I am finally finished!!!

I have spent countless hours over the past couple months building a Giants wantlist into my blog.  As of Sunday, it was finally finished.  You can link into the different types of cards on my tool bar above.

I thought I would share the origin and evolution of my want list and go a little into my collecting preferences.

Origin
For several years I have subscribed to Beckett's online price guide.  Originally it was primarily to get book values for cards.  Most of my trading was on Forum sites and everything there is based on BV.  I realized after a little while, it was also a great tool for building checklists.  When I decided in 2010 to expand my Giants collection to seeking out pretty much every card ever made, I started doing Beckett searches to get a list of all the Giants cards.  It seemed to me doing it by year would be the best way to keep my list.

I created a spreadsheet with each year getting its own Sheet.  I copied over the card description which includes the year, set, card number and player; the print run and the book value.  Each of the 3 get their own column.  I also allowed for a column at the beginning and decided to play an "X" one I had the card.  I sort it alphabetically by column "B".  Here is a screen shot of what my list looks like:

This shows the "X", serial numbering, the layout, book values, etc.  As you can see on the left, each year has its own worksheet.  This is pretty easy to create, I just do a copy and paste from Beckett online into Numbers, do a tiny bit of formatting and bingo, I have a checklist.  I have decided to have a separate spreadsheet for the current year and just do 1 sheet per card release then merge it at year end.  Seems easier that inserting rows each time a new set is released.

Evolution
So I was armed with this checklist when I started the blog but struggled trying to figure out how it could translate onto the blog.  I quickly found out how generous fellow bloggers are and was getting tons of Giants in trades but quickly I had accumulated 3 or 4 800 count boxes of extras and with no other Giants bloggers knocking down my door to trade, I was looking for a way to add the right Giants cards to my collection.

I started copying my needed cards onto a Pages document and organizing them by brand.  That ended up stalling as I had too many lists and it was taking way too long to sort and organize.  I realized I need to add some page links to the blog with lists of needs and ultimately settled on the version you see today:

1. Set Want List - these are the cards I need for the base and insert sets I am working on
2. Giants 2012 Want List - I thought this year's releases deserved their own page, this is most of what is getting cracked right now
3. Giants Base Want List - This is all the base cards from all the standard card releases since Bowman started in 1948
4. Giants Parallel Want List - This is all the colored, glossy, mini, Canadian, refractor, etc. parallels to base sets and insert sets.  By my tabulation this started with the Venezuelan cards in the late 50s (although the numbering wasn't always the same).  I made the executive decision that OPC cards would fall under my Base Want List - don't know the logic but don't care, it is my want list :-)
5. Giants Inserts and Small Sets Want List - This is where things get a little squirrely, I did my best to pick out the inserts from each set.  When you look at sets like Bowman this can get a little difficult to decide between a base set, insert set and parallel set.  The Small Sets are typically those Fleer Exciting Stars or Topps Glossy Send In sets.
6. Giants Oddball Want List - These are cards from what I deemed the non-major card companies.  We get everything from Post to Kellogg's to Pespi to Jay's Publishing here. 

I decided to remove all relic cards, auto cards and tried to remove any 1/1 card.  I have noticed that relics aren't changing hands too often in my recent trades plus I wanted to get my list down in size someone.  I do collect relic and autos, I have over 100 Giants Autos and approaching 200 Giants Relics in my collection not counting my McCovey collection, but since they aren't as common in trades as the rest, I decided to limit my list.  With regards to the 1/1 cards, I figure if you have one, you obviously know I don't and it would fit into my collection.  Odds are, unless it is a McCovey card, I won't be willing and/or able to part with enough to trade for it.

Collecting Preference
I love adding any new Giants card to my collection.  I thought it would be fun to try and rank the order of my enjoyment based on card type.

1. McCovey card - any time I can add a new McCovey card, it puts a smile on my face.  Check out this die cut Topps Giveaway I recently picked up on the cheap on eBay.

2. Vintage - I love adding Vintage cards to my collection.  Here is a recent 1963 Topps card I added of Jack Fisher from a Sportlots auction.  For some reason 1963 cards have been some of the toughest for me to track down.

3. Relics/Auto - I lump these two together as "hits".  They typically cost more that other more recent cards and I enjoy adding them to my collection.  Here is a Lincecum relic card I recently picked up in a trade with Curtis over at Condition Sensitive.  He sent this awesome mini GU along with some other Giants needs in a trade.  The trade will get its own post soon but thought this would be a great forum to show off this card. 

4. Recent Base cards - Next on my list is base cards.  To me there is little better than completing a team set of cards.  These came to me from Marcus over at all the way to the backstop and shows off a few 2012 release and some 1990s awesomeness.  Again, this trade will get its own post but a perfect group of cards to demonstrate my excitement for base cards. 

5. Oddball cards - I really enjoy picking up oddball cards, sets that aren't mainstream. I recently picked up these Post cards from 1962 and 1963 from the same seller on a Sportlots auction. They came pretty cheap and are great oddballs to add to the collection.

6. Inserts and Small set cards - I also enjoy picking up insert cards of my favorite team. Here are some recent inserts I picked up, from a seller on Sportlots bundled together with the last 4 Golden Greats inserts I need to complete my 2012 Topps Series 1 set.  Although they are all recent releases I got a nice mix of a Cy Young Winner, perhaps the best player to ever play the game and the worst contract ever given to a player (although so far so good this year!).

7. Parallels - Finally, bringing up the rear are parallel cards.  Don't get me wrong, any new Giants cards are welcome into the collection.  Some parallels like the McCovey Gypsy Queen minis or Topps Chrome Refractors do generate quite a bit of excitement but overall the parallel thing is just getting overdone.  Here is a Walmart blue bordered Buster Posey, a nice pickup from a Sportlots auction.

Well there you have it. My celebration post for completing my blog want list.  If you made it this far you have to have some Giants for trade to knock items off the want list.  Let's trade!

Next up, I need to figure out a method to posting trade bait, I have tons of cards to exchange for Giants.