Self-Diagnosed ADCD

Attention deficit collection disorder. It's a serious, yet often undiagnosed condition that afflicts dozens of card collectors each year. I'm here to shed some light on the topic today. My hope is to raise awareness and show just how ADCD affects the life and hobby of a collector, as well as show people they are not alone.

Imagine a collection that looks organized at first glance. There is a certain theme to the collection and a focus for the collector. But a closer examination reveals not one focus, not two, or even three but ten collections within the collection. Not only that, but projects abound, sitting in various stages of completion. When new cards come in, the number of binders and boxes that must be taken off shelves and opened to put them away is staggering. Moreover, as if there weren't enough themes and side projects going on, the collector is constantly thinking of new directions to take the collection. Who won MVP of their conference in college? I should document that in cards. Who shares a birthday with my mother? I should seek out those players. Who once ate at McDonald's and kicked a game-winning field goal in the same month? That would be a cool collection to have. So it is for a collector with ADCD. No, they don't necessarily hoard any random card to come their way. There is a reason for all the cards they obtain. But their collecting attention is being pulled toward so many projects that none of them move rapidly toward completion.

My most recent COMC order is a prime example of too many collecting themes happening. I noticed this when I was sitting at the desk in my card room. I would take down a binder or a box, put two cards in it, stand up, grab another box, put two cards in it, stand up--and it went on like this. I appreciated all the cards I got. I was happy to add them. But I couldn't help but notice that they were finding final resting places all over. 

 

I picked up three new cards of the only player that I'm trying to get every  card made, Brad Sorensen. I pulled my SUU binder (90% Sorensen) off the shelf, put these three cards in, stood up, and pulled my BYU binder down.

And, okay, I spent a little time in this binder.  This was a fun COMC order because I specifically searched for players who had spent time with a stretch Y on their helmets and had cards listed in the Trading Card Database, but I had never seen any. I found a pair of CFL cards of offensive lineman Ryker Mathews, a pair of XFL tackle De'Ondre Wesley (who I never expected to go pro, by the way. He drove me crazy with his penalties in college), and even a high school All-American card of receiver Ross Apo. Apo was a big-time recruit who never panned out for the Cougs. I also picked up some nice inserts of All-Pro linebacker Fred Warner and Brad's little brother, Daniel Sorensen.

There were more BYU cards to go. All of these cards minus the Red Refractor Poppinga and the Press Pass Collie base are serial-numbered.

Steve Young in the top left, Ty Detmer in the middle, and Margin Hooks on the bottom are all serial-numbered, too. Here we see two more players that were utterly unrepresented in my collection before. Once again, they are coming from pro leagues outside the NFL. The USFL and CFL bring us receiver Neil Balholm and safety Aaron Wagner.

I found some fun BYU hits on COMC, too. Doak Walker winner Luke Staley had his school single-season rushing record broken by Tyler Allgeier this year, but I added an auto and a jersey relic still. This is my first auto of quarterback Tanner Mangum and DB Troy Warner. Troy is Fred's little brother. He signed as an undrafted free agent by the Rams, but didn't make the roster.

Of course, no 2021 BYU purchase would be complete without Zach Wilson. This is a trio of pink parallels from the 16(!) base cards of ZW in Chronicles Draft.

So I stayed for a while in the BYU binder. But then I pulled out another binder:

 

my Rookie of the Year binder. I was excited to add these three oddballs of Don Schwall, Jim Lefebvre, and Albie Pearson, respectively.

 

I spent a good portion of my COMC shopping trying to fill in my Rookie of the Year collection with some older cards of yesterday's rookies.

Some more. (I don't know how Lefebvre ended up so crooked on the scanner.)

And some more.

And these ones, too. This was a fun part of the purchase, for sure. But now it's on to the next part of my collection: set builds.

This Saquon Barkley already appeared on the blog in my completed set post. Courtney Upshaw and Harrison Smith take my wantlist to just 2 for 2012 Rookies and Stars: rookie cards of Alfred Morris and Bobby Wagner. And there is a fair amount of black and white in this scan.

