Puttin' in the Gwynn

I don't expect to ever get around to fully logging my card collection into the Trading Card Database, but I'm adding a little here and there, and my current focus is entering the biggest player collection I've got: Tony Gwynn. My hobby interests pull me in too many directions to ever truly vie for the spot of his #1 collector, but I've got a pretty solid PC, and as I log it, I'm also sorting in the very many Gwynn cards I've gotten in the past year or so from Rod at Padrographs as he narrowed his collection.

Data entry can be tedious-- and often a pain figuring out unfamiliar cards/parallels-- so I came up with some goals to help keep me motivated:

- rank among the top 19 (jersey number) Tony Gwynn collectors at TCDB
- 1000+ unique cards
- get in the top 10
- in the top 5 maybe?

Well, here's the current leaderboard:

Yep, Tony Gwynn is a popular guy to collect! 1500 cards won't even get you into the top 10. I'm not likely to crack the top 5 anytime soon, if ever. As I type this, I've already added roughly 2/3 of the PC and currently rank #30 with 687 unique Gwynns. I'm guessing I'll ultimately settle in around numbers 12-14, but cracking the top 10 could be something to shoot for. For the record, I'm not going to blanketly "add all missing cards to wantlist." But occasionally I've been adding neat Gwynns to my TCDB wantlist, like certain refractors or cool-looking inserts or whatnot, and could see myself going after some cheap low-hanging fruit on Sportlots or something if I really wanted to get my total up.

It's not just healthy competition motivating me, of course, because it'll be great to have a solid idea of what I have and don't have when it comes to Mr. Padre. My memory ain't always great, so it'll be nice to be able to easily check what I've got.

Anyways, I thought I'd feature a few "non-TCDB cards" in this post.. that is, cards that I consider unique in the PC, though for the most part I agree they're not different cards, and were it not a main PC of mine, I likely wouldn't bother treating them differently. Regardless, I think these unofficial variations are more interesting than "real" variations where there's a period missing in the copyright line on the back or something else you likely need a magnifying glass to even notice.

The above HoloGrFX cards seem to be different shades of blue, though that's not an official parallel. Probably just a printing variant or maybe one was displayed in a sunny spot for a while by a previous owner.

Here's another example of the same card looking different. Technically a dupe, but they're both staying in my PC as "dark version" and "light version", respectively. Could be noted there is a "black gold (/499)" parallel to this 2001 Fleer Futures card that I don't have.

These 1998 Skybox Dugout Axcess "Double Header" game cards only come in one flavor, according to the menu, but look at the player name and tell me these are identical cards; You can't do it! The foil-printing machine seems to have been on the fritz for the card on the right-- I don't think Skybox did it on purpose-- but yeah, I'm hanging on to them both, considering one an "inverted foil" printing flaw variation or whatever.

Well, those are what I've taken pictures of so far, and I've got more examples I'd like to document on the blog, but I think I'll call it good for today and then probably do a follow-up post or two once I've finished logging the Gwynn PC. Thanks for stopping by and have a pleasant weekend, everybody.