when your team is winning, or your player is doing well. Note I said interesting and not fun as I can always can find fun in card collecting and fun things with the cards in my own collection. One of the reasons I started this blog was to have another way to "interact" with the cards I have.

Does any of my rambling make any sense? Do you find yourself actively searching out cards of your team/player after a good game or season? I'd love to hear if there are others that think/collect in a similar fashion or if I'm on an island by myself.

The Buzz - Charlotte Hornets on Social Media

Between Christmas and New Years, my wife and I spent a few nights in uptown Charlotte to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. Despite living just down I-77 in Rock Hill, SC now and growing up in Charlotte, I rarely find myself in uptown. It's always nice visiting, but with all the growth Charlotte has gone through I feel like I'm a visitor in my own town!

One of the evenings while uptown, we walked next door to the Time Warner Cable Arena and caught the Charlotte Hornets vs Milwaukee Bucks game. This was the first time I've been back to the arena since the Bobcats to Hornets transition. I haven't had the opportunity to tour any other NBA arenas, but I'm still amazed by the "cable box" each and every time I visit. I love the subtle changes that have been made in favor of the teal and purple returning. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me so I was only able to get a few pictures on my phone.

Just inside the arena, near a decent sized eating area I found these large 'Hornets Greats' pictures. I don't believe these were here before. The first group, far left is comprised of Muggsy Bogues, Dell Curry and Larry Johnson. The middle group is comprised of Kelly Tripuka, Alonzo Mourning and Kendall Gill. The group on the right is comprised of Glen Rice, Jamal Mashburn and Bobby Phills.

Just to the right of those Hornets pictures is the practice court for the team. You can grab a (incredibly over priced burger) and sit by the large window that separates the arena from the court. While we were strolling by, Hornets forward Marvin Williams was on the court taking a few shots.

We were staying next to the arena at the Hyatt House so we got to and inside fairly quick. This was my first look in person at the new court and looked great. I love the subtle honeycomb design on the court. Even the new arena is starting to grow on me. Even the scoreboard is really impressive. Did you catch the small Air Jordon logo underneath the screen?

While we were waiting for the game to start, I flipped through the program, The Buzz, we were handed as we walked in. Inside is your usual scouting report for that nights game, plenty of stats, advertisements and other little bits of info. Towards the back of the program was a section called Player Headshots. 

Listed beneath each player were their various social media handles. Outside of Facebook, I'm not all that active in social media, but I do find myself following certain athletes and getting a kick out of their status updates and tweets from time to time (Chipper Jones immediately comes to mind!). I don't think I knew many of the Hornets players were on social media to begin with so I found this kind of interesting.

Players of interest:

P.J. Hairston

Instagram: @kangaroo.jack

Gerald Henderson

Facebook: /GeraldHenderson

Twitter: @GhJr09

Al Jefferson
Facebook: /aljefferson25

Michael Kidd-Gilchrist
Facebook: /MKG14Official
Twitter: @MKG14
Instagram: @MKG14

Lance Stephenson

Facebook: /StephensonLance

Twitter: @StephensonLance

Instagram: @stephensonlance

Kemba Walker

Facebook: /KembaWalker

Twitter: @KembaWalker

Instagram: @_KW15

Cody Zeller

Facebook: /codyzeller40

Twitter: @CodyZeller

Charlotte Hornets

Facebook: /hornets

Twitter: @hornets

Instagram: @hornets

#TBT Throwback Thursday - Charlotte Hornets Edition #3

The inaugural edition of 1990-91 Skybox basketball cards were unlike anything I've ever seen. I was in Jr. High School when these cards were released and I thought they were the coolest thing ever. Now nearly 25 years later I still think the cards look pretty good. Well, at the front of the cards.

Using the computer graphics for the background, the gold borders and the "glowing" effect used around the basketball made these cards stand out from the likes of NBA Hoops and Fleer. Skybox remained one of my favorite annual basketball sets until Upper Deck came out a few years later and seemingly stole some of the basketball card market share.

Dell Curry has always been one of my favorite players from the original Charlotte Hornets. Take a look at who's guarding Dell. Nice. I've always thought these cards look a little like something you'd find in some type of art deco style museum. I can understand why some fans and collectors shied away from the first few years of Skybox, but there is no doubting that they had a very unique look and created a little niche for themselves in the world of basketball cards.

#TBT Throwback Thursday - Charlotte Hornets Edition #2

Continuing with the theme I started last week, this week's Throwback Thursday features 1990-1991 Fleer.

By the time the start of the 1990 season rolled around, my personal interest in the team really started to increase. Part of this was the play on the court continuing to slowly improve, but I also attribute some my interest due to the fact that I got to attend many games. My dad ended up splitting two season tickets with a couple from our church. My older brother was never interested in sports much so that left the door wide open for my dad and I to hit up the Hive and catch several games for several seasons to come.

    

My dad was a UNC Tarheels fan...so I had ended up a NC State fan. It made for some fun times growing up. Needless to say my dad was excited when the Hornets drafted JR Reid out of the University of North Carolina. I don't remember JR lighting it up very often, but he was a crowd favorite for many seasons here in Charlotte.