Happy Halloween and Some Goal Reflection

I have been hanging out for the last couple hours watching my USC Trojans take on the Cal Bears.  In between plays I was sorting some cards and cleaning up some emails and a thought crossed my mind.  With today being Halloween, I recognize there are but 2 months left in the year and less than 1 month until my favorite card shopping day of the year - Black Friday.  I enjoy scouring COMC for some set and player collection needs and looking at all the box deals on DACardWorld and Blowout.

My mind started wandering towards what I wanted to spend my Black Friday funds on.  From a box perspective, I think I will try to grab a couple boxes of the last couple Panini Cooperstown releases.  Prices are already under $100 and you get 2 HOF autos per box.  Maybe I can get lucky and get a cut or one of the HOFers I need for my set.  Plus it is really cool when every card out of a pack is of a HOFers.  I bought some 2013 Pinnacle a little while back and those boxes are already really cheap.  I almost have the base set complete and like several of the insert sets so I may buy a bunch of it - maybe even my first case of cards.

On the singles front, I was looking at my set want list and don't have a ton to track down.  I see myself going after the 2015 Donruss All-Time Diamond Kings and the 2014 Archives short prints.  I will probably look for the 2009 Finest letterman autos I need and then the vintage sets come into play. I decided to take a look at my 2015 goals and see what insight that gave me.

Here is a list of my goals at the beginning of the year with a quick update:

1.     Obtain all 2015 Giants base cards from all releases.

I have been keeping up fairly well, needing only 21 cards to finish this off with the current releases  The Cooperstown cards will be the hardest to track down, the rest shouldn’t be much of a challenge, just need to put my time and resources to them.

2015 Leaf Heroes of Baseball #60 Will Clark

2015 Panini Cooperstown #10 Bill Terry

2015 Panini Cooperstown #41 George Kelly

2015 Panini Cooperstown #59 Juan Marichal

2015 Panini Cooperstown #65 Mel Ott

2015 Panini Cooperstown #67 Monte Irvin

2015 Panini Cooperstown #70 Orlando Cepeda

2015 Stadium Club #72 Madison Bumgarner

2015 Topps Chipz #14 Madison Bumgarner

2015 Topps Chipz #67 Hunter Pence

2015 Topps Chipz #71 Buster Posey

2015 Topps Chipz #84 Pablo Sandoval

2015 Topps High Tek #HTBC Brandon Crawford B

2015 Topps High Tek #HTBP Buster Posey B

2015 Topps High Tek #HTJPK Joe Panik A

2015 Topps Museum Collection #10 Buster Posey

2015 Topps Opening Day #24 Tim Lincecum

2015 Topps Triple Threads #9 Madison Bumgarner

2015 Topps Update #US5 Ryan Vogelsong

2015 Topps Update #US271 Mike Leake

2015 Topps Update #US321 Chris Heston RC

2.     2. Acquire at least 800 Giants base cards from years past.  My want list has about 2800 going back to 1948.  I have no idea if this is a realistic target, I will try and knock as many off this list as I can but want to set some sort of goal.

I have done much better than expected on this goal.  My list is now down to 1588 needed base cards which means I added 1,212 Giants base cards well surpassing the 800 card goal.  This also doesn’t include the 2015 base cards I added.

3.Concentrate my player collections on obtaining all the base cards of these players.  Certain player like McCovey, Vida and Lott will still get the focus of all cards including base.

• Willie McCovey
• Rickey Henderson
• Vida Blue
• Reggie Jackson
• Dave Winfield
• Ben Petrick
• Dave Parker (as a Pirate)
• Chili Davis
• Ronnie Lott
• Roger Craig
• Dwight Clark
• Chris Webber
• Charles Barkley
• Patrick Ewing

I have started making a few base card only want lists and added them to the bottom of my posted want lists.  I am using Beckett.com so I doubt it will be 100% accurate but should help in my shopping excursions.

I have added cards from all of these players over the year.  My Ben Petrick and Chili Davis collections have really grown.  I feel pretty good about this goal.  The basketball guys could use some extra attention and I would like to get my Reggie Jackson and Dave Winfield collections updated with more of their recent releases.

 4. Finish my 1970 Topps set which will include:

• Paying off lay-away balance at old LCS for all but 17 off my want list
• Tracking down the final 17 cards that include: Reggie Jackson, Thurman Munson RC, Hank Aaron AS, Hank Aaron, Pete Rose, Willie Mays, Al Kaline, Johnny Bench and Nolan Ryan

I did it (post upcoming) !!!  My old Orange County LCS  and Mrhavercamp were huge helps in making this happen.

