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.

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.

A Few Random Sportlots Auctions

In a recent post, I checked out a Sportlots box for the first time and came away a pretty good sized "sportlot" of cards for my collection.  Around the same time, I decided to take a peek at a couple of auctions.  I don't usually look at the auctions on Sportlots, but this time around I found a few that caught my eye.  The titles were simple--things like "34 Stars Inserts Favre"--but they were on Day 3 with no bids, so I decided to check them out.  I saw a few cards I wanted in the photos and figured if I could win multiple auctions for cheap and get the combined shipping, it was worth a shot.  In the end, I won a trio of auctions for $.25 apiece, and with shipping, I had them for about $7 total.  I didn't know every card that would be in the lots, so I was taking a bit of a chance.  As it turns out, it was a pretty good chance to be taking.

This cool insert set came from 2008 Topps and Chrome.  It honors NFL players who also served active military duty.  With all three lots combined, I picked up two copies of this set, minus one card.  I've since remedied that incomplete set through COMC.  After my Black Friday shipping this year, I'll have my Roger Staubach in hand and a completed set in my binder.

The lots were all given titles that included, "inserts," "stars," and at least one player's name.  Most of the cards were stars, inserts, or rookies, which made me happy.  I was a bit scared that I'd get one or two inserts or stars, and the rest would be 1990 Pro Set or something.  Stars from the 90s were well-represented, mostly in shiny.

 The Nineties provided some interesting insert sets.  I remember how cool I thought the acetone Collector's Edge cards were when I was a kid, but Bobby Hebert is the first I've owned.  I also loved the Ultra Stars and anything Fleer Metal at the time, both modeled by Marshall Faulk here.

I don't know anybody who misses Classic, but I won't complain about parallels/inserts of a few Hall of Famers that I received.

Early 2000s inserts were a cool find. Since I bought no cards during this period, there are still many sets I've never seen before.  Not only were the cards themselves pretty cool, there are some pretty good names here.  Most of these guys aren't NFL legends, but they were higher-tier players in their time.

More late 90s/early 2000s inserts.  Marshall Faulk made quite a few appearances in the package.

There were some nice rookies in there.  The Playoff rookies on the bottom row aren't the greatest (or even good) players, but those are some cool transparent cards.

The inserts kept coming into the early 2010s.  These were the most recent cards in the package.  I like the inclusion of two underrated running backs in Lenny Moore and Lydell Mitchell, as well as Packer great Billy Howton.

 Some NFL legends came in 2008 shiny Chrome . . .

and some real 1980s cardboard.

There were two special occasion promos, from 2004 National Trading Card Day and the 1991 National Sports Collectible Convention.  Oh look, there's Marshall Faulk again.

Finally, there were a few additions to my BYU collection.  Playoff was a quality card company in the 90s, and I have liked Panini's reincarnation thus far this decade.

I took a chance on some lots, and though I couldn't fit it all in my collection, I did get some pretty good cards for about six cents a pop.  I really don't feel there was any filler junk in any of the lots.  So, if you're browsing around auctions on Sportlots, and you see a lot from AAAVINTA, I can vouch that it will be filled with some pretty good cards.

Trying a Sportlots Box

Not too long ago, I placed my first order through Sportlots with their new box shipping method.  In case Sportlots isn't your thing, or you just haven't been up on it, Sportlots has enabled sellers to offer box shipping.  This means sellers can ship all of their orders to a central Sportlots location, where all of your (the customer's) orders can be grouped together in one package and shipped to you all at once.  The idea is that sellers can offer shipping discounts if they can ship to one location, and the customer saves some money.  In practice, I'm not entirely sure that it saved me all that much money in the end.  I can attest that the per seller shipping cost was far less than it has been in the past.  However, the cost to get my box from Sportlots to me was over $10, and that may have negated the savings from the individual sellers.  Truthfully, I don't know.  I didn't pay enough attention to the numbers to say that for sure.  Next time I'll make that comparison.

The impetus for this purchase came from the temptation to pick up a box of 2013 Crown Royale football for cheap, in hopes of finding some Brad Sorensen parallels I needed.  In the end, my better judgment ruled as I realized that I wasn't interested in the rest of the set, so I would be better off just buying the singles I wanted.  The rest of the purchase was the result of me spending the money that I would have spent on the boxes I didn't really want on cards that I selected myself.

This is what the box looked like when it arrived.  The Sportlots people just took all of the individual packages from the sellers and put them in one medium flat rate box.  I was somewhat surprised, not expecting to see everything in its original packaging from the seller.  It's not a bad thing at all, just different from what I expected.

All of you baseball-only people will probably lose interest after this. This is the extent of the baseball buying I did in this order.  All of these are set needs.

Set needs on the football side came in this form.  You know, for a lower-end product like 2016 Panini was meant to be, I've really had a hard time tracking down some of the no-name rookies in the set at a price I am readily willing to pay.  Kenyan Drake was one of the better rookies of the class, and was cheaper than some of the other guys people had for sale.  The Unsung Heroes insert set from Absolute of the same year is one of my favorites and is now almost done.

Yes, I found some Packers I needed.  All of these are from a special Shopko set issued in 1997 following the Pack's Super Bowl victory.  I had heard of the set, but had never owned any of it.  Now I do.  I still always forget that Andre Rison was a part of that team.  I will never grow tired of Desmond Howard cards on the Packers.

