I am one card closer to completing my 2013 Topps Chrome Marhawn Lynch rainbow. Beastmode returned to Seattle and like a Festivus miracle, this red parallel #/25 card shows up in my saved search on eBay. I clicked the BIN button quicker than Santa sliding down the chimney. I overpaid for this card, but in the 3 years I have been working on this rainbow I have seen the red parallel show up twice and both times is was part of a complete rainbow for sale. I didn’t want to miss out. I am down to just needing the gold parallel.

Last year I supported the 2018 Krampus set by Attic Card on Kickstarter, this year they did a smaller set and was only a 31-day support period and I supported them again and I just received the cards. I was a little bummed because I didn’t have anything to post on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day like I have in the past. I didn’t have anything with a holiday vibe until I got my 2019 Krampus Part 2 pack.

If you aren’t up on your European folklore, Krampus is punisher of bad children. He travels around punishing bad children by some severe measures like spanking, chaining them up, eating them or tossing them in a sack. In some tales he travels with good ole Saint Nick during the Feast of St. Nicholas. Unlike Santa and his cold milk, Krampus is offered Schnapps so he has that going for him.

I will start with the 9 base cards and tomorrow you will get to see the goodies. 

I picked up an early Christmas present for myself when Parkside Cards had a sale where all their products were 50% off for 48 hours a little over a week ago. If you haven’t heard of them, they are a small card company out of California, but they have already picked up both the MLL (Major League Lacrosse), which Upper Deck had at one point, and the Big3 licenses.

I love the Big3 so when I found out I was excited and was going back and forth on buying a box, but when they had their sale, I ended up purchasing 2 boxes hoping to put together the set. After all the packs were ripped, I was 1 card short in the base set; #87 Qyntel Woods. The Big3 cards are showing up on COMC already so I will be able to pick up the missing card soon. 

I ended up 1 card short on the base set but got cards from 9 of the 10 inserts as well as 2 relics. The cards I wanted mostly were anything connected to Gary Payton, who is the coach of the 3 Headed Monsters, and Rashard Lewis, captain of the 3 Headed Monsters. In case you are wondering, the 3 Headed Monsters are my favorite team and I would be lying if I told you it wasn’t because of the Sonics connection.

My favorite inserts are the Nicknames and Simplicity. During some of the games players will wear nicknames jerseys, so Rashard Lewis’ jersey says “Sweet Lew” Glen Davis is “Big Baby” and so forth. I didn’t pull the Rashard Lewis Nickname card, so that goes on the Wants List.

Simplicity is self-explanatory, I just dig the cards. They are all line drawings with the player’s first name on various background colors. Again, I didn't pull Rashard Lewis.

I pulled a relic in each box, Reggie Evans and Will McDonald. The Evans card is among the top patches that I have ever pulled. So a really cool patch from a player on my favorite team, this was a winner.

Today is question day:

Have you ever ended a player/team collection?

The only collection that I don’t have an end point in mind would be my Griffey collection. My other PC collections (Jay Buhner, Edgar Martinez, Steve Largent, Allen Iverson, Gary Payton, Ryan Bader and Sue Bird) I have a list of wants and when I complete those lists I am done with that collection baring any cool new releases.

There have been a couple of athletes over the years that I stopped collecting, like Dan Majerle, Shaun Alexander and Keith Tkachuk. Not for any real reason, just lost interest.

Another former Mountain View Toro that I picked up during last year's COMC’s Black Friday sale, Todd Shell.

Todd spent 4 seasons with the San Francisco 49ers but because he was a linebacker, he didn’t appear in any major releases, so this 1986 McDonald’s Play & Win game card was my only option as far as I know. Mountain View opened in 1976 but because of the high school rules at the time a new school had to play two years of a non-varsity schedule before being playoff eligible, well Todd was on the 1978 team that went undefeated and won the Arizona AAA State Title the first year the team was eligible. He played college ball at BYU before being drafted by the 49ers in 1984 and was part of the Super Bowl XIX winning team.

This is another personal connection, as a football powerhouse team in Arizona we trained year-round and during the summer of 1989 Todd was my linebackers’ coach, so I worked one on one with him often.

Last February I picked up a 1988 Donruss New York Yankees Team Collection booklet that had an early Buhner card. I decided to leave the pages intact instead of cutting out the Buhner card and figured I would chase down a card that had already been cut out. Even though the cards in the guide are the exact cards that were packed out in 1988 Donruss packs people were selling the one from the Team Collection booklet for more. I ended up finding a damaged sheet on COMC that had the Buhner card, so I picked it up. The damage was along the bottom of the sheet, so the bottom row of Roberto Kelly, Rafael Santana and Steve Shields had a huge crease running along it but Buhner was in the top row, so all is good.