Happy New Year - 2023!

How does one revive a dead blog? Make a bunch of empty resolutions that won’t be kept past January 5th? Promise to write every day even though you know the day job can be overwhelming, and leave little time at the end of the day because you’re exhausted?

Maybe the key is just to start with one word at a time. No real plan, other than to try and once again put yourself and your collection out there for all the world to see. Seems like a good enough place to start. It doesn’t have to be long. It just needs to…be. So with that in mind, let’s resurrect this thing. I’m paying for it after all.

I wanted to start with some very brief hobby goals for the month of January. I won’t bother with year long ones, simply because I’m not sure what they are at this point. I have not yet put the proverbial pen to paper if you will.

1. For the last 4-5 months or so, I have been working on completing 1981 Topps. This is part of my quest to work backwards to at least 1976. However in 2022, I picked up multiple vintage cards from sets prior to 1976, so I will definitely be going as far back as I’m able. In fact, I told a seller at the last card show I went to that I plan on going as far back as my wife will allow. For now, I will focus on completing the 81 set. Currently, it is at 559/726 cards (77%). By the end of January, I want to be up to 90% complete. This means I need to trade for, or purchase, 95 more cards. I should have 18 of these on the way through a TCDB trade, but the mail system has been decimated by recent bad weather. Hopefully they come on Tuesday.

2. At the previously mentioned recent card show, I purchased a starter lot of 1980 Topps so I could a jump start on that set. The box had 420 cards, labeled as being in EX-MT condition. I need to go through them, put them in order, and figure out which ones will meet my centering requirements. If I have more than 50% of the set when that is said and done, then it needs to go into a binder.

3. Space has become a little bit of an issue in my office/card room. I have cards everywhere. I made a lot of headway in 2022 by donating some unwanted commons to Goodwill. I have another box 2/3 of the way full. By the end of the month, I will drop it off, regardless of it is full or not. That way I can just get rid of it.

I don’t want to over burden myself. These tasks should be easily obtainable over the next 30 days. Let’s start small, and build some momentum. And take it from there.

JDM

2021 Hobby Goals

If 2020 was about experimenting with new product, then 2021 will be about focus and restraint. Last year before the pandemic took hold, I bought box after box of Gypsy Queen because I could. GQ wasn’t around when I was a kid, so it was something new. Looking back a year later, I’m wondering why I spent a couple hundred dollars going after a set that looks like it has the same basic concept year after year instead of evolving. I won’t be completing Gypsy Queen in 2021.

I did however, fall back in love with Stadium Club. At the end of my collecting as a kid and young adult, I really liked both Gold Label and Stadium Club. What I didn’t like was spending $3/pack, but whatever. Stadium Club was especially nice because of the photography. So instead of going after Gold Label, in 2020 I chose to buy boxes of Stadium Club. And I’m glad I did. It’s a beautiful set, and I was especially pleased with the image selection. Stadium Club will remain in 2021.

The other sets I’ll complete this year will be Flagship and Heritage. The ‘72 Topps design for Heritage are going to be solid, and I’m really looking forward to when I can get my hands on it. The decision to complete Chrome will depend on cost. I might take the cash required for boxes and just apply that to the autos, and work on the set through trades and Sportslots. But we’ll see, I’ve personally pulled a couple of really nice autos the last couple of years.

Anyway, let’s get to the goals:

1. Establish www.apackperday.com and get into a routine of publication - A carry over from last year. But I really want to make more of an effort to write about my love for the hobby on a more consistent basis. I wrote about it last night, but in the blogging world, Inconsistency leads to Irrelevancy. So if I want to become relevant, I need to become consistent. As always, the challenge is carving out time after family and the day job.

   Goal Difficulty Rating (GDR): Medium

2. Establish YouTube channel with pack rips, completions of sets, Mail Days, eBay sales - My kids still like the idea of us making videos together. I still want to do this, too. Finding the time and the dedication to film, edit, and post though. Wow. I don’t know how YouTubers manage it.

   GDR: Very Difficult

3. Take 1976 Topps up to 200 cards - At the end of 2020, my 1976 Topps box has 98 cards, meaning the set is 14.8% complete. The goal for this year will be to at least double that, to 200 cards, including the Eckersley RC.

   GDR: Easy

4. Complete remaining 1980’s Topps Base and put them in Binders - I want to complete my early 80’s Topps sets. As of today, this is where I’m at:

   • 1980 Topps - 15 / 726 cards (2.1%)

   • 1981 Topps - 15 / 726 cards (2.1%)

   • 1983 Topps - 62 / 726 cards (7.8%)

   • 1984 Topps - 628 / 792 cards (79.3%)

   • 1985 Topps - 671 / 792 cards (84.7%)

     GDR: Easy

5. Re-binder/Re-page all previously completed sets - We’ll give this another try. All it takes is funds. And time.

   GDR: Easy

6. Identify 35-40 cards for my various PC’s - I’m done going down the eBay rabbit hole to buy cards just to buy them. I want the cards I buy to have personal meaning. So I’m working on a list of 35-40 PC Cards that I want to look for throughout the year. The cards I purchase will span the four major sports, and so far looks to favor the Denver sports market. These are the guys I love (or loved) watching though. The list does include a 2011 Trout and the ‘84 Fleer Puckett, but this is what I’ll be working on when not trading for set cards.