5. Knock 150 cards off 1971 Topps want list (currently at 340/752)

I am currently at 489/752 so I have added 149 cards, just short of my goal.  However I have 6 high numbers on the way so this goal was just accomplished.

6. Knock 100 cards off 1972 Topps want list (currently at 481/787)

I am now at 514/787 meaning I only added 33 cards. This looks like an area for some attention before year end if I want to accomplish my goal.

7. Complete 1956 Topps Presidents set (currently at 29/36 with 2 on the way)

I am down to needing 2 cards, #3 George Washington and #4 John Adams.  Time to buckle down and see if I can finish off this set.

8. Get all my base cards and inserts that aren’t part of sets or my player and team collections uploaded into Sportlots.  I just finished sorting and inputting about 5000 baseball cards that I have acquired since my move about 18 months ago and have a total of over 48,000 cards in the database.  I have tons of base cards from the early 80s to mid 2000s in a closet that I want to get input as well.  In addition to selling $20-$80/month in cards that I can turn around and use to buy new ones (almost like trading), Sportlots gives me a great database to locate the cards I have.  If you have needs by player or set, let me know and I can do a quick search.

This didn’t happen.  The closet cards never made it into the database although I did get most of my other cards into Sportlots including most of my 2015 duplicates.

9. Obtain at least 1 Giants card that will be the oldest in my collection.  I currently have 4 1933 Goudeys that are tied for my oldest card.

I now have 2 T206 cards and counting.  Thanks to Zippy Zappy for breaking the seal and entering me into the T206 Club!

10. Make significant progress on my 49ers Vintage set collection and have at least 100 different cards by year end.

I currently have 97 different cards.  I need to seek out a few more and make this goal one that I surpass.

11. Update USC Football checklist with releases from the past 3-5 years (they are hit and miss) and obtain 50% of all base cards from 2014 and 2015.

I did get my checklists updated.  I have also picked up a bunch of base cards but I haven’t tracked the percentage.  My suspicion is that I am at less than 50% but it isn’t worth my time to tabulate – it just isn’t that important to me.  I am glad my list is up to date and I will continue to add to this collection at a slow and steady pace.

12. My first non-base focused goal will be to add 6 certified autographs of players new to my Baseball HOF collection.

I met this goal just after the midpoint of the year.  I haven’t sought out any after that but will be looking for some deals in the near future.

13. Maintain set building discipline, try not to collect every set that comes out

I did okay here.  I am proud of my shift to buying some full sets that I wanted versus buying multiple boxes and singles.  I did this with Topps Archives, Topps Update and Stadium Club.  I stayed away from the Bowman releases Topps Gypsy Queen, Topps Heritage and Topps Chrome.  My only semi regret was buying 3 boxes of Allen & Ginter to build that set but part of that was driven by my first entry into Gintacuffs which I had fun with.

14. Have fun with the blog, post 200-250 times during the year, hold a couple contests, comment more on the posts of fellow bloggers, continue to trade and send some “just because” packages.

Did I have fun? – Yes, I made a mental shift and took out any stress I placed on myself to post daily

Did I post 200-250 times? – Not yet, I am at 163 posts YTD.   I typically don’t post more than once per day so I need to post about 2 out of every 3 days from now until year end to make this goal.

Did I hold a couple contests? – I held one so far and I am hoping to gear up for a second by year end.

More comments? – Maybe but I still should do more.  I really enjoy reading the blogs and I know how much a quick comment makes me feel like my post was read and appreciated.  I should do more.

Continue to trade? – I completed some trades but not a ton.

Just because packages? – Probably more than in the past but I would like to do more.  I have a stack of cards on my desk that I have been meaning to package up for a few bloggers.  Hopefully I can use some of my upcoming vacation time to send out some PWEs.

From a buying perspective, I think this reflection narrows my search down to the 2015 base cards, the 1972 Topps Set, the 1956 Topps President Set and maybe some 49er Vintage.

 Sorry for the lack of cards in the post.  I will leave you with the 1992 Ziploc set that I picked up in a Sportlots auction a long time ago.  No reason other than it has been sitting in my scanned folder for why to long.

 Happy Collecting!