Killebrew killing the Archives urge

Regular readers of the blog might've noticed that I haven't featured any 2019 Archives here yet even though it's been out for a few weeks now. It's been my favorite current product since I returned to the hobby circa 2012. I've been in the habit of buying a hobby box or two of it every year.

But honestly, I think I'm over it now. Just don't have any desire to spend money on it this year. I'd rather buy something that'd be a home run for my collection.

And so I took the funds I would have spent on a couple Archives boxes and instead used them for this...

I already had the base version of this 2003 Topps Retired Harmon Killebrew autograph, but you know I'm a sucker for the refractor versions. Had to jump at this guy when it popped up on eBay recently with a reasonable buy-it-now price.

Heck of a career. Good dude, too. Card is numbered 09/25.

Here's an alternate refraction look at it.

I think it's a beautiful card and doubt I could possibly pull anything from Archives that I'd love more.

I've been trying to cut down on the incoming clutter of my collection by limiting the unopened product I bust. Sure, I've been adding some overproduction era sets to my collection lately, resulting in big "net gains" or whatever if you're just looking at number of cards coming in, but hey, a junk set is like 792 cards that are all "keepers" (with sentimental value from my days collecting as a kid in the early 90s). Buying a hobby box of new stuff might give me a handful of keepers and then a fat stack of unwanted cards to be saddled with. And with trading slowing down for me the past couple years, dealing with that is just not that appealing for the price.

Anyways, have a great weekend.