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Since set building isn't really a viable option anymore, this is where I've moved towards more and more, and I love it! It's allowed me to be more of a historian than a simple collector. I keep track of who I have on Excel, and who I'm missing with a page on Cardboard History. Most of them are easy to find. The ones who were regional only are the tough ones. If I had more money to spend on the hobby I could knock out at least a third of the missing NBA players in an hour...but I've determined that the medicine that keeps me alive is more important. 

NASCAR was easier to do, but then I hit a proverbial wall of cards I simply couldn't find even though they are base cards and shouldn't be rare. I think it may be the case that being base cards many people can't be bothered to list them. Before Panini got the license, I had the NASCAR list down to under 30 people, but Panini has done a good job with the sport and the list is climbing. Combined with my lack of available cash to spend ...I average about $25 a month on my hobbies...split between three sports, non-sports and other hobbies not related to trading cards...that's not too shabby. 

The NHL is going to be a bigger challenge and probably less likely to be completed. Consider that the NHL has been getting cards since the 1920s, two decades before the NBA and NASCAR were even founded, and have had a much better representation on cardboard, it seems daunting. I have not made the list of who is missing yet...there's still so many that every pack I open, every gift I receive, I usually get new people. For my birthday last week my mom gave me factory boxes of both 1990-91 and 1991-92 Upper Deck series 2 and some other cards...and I got 88 new people. I'm going to wait until I have a bigger collection before I even consider compiling that info. I will probably wait until I finish scanning all the NBA cards in my collection that need scans, likely sometime next year. I had already crossed the 75,000 mark for the NBA when I compilied who was missing..I have not even hit 8000 NHL cards yet and the NHL is already only about 800 people below the total number of people in my NBA collection, so I know it's going to be daunting.

How I get the info is quite labor intensive. I have to click on literally every name I'm not sure of on here, see if they actually got cards in the sport I'm collecting, and see if I have any. Basketball took me a week. Hockey will likely take much longer. I can't just use the list of names on here as a checklist, for example, back to the NBA, players who only got college cards don't count. WNBA don't count for the scope of this project, except the ones who got cards in USA basketball sets. The CBA cards of the 80s and early 90s don't count for the scope of the project, nor do the international players. I don't collect college cards but I do collect the others...just not counted as part of the scope of my NBA project. Likewise for auto racing...I collect Indy, drag etc. But they aren't relevant to my NASCAR names project. 

If you want to do the NBA...I can help you. I have literally thousands more cards available for trading than I have listed on here. Same with NASCAR. 

Spaz...I could probably knock out all of Hendrick Motorsports Cup drivers for you, minus Alex Bowman and possibly Tim Richmond and Rob Moroso, in one bubble mailer. Say the word and I'll do it. Not all may appear in Hendrick uniforms though. 

Good call Spaz.  Keep it fun.  I think that, subconsciously, I was actually looking for someone to talk me out of my idea.  I never honestly thought I could achieve one card of everyone.  It was more about having a way of knowing when I did actually add a new player to my collection.  My blaster box of Topps update had tons of rookies, and I figure most of them, I never had a card of before, but I don't know which ones.

I'm a Cardinals fan, Spaz.  Your comment means the Reds mascots succeeded. They covered the Cardinals shirt and hat logos with their hands in that picture, attempting to make me look like a Reds fan.  It apparently worked!

I guess it did. You should change that picture then!!!

I do have lots of Cardinals dups FT though. Just haven't listed most of them yet.

Maybe I will. I did get a picture with Fredbird this year.