Friday, June 23, 2017

Why I collect what I collect

I often don't get around to chiming in on Blog Bat Around type things. I meant to do the "best binder page" thing for Junior Junkie last year or so but never got around to it. Gcrl asked about a card you regret giving up. Nachos Grande asked about the toughest set you completed. And more recently there was the 30-Day Challenge that I still might crank out one of these days, but it's been slipping away from me so maybe not. Now there's P-town Tom's "why do you collect who you collect?" prompt and I think I'll hit on that one, though sort of in a half-assed way.

I've always been a player collector at heart, alphabetically filing cards of my favorite players together in little groups. I'm admittedly a "player collector slut" in that I like collecting lots of guys rather than focusing just on one guy or a small group of favorites. Often times all it takes for me to start collecting a guy is for him to be a good player. Sometimes pulling a nice card of a guy out of a pack is enough for me to start building a PC around it. Being a native San Diegan, Padres players are well represented in my PCs, though I definitely don't collect every Padre.

When some collectors decide to PC a guy, they go all out and try to get everything (supercollect), with spreadsheets and such, but when I PC a guy, I just sort his cards together, and sometimes buy/trade-for more. I have a soft goal of getting 100 different cards of a guy I collect, then I sort of take myself off the hook for collecting him anymore unless I really feel compelled to keep going.

Anyways, what I thought I would do instead of typing up all the players I consider to be "guys I collect" is screenshot my wantlist and annotate it explaining why I collect each guy.





(Trevor, that is, not Vida)



Good players and/or Padres fan favorites.

If I haven't annotated a guy, I just like them cuz they are/were very good or cool or whatever.
Sets I like. Except '77.. I don't really like but it's my "birth year set" so I guess that sorta means something, but whatever. 1980 was the first cards I ever had. 1982 is the first "old" packs I ever ripped as a kid in the early 90s.. probably had half the set, but dumped most of them years ago.
This one is blurry. Sorry. Just more sets I think are cool or whatever.
Can you believe how close I am with this crazy goal?! Just 2 left. Plus many to "upgrade" to refractors. See my blog's title banner.
Funny meme meant to make guys with small wantlists feel bad. lol. Give me a chance to find something for you.. ya know? Not just a few obscure sets from the 00s that I have nothing from.

So hopefully that reasonably explains why I collect what I collect somewhat.
Of course you can visit the live version of my wantlist here, and feel free to get in touch about a trade.
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

6 comments:

  1. "Buy me anything with Larry Csonka on it, I'll pay you back!"
    "Well, I guess I better get going. Say hi to Jim Kiick for me."
    "What would Coach Don Shula do??"

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  2. I've considered the birth year thing (1975 for me, definitely a cool set) but I never had a strong connection to it. The first card I ever owned was a 1981 Topps Robin Yount card, and the first packs I ever opened were from 1986. But I also never have had a strong urge to own sets from either of those years. I would say that I'm just not a set collector, but my want lists clearly indicate otherwise.

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  3. Your collecting is as vast and big as mine. However, recently when trading, I have found it a tad difficult having such a huge variety of needs landing a ton of doubles I don't usually hold onto and pass on. I think in the fall I may narrow down my long list to make it easier on me and easier on those who trade to me.

    But love looking at your PC list and the colorful connections. Makes it really easy to trade with you

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  4. I was born in 1977, but consider my birth year set to be the 1978 set, because it's the first set that came out after I was born AND it had the 1977 stats on it. Maybe that'll convert you to a 1978 guy as well?

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  5. Dude... you're totally a player collection slut! I thought I had a lot of collections going. I feel like a player collection virgin compared to you ;)

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  6. your sleezy pc list makes me feel dirty. thanks for that. It's great for trading tho cuz I can always find something for you! Love the annotations!

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