   GDB: Medium

7. Get all cards sorted numerically and uploaded to TCDB - Time and dedicated effort. Trading with other collectors is one of the things I enjoy most about the hobby community. Especially helping other set builders. In order to do that most efficiently though, the cards need to be organized in numerical order so it doesn’t take an hour to find three cards in a stack of 1,000. And if I want to achieve more impactful trading on TCDB, then the cards actually have to be entered into my For Trade collection.

   GDB: Medium

8. Complete 150 trades on TCDB - I joined TCDB in March of 2020. Over the course of the preceding 10 months, I have completed 214 trades. At times it can be overwhelming, and when that day comes where I have to go back to onsite work, I might not be able to spend as much time proposing trades with other collectors. Cutting back just a little, to 150 completed trades over the course of the year should be a reasonable goal.

   GDB: Medium

9. Donate commons to Twitter Hashtag @Commonsforkids - I’ve got two medium flat rate boxes ready to go now. My hangup with this goal last year was not wanting to get rid of cards in my collection. That’s done. They take up too much space. I want the completed sets for the cards I have, but I DO NOT need the duplicates. The sets can be built over time. So as I go through and enter the cards in TCDB, if I have three or four of one card, they’re gone. At most I will keep one duplicate for trading. The rest need to find a new home.

   GDB: Easy

So there they are. Nine goals last year, nine goals this year. Being focused will help build a collection I can be proud of.

Did you put together Hobby goals for 2021? I would love to read them, so drop me a note below. Don’t forget to leave me a link to your want lists. Lets work out some trades! Later.

End of Year Review: 2020 Hobby Goals

At the beginning of the year, I set out nine hobby related goals intended to drive my reintroduction to the hobby of my youth. Some were easy to accomplish, and some I knew would be a stretch. Exactly what goals are supposed to be. At the sixth month mark, I did a mid-year assessment and put in an honest reflection of how I was doing. Now it’s time for the same year-end exercise so I can see where I succeeded and where I didn’t, before heading into 2021. So without further adieu, here we go (with mid-year included for transparency):

1. Establish www.apackperday.com and get into a routine of publication - I want to make this blog another stop on your content consumption when it comes to Hobby related reading.

   Mid-Year Assessment: Bwahahahahahahahahahaha!!! My, my that’s funny. If this was real, I’d be placed on some sort of Blogger Improvement Plan with bi-weekly check-ins with my manager and HR.

   Year-End Assessment: Eight total posts in the second half of the year doesn’t exactly make people want to come back for more. Inconsistency equals irrelevance. That’s how I’m going to have to look at it heading into 2021.

2. Establish YouTube channel with pack rips, completions of sets, Mail Days, eBay sales - Much like with the site as a whole, I am to integrate myself into the broader collecting community through YouTube.

   Mid-Year Assessment: STRIKE TWO!!!!

   Year-End Assessment: I bought a USB powered ring light and a small tripod for my phone. Does that count?

3. Buy/Obtain 100 cards from 1976 Topps - Begin hand collating the Topps set from the year of my birth, 1976.

   Mid-Year Assessment: Now we’re making some progress. I have managed to obtain 13 separate cards as of today. My favorite of which is #554, Catcher Ray Fosse of the Oakland A’s. What a beautiful action photograph. Especially for some time during the 1975 season. Film rules.

   Year-End Assessment: Finally a success! According to my TCDB collection for the ‘76T set, I managed to trade for, or purchase a total of 98 beautiful cards from the year I was born. The set is 14.8% of the way complete, with the cards sitting in their own 600 count box waiting on the day I acquire enough of them to put in a binder.

4. Complete 1988 Topps Base and put in a Binder - Self explanatory.

   Mid-Year Assessment: This goal was completed in March or April. It took awhile to find the last two cards in the condition I wanted them to be in, but Bill Buckner and Steve Sax did eventually find their way into their forever homes. Now for extra credit, I’m working on the 1988 Topps Glossy All-Stars. I only have one left. I have to make up for my failings in Goals 1 and 2.

   Year-End Assessment: After completing the Glossy All-Stars set, I moved back and finished off both ‘87T and ‘86T. The last card for the 1986 set was Ryne Sandberg. Do the two extra sets make up for the abject failure of Goals #1 and #2? I didn’t think so.

