Happy New Year! My 2015 Reflections

I like making goals and keeping lists.  For the last few years I have made a list of collecting goals and then kept track of my progress throughout the year.  In this post I will finalize my progress on these goals and give myself a grade in each.  Last year I set 14 different goals and a majority focused on base cards - in fact I named my year The Year of the Base Card.  Overall I think I did pretty well both adding cards to my collection and appreciating the beauty of the base card. 

Here are those 14 goals along with my self-assessment and grade:

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

I have finished base sets for the following 2015 products: Bowman (including Bowman Prospects and Bowman Chrome Prospects), Bowman Chrome, Diamond Kings, Donruss, Elite, Finest, Immaculate Collection, Panini Father’s Day, Panini Prizm, Topps Series 1, Topps Series 2, Allen & Ginter, Archives, Topps Chrome, Gypsy Queen, Heritage, Heritage ’51 Collection, Heritage High Number, Topps Limited, Topps Mini, Opening Day, Topps Stickers, and Tribute

I need to finish these 2015 team sets: Bowman Chrome Draft (8), Bowman Chrome Prospects (6), Bowman Draft (8), Bowman’s Best (2), Leaf Heroes of Baseball (1), Panini Cooperstown (6), Stadium Club (1), Chipz (4), High Tek (3), Museum Collection (1), Triple Threads (1), and Topps Update (2).

I have some work to do on this goal, still needing 43 cards.  This isn’t one that I expect to finish by year end as a few of these products were recent releases.  The closing of my favorite LCS hurts this a bit as now I will need to seek out singles on Sportlots and spend extra for shipping.  Even though this wasn’t fully accomplished, I feel good about my results to date.

Grade B

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 changed my tracking of my cards so I don’t have a way to quantify my numbers over the past couple months.  At Halloween, I was over 1200 and I have added 100-200 more since then so this goal was met and exceeded.

Grade A+

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 done well on this goal. 

For my baseball player collections, I picked up a few McCoveys but the fact is that I just don’t need too many of his cards that don’t cost a ton.  I refocused on Rickey this year and added a pretty hefty stack of his cards.  Vida didn’t have any 2015 cards released but I did pick up a few needs.   I did much better on Reggie than Winfield but did add cards from both.  My Petrick and Chili collections have really grown with both exceeding 50% of their total cards (Petrick 198/307  - 64.5% and Chili 61.4% - 371/604). I added a few Dave Parker cards as well.

On the football front, I picked up a couple Roger Craigs and Dwight Clarks.  My Ronnie Lott collection gained a few really nice cards in my Black Friday COMC purchase that I haven’t had a chance to show yet.

In basketball, I added a bunch of Webber, Barkley and Ewing cards over the last 2 months of the year in some Sportlots and Beckett.com purchase.  I am really happy with these purchases and this helped elevate my personal grade on this goal for 2015.

Grade A


 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

Mission accomplished - see post.

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

I am currently at 506/752 so I have added 166 cards and have just surpassed this goal.

Grade A

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

I am now at 540/787 meaning I only added 59 cards. Came up short here, those higher numbers are hard to track down on the cheap.

Grade D

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

Mission accomplished - post upcoming.

Grade A

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.

Grade C

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 4 T206 cards and counting.  Zippy Zappy broke the seal and entered me into the T206 Club and I have decided to try and add one more per month.

Grade A+

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

I currently have 98 different cards.  I came out of the gate strong on this goal and then slowed significantly as the year went on.  I think the 49ers terrible 2015 season has played into a lack of enthusiasm for football.  Regardless I got real close to the goal.

Grade B

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.

Grade B

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 have been looking recently for old NY Giants HOF auto and hope to add a couple in 2016.

Grade A
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.  I think this will be easier in 2016 as my LCS where I bought a majority of my boxes has closed.

Grade B

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? – Nope, on 173 posts in 2015.  
Did I hold a couple contests? – I held one and had ideas for a couple more that never materialized.
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 list of people that I need to put packages together for that are way over due.

Grade B-

Overall I feel I had a very successful year and my devotion to my hobby remains strong.  Hope all of you had a great collecting 2015 and I wish you great fun in 2016.

Happy New Year!