As great as Brett Favre was for that team, my favorite Packer of the era was LeRoy Butler.  I'm not sure there has ever been a better blitzing defensive back.  One of these cards is evidence--Butler is sacking Trent Dilfer on his 1997 Stadium Club card.

Butler was a somewhat under-recognized member of the 1990s All-Decade Team.  Mostly because of their positions, these guys were too.  These cards are very 90s.  Skybox Thunder and Topps Gilt Edge (modeled here by Larry Allen and Mark Stepnoski) in particularare uniquely 90s.  I have to say, I don't understand why a set called "Gilt Edge" has some kind of tribal islander theme.  It makes no sense.  And what would the 90s be without an early Bowman's Best and some Pacific (Tony Boselli and Bryant Young)?

 A parallel universe!  Or at least some cards that are parallels.  Check out that mid-oughts Kansas City offensive line.  Priest Holmes and Larry Johnson may have been great running backs in their own right, but having these guys in front of them didn't hurt matters.

Inserts ranging from the mid-90s Stadium Club to last years Panini Unparalleled.  All of these players, with the exception of the Boz, go into my All-Decades collection.  Poor Bosworth.

The order wasn't all 90s love, though.  Here are some stars of the 80s on cards from the late 70s and early 80s.  Gotta love two HOF DBs on one leaders card here.

Progressing through the 80s here.  I may be biased here, but I love the 1989 Score John Anderson.  Anderson is a Packer great who is way underrepresented on cardboard.  The action shot on this card, of Anderson and Tim Harris swallowing up a Bills runner is awesome.

 

This lone 1980 card may seem important because it includes a picture of Walter Payton.  However, I wanted it for a different reason.  This happens to be the rookie card of one Len Walterscheid, the first Southern Utah State College player to go on to the NFL.  This makes this the first card of any one of my fellow alumni.  Walterscheid wasn't drafted, though.  The first draft pick didn't come until 2013.  Walterscheid's son, Justin, also played for SUU during the time I attended school.  Justin is currently the offensive coordinator at SUU, since 2015.

And, finally, stickers!  I don't actively pursue many stickers, but when I'm trying to round out my collection of 80s era safeties and linemen, they do a great job of filling slots on a page.  From top left: Dave Butz, Kenny Easley, Nolan Cromwell, Brian Hansen, Kenny Easley, Carl Banks, Dwight Stephenson, Dwight Stephenson, and Eric Dickerson.

Speaking of Eric Dickerson, I'll end with three inserts.  I'm pretty Jon will like the first one.  In fact, he may have already shown it on his blog recently.  Maybe?  It's a nice-looking set that I've enjoyed from his COMC purchases, and this is one of a few that I own as well.

In all, the Sportlots box turned out to be a better purchase for me than 2 boxes of Crown Royale.  And what about the Brad Sorensen cards that sparked the purchase?

Yeah, I found a few.

A Post That's Completely Out of Place

So here we are, in the middle of baseball season 2018.  My Cubs are coming alive and finding themselves neck and neck with those pesky upstart Brewers.  So I'm thinking that now is a good time to post a football set from 1999. 

One of my favorite things to buy on Sportlots is the complete sets that people post.  They usually go for pretty reasonable prices.  A while back, I picked up an almost complete set of 1999 Upper Deck HoloGrFx base set and 24/7 insert set.  It was missing just a few cards of each, and for the price, I thought I could easily add the missing cards and still pick up a very shiny set and its insert companion for a reasonable price.  I was 17 back when this set released, and my collecting days were coming to a close.  I didn't buy many cards at that time, but I do recall opening one single pack of this product.  I never would have dreamed I would own the complete set.

As I examined the cards, I noticed something about the players in the base set.  There were Hall of Fame players aplenty, but I divided them into two categories.  The first category was players who were nearing the end of their storied careers.  In fact, this is a sunset card for Barry Sanders.  Steve Young would retire at the end of 1999, and Marino and Aikman would both follow within the next two years.

It was a time of a changing of the guard of sorts.  Manning, Gonzalez, and Moss were still in their NFL infancy.  Owens was about to take over for Rice as San Francisco's go-to receiver.  Faulk was a star at this point, but this year marked his first year in St. Louis, when his game really reached another level. 

The 1999 rookie class was pretty good.  I remember there being a few big draft busts at quarterback, such as Tim Couch, Akili Smith, and Cade McNown.  Some QBs drafted later made up for the high-pick busts, though.  Shaun King and Aaron Brooks never became superstars, but they were solid quarterbacks.  Donovan McNabb and Daunte Culpepper were big-time quarterbacks, though McNabb far outlasted Culpepper.  A trio of rookies would go on to the All-Decade team for the 2000s: Edgerrin James, Torry Holt, and Champ Bailey.  But the star of the 1999 NFL Draft was Ricky Williams.  Saints coach Mike Ditka mortgaged his entire draft, trading eight picks to move up 7 spots and select the Heisman winner from Texas.  It didn't work; Ditka was fired after Williams' rookie season.

In addition to the base set, I received 75% of the NFL 24/7 insert set.  This set would really be great if the HoloGrFx base set wasn't so shiny to begin with.  Instead, it's hard to even spot the difference between the two.

I have since picked up the missing cards, so the 100-card base set and 15-card NFL 24/7 set are complete in my collection.  Every once in a while I'll put on my sunglasses and enjoy them in the binder.  But maybe not in the middle of baseball season.