I knocked off some baseball set needs, too. This scan is similar to the football in that a) Clayton Kershaw already appeared on the blog for polishing off the set, and b) Kris Bryant and Fergie Jenkins take me to 2 remaining cards in their sets.

I thought these cards killed my 2008 Upper Deck X Xponential2 needs. That's what TCDB says. But when I put these in the binder pages, I found about 10 missing cards. I don't typically just add cards to my TCDB collection without owning them. So, did I ever even have them? If so, what did I do with them? Those page slots are still open.

So those are some major focal points of my collection. Of course, I have a few special projects that I can't leave alone, either.

Like a refractor Frankenset. This one is almost done; just two more to go! Basketball cards make a rare appearance on Bump and Run cards here. These cards required another stand-up-and-get-a-different-binder move.

And then a different box for my NFL All-Time Team collection. I haven't put a ton of emphasis on that one yet, but these are a couple of nice pickups from 1975 Fleer Patches Immortal Roll.

And there are several other projects I didn't even touch in this order. My collection is super-organized (to me--don't ask me to explain it to somebody else), but there is so much going on that putting cards away after receiving, scanning, and cataloging them requires stretching. So many different projects! I haven't set hobby goals for the past couple of years, but maybe this year I will set a goal to focus on one project at a time, just for the sake of my sanity. And maybe if I focus on one at a time, I'll actually finish some off. But by then, I know I will have thought of more side hobby side projects.

No Clever Title. Just a Bunch of Trades.

After Christmas, but before I went back to school, I spent some of my break creating a whole bunch of trade proposals on TCDB. As a result, I've already completed eight trades through TCDB in 2022. For the past couple of years, I've made sure that every single trade I made through the database included at least one card for a set I was chasing. So far, I've dropped that requirement for myself, but I've found that TCDB is the best way for me to complete sets, so I try to make those wants the focal point whenever I can. It seems like all of my trades this month have hit a few different collections wants. This is pretty much just going to be a "Look what I got" post.

The first trade of the New Year came from jlcre2003.

Carlos Rodon is the last no-hitter commemorating checklist from Update that I needed to complete that subset.

Next is 860502.

These are all players from the All-2000s NFL team. Linemen and specialists are hard to come by on cardboard these days. Topps Total has helped me with guys like Olin Kreutz, Kevin Williams, Kevin Mawae, and Brian Moorman.

Some baseball wants, including BYU and ROY players.

Some football BYU guys. Love the hair on Jimmy McMahon, there.

And a couple of college uni Heisman winners with my favorite Packer PC.

DukeyDevil and I completed a good-sized trade.

 

This scan is all the Rookie of the Year cards I got from him. Tommie Agee with the Dodgers and Eric Karros with the A's help me on my quest to obtain a card from each team ROYs played with.

 

All-Star collection needs. Besides Posada, did anyone remember that these players were once All-Stars (even multiple times)?

All 1980s. The bottom Fleer Action card shows Dave Butz in the center. He doesn't even have a full page (18 cards) of individual cards made of him, so I have to find these team cards that feature him.

Then we'll move on to All 90s, 00s, and 10s.

A good selection of BYU alumni.

And finally some Packers from DukeyDevil.

SFCTemple also traded with me.

You can see a good mix of cards from him. Next up is a trade with Trinitydawg22. 

Some BYU players from Trinitydawg22. It's interesting to me to see Chad Lewis and Itula Mili together. They both played tight end on the same team and Lewis had trouble breaking into the starting lineup until 1997, after Mili graduated the year before. Yet Lewis turned out to have the better NFL career. But we can agree that the Cougs were strong at the tight end position in that era.

Another Jordy Nelson base card I didn't have and a couple of college-clad Heisman winners to go along with a defensive lineman who is always welcome.

And some cards that actually help me with set builds!

All of the above traders I have traded with before. There are also a couple of TCDB users that I traded with for the first time this month: Bob Warnell and CH34. These were both smaller trades.