5. Re-binder/Re-page all previously completed sets - All the sets I completed as a kid have been entombed in cheap binders and whatever page brands I could afford. The pages are often of different sizes, so they don’t line up. I want to rebind everything in new consistent binders and Ultra-Pro pages.

   Mid-Year Assessment: I’m gonna give myself a pass here. With the Coronavirus currently running rampant throughout the World, the production of binders, pages, and top loaders came to a screeching halt. For a few months, they were unavailable. I’ll get back to this one later.

   Year-End Assessment: The binders and pages that have been purchased in the second half of the year were allocated to the mid-80’s Topps sets and working on personal player collections. This is something I still want to do however, and will look into it in 2021.

6. Buy one of 2011 Topps Update Mike Trout or 1984 Fleer Update Kirby Puckett - My two biggest bucket list cards.

   Mid-Year Assessment: This should still be possible. With Trout on a seemingly linear trajectory with regard to the card value, it might have to be the Puckett. But I’m okay with that.

   Year-End Assessment: The Trout card seems to have stabilized in the last few months, but I never could justify pulling the trigger since we had other priorities as a family. I bid on a couple of Pucketts in December but lost each time, and I want to make sure I don’t overpay on a Buy It Now. I tried on the Puckett, but it didn’t line up. One reason is that I want a PSA graded one, either a PSA 8 or 7. I remember reading about the number of fake Puckett ‘84 Fleer cards when I was a kid, and I’m sure there’s even more now. Getting a graded one is my way of making sure the one I buy is real. Problem is, there’s a lot of competition for PSA 7-8’s.

7. Sort and organize the 5000 count boxes - Look through and sort in some way the five 5,000 card boxes I carried with me all those years.

   Mid-Year Assessment: After I published the goals, I actually found two more of them. So there are actually seven. The boxes are fairly well sorted, organized by brand and year. Now though, I am taking it a step forward and putting all those boxes into my Collection on the Trading Card Database (Handle: @CSUBiochem). This way I can see what I have and use the duplicates to trade with other collectors. I have gotten rid of over half of my 2019 Topps Chrome duplicates in trades through this platform. It’s gold. So I need to put the rest in there.

   Year-End Assessment: This is done actually! All cards are sorted by year and brand, from 1982 to 2020. Cards of 1989 Upper Deck are no longer spread out in multiple boxes. Everything was painstakingly stacked on our kitchen table and completely sorted. Then I took out the ‘ol label maker and made divider cards for each set. Sets that I want to work on building and putting into binders were taken out of the 5,000 count boxes and put into a BCW card house. That makes it much easier to store the cards that come in through TCDB or Twitter.

8. Obtain 1% of Mike Trout All-Star Game 2019 Gold Cards (Serial #/2019) #US146 - By the end of the year, I want to own 21 of the 2019 Serially Numbered cards for Trout’s 2019 Topps Update #US146.

   Mid-Year Assessment: Yeah. I went for it with this one. I’m up to 29 of them with one more on the way.

   Year-End Assessment: Final tally: 34 of them. Actually had one more on the way, but the new seller didn’t put down all of my address on the envelope and it got returned to him. At least I got my money back for it. I still check for this card too. I can’t help it. But the ones that get posted are listed from $25-$35. They don’t come up very often either. It’s like there’s no inventory. Wonder why that is?

9. Donate commons to Twitter Hashtag @Commonsforkids - I was planning on getting rid of junk wax commons by sending them to a charity that gives baseball cards to kids.

   Mid-Year Assessment: I am on the fence on this one. I still might do this, but I have really enjoyed trading with people from around the country through TCDB. There might be a home for these cards yet.

   Year-End Assessment: On my last big box to sort, I was trying to unstick yet another bricked block of Collectors Choice. I finally asked myself why I was doing that? So I stopped. Out came the priority boxes and all those bricked cards are getting sent off soon. I’ll let the kids unstick them. To round out the boxes, I put in random handfuls of all the late 80’s / early 90’s junk I don’t need cluttering up my house. There’s two boxes, so probably around 5,000 cards total. But that’s just getting started. Once I see where I’m at with set builds on those cards, the dupes are gone.

   I posted on Twitter recently that 2019 was the year where I got back into collecting cards, and I bought literally everything I could get my hands on. 2020 started off the same way, but then the devastation of the Coronavirus wreaked havoc on Humanity (and the card industry!). I have found retail once since March, and that was for Topps Update at the end of November. 2020 instead morphed into an experiment to see other types of product. For example, instead of buying a crap ton of Gold Label, I completed the Gypsy Queen and Stadium Club sets. I’m also trying to get every insert of every set I started. The result is that I’m still spending too much coin on sets and individual cards where that money might be better served being spent elsewhere.

