Hitting Some Collection Targets

I have never sat down and made out official collecting goals for myself. As the weeks of a year pass by, however, I find myself leaning into certain targets that become quasi-goals for me. Putting all of my for sale/trade cards on TCDB. Making sure that every trade or purchase I make includes at least one card for a set-build. Polishing off Set X. These are just a few unofficial goals I've noticed myself pushing toward in recent years. At the beginning of this year, I had no clear target for the year. But now we're a quarter into this year, I think I've discovered my latent collecting goal for 2022.

I have several main facets of my collection that I've approached as projects. For example, I collect NFL All-Decade Team players. I will always add cards of these players to my collection. Same with baseball All-Star MVPs and Rookies of the Year. Even though these collections will never be complete because I will always add them, there is a project component, as well. I want to have a full page (double-bagged, 18 cards) of each one of these players in a binder. The project side will be completed when my binder is full. Well, this year I noticed that I'm getting really close to finishing these binders. I need a pair of Walter Paytons, or one single Don Schwall, or a few Troy Polamalus to wrap up the page. My All-1990s football binder is done. I need fewer than 50 each for my 1980s, 2000s, Rookie of the Year, or All-Star MVPs to have full binders. Without even making the conscious decision, I started targeting the end of these projects this year.

 

My most recent Sportslot order helped me fill some gaps.
 

This trio of Hall of Fame cardboard goes toward the NFL All-1980s team. As it stands right now, I need two more Paytons and three more Lamberts to finish their respective pages.

Seven cards from a pair of All-2000s defenders helps out that project. Joey Porter is best remembered for his sack dance, and card companies apparently wanted to make sure of that.

My Heisman project is a little smaller, but the same thing applies. For modern winners (post-1975ish), I have almost what I need. These all brought me a little closer to completion.

Former BYU players have become the major focal point of my collecting over the last three years, but I have no projects here. Just accumulation. I didn't plan to pick up two parallel versions of each card here; it just turned out that way.

 

 Likewise, my goal to collect every unique Brad Sorensen I can find continues.

Last year I created a new project for myself, to collect at least one card of every player who was ever an MLB All-Star. I haven't really focused on this one, but it is really easy to knock off a few cards here or there, and I did so in this order.

Even though my goals are less about sets this year than in the past couple of years, that doesn't mean I'm not working on them. Last year I picked up a lot of 2010 Topps 206 and decided to finish the last cards needed for the set. This isn't my favorite set. The lack of headgear on most of the players feels odd to me, as does the apocalyptic horizon background for some of them. The strangest background here is Clayton Kershaw. Is that Downton Abbey or Pemberley behind him there?

The retired legends look more at home on this set than the modern players. The older the better.

Another set featuring art and legends that I'm building is the 2020 Diamond Kings All-Time Diamond Kings insert set. I'm not just six cards shy of this one.

In keeping with the legends theme, 1997 Upper Deck Legends is another set build I'm working on. After this order, I'm missing six from this set, too.

I'm hoping by year's end, I'll have every spot filled in at least two more of my collection binders. Right now, it looks like my MLB ROY and ASG MVP binders are the closest, but finishing the All-1980s NFL team would be nice, too. I've already unintentionally focused my attention on those binders, so I'll make it intentional now and chip away at it more.