State of the Set: 2017 Prestige Phenomenal Athletes

I feel that there are too many sets on my wantlist that have been sitting there for years while I slowly chip away at them. This year I noticed that a lot of those sets are well within striking distance this year, so I've tried to swing some trades for set needs while focusing my recent Sportlots purchase on sets as well. We'll see how many sets I can kill before the year is out.

For the past few years, I have written a post that summarizes my set completion quests for the year. I still plan to do that for 2020, but I also decided to give a progress report for sets that I'm actively acquiring cards for along the way. I thought this might be more interesting than writing one giant post that tries to tie all the different cards from a trade or a purchase together.

Let's have a look at an insert set I've been working on for a few years that a pair of trades have helped in the past couple of months.

Cards via TCDB trade with ARMYWP12

Why I'm collecting this set: In 2017, I decided to try building the 2017 Prestige set from jumbo packs alone. Each pack came with a few inserts. I took on the Phenomenal Athletes set for a few reasons. First, I got a good start on it from the jumbo packs. Second, they look pretty good. Third, I liked the checklist. There are some current and retired superstars in the set. And finally, it was an appealing size. An insert set with 42 cards was big enough to be a challenge but still attainable.

How long has it been on my wantlist (roughly)?: About 2 1/2 years now, since I started the Prestige set from its release.

Current state of set completion: 22/42 (53%)

Cards via TCDB trade with blains

Current needs: #2 (Marcus Mariota), #4 (Antonio Brown), #7 (Jalen Ramsey), #11 (Jim Brown), #13 (Gale Sayers), #15 (David Johnson), #18 (JJ Watt), #20 (Adrian Peterson), #21 (Bo Jackson), #22 (Tyrod Taylor), #23 (Vernon Davis), #24 (Jamaal Charles), #28 (Antonio Gates), #29 (Ezekiel Elliott), #30 (Jimmy Graham), #32 (Rob Gronkowski), #34 (Brandin Cooks), #36 (Cam Newton), #37 (Julius Peppers), #38 (Darrius Heyward-Bay)

Prognosis: Buying these cards on the secondary market has turned out to be more of a challenge than I thought. Not that they're hard to find, but I'm a bargain-hunting buyer and they are usually priced around $1 apiece, which is little more than I want to pay for inserts that sometimes came two in a jumbo pack. So it's slow going, picking them up here and there. I doubt I'll finish this one by year's end.