Some of you may have noticed that the Contenders Staubach and Prizm Fred Warner appear twice in this post. If you did notice, congratulations! You obviously pay more attention to the detail than I do. The danger of working on so many trades at a time is that some cards may be involved in more than one transaction. So if you would like to provide a home for a duplicate Roger the Dodger or Fred Warner, let me know . . .

One last item of note: I've made an unofficial goal to conserve the space in my card room by sending out more cards in trade than I get in return. Plus, it doesn't hurt to offer a few more cards than I ask for if I want to get trade proposals accepted. The net return for these first few trades of 2022 is -38. It's not much, but some space in the trader boxes was created, and that's a good thing.

And before I forget: I picked the Packers to beat the Titans in the Super Bowl. If that happens I win some cards from Cynical Buddha at the Collector's Crack blog. You can enter his contest, too, by clicking here. You need to enter before NFL playoff games start tomorrow, though (4 pm EST). So hurry over and check out his contest!

Sportlots Box #9

I had no idea that I ordered that much from Sportlots. When I was tracking my most recent Sportlots box order, I noticed that this was the ninth one since 2019, for an average of three boxes per year from 2019-2021. I also noticed that the total amount spent was typically within $5 every time and that there were certain months I ordered. I guess I'm more of a creature of habit than I realized. I've since started work on another box, but let's take a look at what was surprisingly the ninth time I ordered using Sportlots' box method.

I know most blog readers will be most interested in this scan, so we'll start there. I picked up a few vintage cards for my All-Star project and Frankenset. As of right now, I have at least one card of 1089 players who received All-Star honors in their careers. There have been 1909 All-Stars since the game debuted in 1933. My favorite card here is the dusty 1974 Bobby Grich, followed by Freddie Patek in front of the netting.

 

Maybe I lied. Maybe what everybody's favorite would be these TCMA cards of All-Stars and Rookies of the Year. Clockwise from the top left: Steve Stone, Larry Jackson, Roy Sievers, Albie Pearson, and Frank Howard.

 

A trio of 1968 Topps Game Cards will close out the vintage baseball portion of this order. These are all cool cards and in pretty good condition, too.

 

 

Some more various player names to add to my All-Star project. 

Most of the time, when I go to Sportlots, it's to find some cards to help toward a set build. I'm now down to just two more cards to finish this 100 Years of Wrigley Field set from 2016 Topps.

Switching from the diamond to the gridiron, I'm also down to just seven with my 1998 Fleer Tradition set. Despite a loaded rookie class, my final cards aren't rookies. Peyton Manning, Randy Moss, and Charles Woodson are in-hand. Just seven commons left to track down.

 

The lone Paul Perkins at the top finishes my 2016 Panini set build--one that took way too long to complete. The bottom four bring me to 32/42 of 2017 Prestige Phenomenal Athletes. This set is surprisingly hard to complete for some reason I don't understand. Some of the cards in the set are selling for far more than they should and there are a couple I've yet to see for sale. I'm struggling too much to knock off an insert set that fell about 1 in 3 or 4 packs.

In a move that is kind of a set build, I spent some time on Sportlots looking for shiny cards to go in my Refractor Frankenset. This has been a ton of fun to build and I'm getting close to completing it. It will be a fun blogging series to go through the Refractor Frankenset page by page.

When the NFL announced its 2010s All-Decade Team, I didn't know what to do at first. I've been collecting players from previous All-Decade Teams, but it was more for nostalgic reasons. Being older than almost everybody on the latest decade squad, the appeal to add all of them to my PC wasn't there. I settled on creating a page for each player like I have been with the other teams but only using rookie cards and non-base in the binder. It hasn't been too much of a project, though, considering all I had to do for many of these guys was to raid my trade boxes. There are still some blank spots that need to be filled, though. All of these cards go in that binder. 

We'll wrap up my 9th Sportlots box with a trio of cards from my favorite teams, both pro and college. Sportlots box #10 is already being filled.