   I want 2021 to be a much more focused year. I’ve got a list of PC Cards that I want to look for first and foremost when I’m scrolling through eBay. I’ll also spread these throughout the course of the year. 2020 taught patience. I don’t need to receive 2-3 envelopes a day of random eBay purchases. I need to wait, and look for the right deal. I’m learning hobby lessons daily, and implementing them in how I manage the collection. And that, is considered a success!

   2021 is going to be a great year! So stay tuned, and stay safe!

   JDM

Mid-Year Review of Hobby Goals

Every June. Every June in the day job, we all get that email from our Managers or Supervisors. The one announcing that it’s time to evaluate yourself against the goals you set at the beginning of the year. Usually though, we don’t actually set our goals. We just mindlessly write down the corporate speak that is handed down from the C-Suite to the VP’s, then to the Directors and the Managers, until it finally comes to you, the worker bee that actually does all the work. We all dread evaluating ourselves, because we know no matter what we say, the work remains the same and we carry on.

So it’s basically mid-year. I haven’t touch the blog basically since I started it. In fact, my last post was my 2020 Hobby Goals. So what the hell? Might as well make my next post my self-inflicted Mid-Year Review (not required by HR!).

1. Establish www.apackperday.com and get into a routine of publication - I want to make this blog another stop on your content consumption when it comes to Hobby related reading.

   Mid-Year Assessment: Bwahahahahahahahahahaha!!! My, my that’s funny. If this was real, I’d be placed on some sort of Blogger Improvement Plan with bi-weekly check-ins with my manager and HR.

2. Establish YouTube channel with pack rips, completions of sets, Mail Days, eBay sales - Much like with the site as a whole, I am to integrate myself into the broader collecting community through YouTube.

   Mid-Year Assessment: STRIKE TWO!!!!

3. Buy/Obtain 100 cards from 1976 Topps - Begin hand collating the Topps set from the year of my birth 1976.

   Mid-Year Assessment: Now we’re making some progress. I have managed to obtain 13 separate cards as of today. My favorite of which is #554, Catcher Ray Fosse of the Oakland A’s. What a beautiful action photograph. Especially for some time during the 1975 season. Film rules.

4. Complete 1988 Topps Base and put in a Binder - Self explanatory.

Mid-Year Assessment: This goal was completed in March or April. It took awhile to find the last two cards in the condition I wanted them to be in, but Bill Buckner and Steve Sax did eventually find their way into their forever homes. Now for extra credit, I’m working on the 1988 Topps Glossy All-Stars. I only have one left. I have to make up for my failings in Goals 1 and 2.

5. Re-binder/Re-page all previously completed sets - All the sets I completed as a kid have been entombed in cheap binders and whatever page brands I could afford. The pages are often of different sizes, so they don’t line up. I want to rebind everything in new consistent binders and Ultra-Pro pages.

Mid-Year Assessment: I’m gonna give myself a pass here. With the Coronavirus currently running rampant throughout the World, the production of binders, pages, and top loaders came to a screeching halt. For a few months, they were unavailable. I’ll get back to this one later.

6.Buy one of 2011 Topps Update Mike Trout or 1984 Fleer Update Kirby Puckett - My two biggest bucket list cards.

Mid-Year Assessment: This should still be possible. With Trout on a seemingly linear trajectory with regard to the card value, it might have to be the Puckett. But I’m okay with that.

7. Sort and organize the 5000 count boxes - Look through and sort in some way the five 5,000 card boxes I carried with me all those years.

Mid-Year Assessment: After I published the goals, I actually found two more of them. So there are actually seven. The boxes are fairly well sorted, organized by brand and year. Now though, I am taking it a step forward and putting all those boxes into my Collection on the Trading Card Database (Handle: @CSUBiochem). This way I can see what I have and use the duplicates to trade with other collectors. I have gotten rid of over half of my 2019 Topps Chrome duplicates in trades through this platform. It’s gold. So I need to put the rest in there.

8. Obtain 1% of Mike Trout All-Star Game 2019 Gold Cards (Serial #/2019) #US146 - By the end of the year, I want to own 21 of the 2019 Serially Numbered cards for Trout’s 2019 Topps Update #US146.

Mid-Year Assessment: Yeah. I went for it with this one. I’m up to 29 of them with one more on the way.

9. Donate commons to Twitter Hashtag @Commonsforkids - I was planning on getting rid of junk wax commons by sending them to a charity that gives baseball cards to kids.

Mid-Year Assessment: I am on the fence on this one. I still might do this, but I have really enjoyed trading with people from around the country through TCDB. There might be a home for these cards yet.

So there you have it. My very own hobby Mid-Year Assessment. Am I on-track in the eyes of Management? Yes and no. But then again, I’m my own boss when it comes to cards. I can do what I want. We’ll see how far I get before the end of the year.

Thanks for reading! Stay Safe!

JDM