Welcome to my new blog! Just as the title suggests, here we will attempt to open at least one pack of baseball cards per day. We will be building base sets, chasing inserts and autographs, building my personal collection, and talking about which cards are awesome looking, and which ones are not. When we can’t open packs, we’ll have #MailDay updates on eBay purchases and listings, hopefully some YouTube videos of pack rips, and general discussion around baseball (and sports) in general. And some other things thrown in too.

Some general things about me:

I grew up in Western Colorado, but claim Denver as home. The Rockies are my favorite team by far, but I also rooted for the California Angels as a kid. That has carried over to the Los Angeles Angels of today.
I spent all my allowance every week as a kid on junk wax, and amassed a lot of it. I didn't want anything else. I still have those cards, and all the sets that were built in those formative years.
Like most collectors, I stopped buying cards when I got to high school in the early 90’s. I think 1991 was my last completed base set. After I got my first real job in 1999, I bought a lot of Topps when they had the special subset of Sosa and McGwire’s Home Run cards. This was also when eBay first started. I managed to complete the 66 Sosa’s at around $8.00 a card, but $20.00 for McGwire’s was just too much. I also got accused of mail fraud by a buyer on a $20.00 J.D. Drew insert card and walked away from the platform. After that I was done again.
In 2017, I moved to Austria with my wife and two daughters for work purposes. They don’t sell baseball cards in Europe. I resolved with myself that I would begin collecting again when I got back to the U.S.
That happened in July, 2019. I bought my first couple of packs as soon as we were settled. The rest of my collection arrived fresh off the boat two months later, after successfully crossing the Atlantic for the second time.
My other hobby is photography (with my to be updated website at: www.focustheframe.com).
My personal collection of players will be documented here. I will be scanning the cards I have in the coming days and weeks. For now, I collect Kirby Puckett, Nolan Ryan, Todd Helton, Mike Trout, and Nolan Arenado, but I am always on the lookout for other guys.
My goal is to have complete base sets dating back to 1976 - my birth year.
I am open to trading cards with fellow enthusiasts, and can be found on Twitter at @focustheframe. I seem to have finally found my Twitter niche amongst other hobbyists. Let me know who you’re after and I’ll have a look.

I am looking forward to rejoining this delightful hobby, and sharing my experience and collection with all of you. Let me know what you think in the comments below, or hit me up on Twitter. Talk to you soon.

JDM

04 December 2019