2012 State of the Collection

2012

Wow, 2011 was quite a year for me.  I got married, bought a house (technically in 2010, but it was the end of December), added two to the family (my wife's cats), and became an NFL owner.  I already took a look back at my 2011 State of the Collection address in November.  You can read it here.  I didn't do to bad.  One of my goals was to organize my Brewers team set collection and complete the Topps flagship sets.  Well I think I'm one card away from finishing the 70's, I already have my eye on the card, so I just need put together another order for JustCommons to get it.  The 80's, 90's, 00's and 10's are mostly done.  I've slacked on the flagship as I started wading through the two large collections of Brewers cards I bought.  One from 2010 and one from 2011 and all the great stuff people have sent and that I've gotten from group breaks.  Alright enough with the looking back I already did that, this is going to be a forward looking statement.  

So my goals for 2012....

1 . More trades.  I lost track of how many trades I actually completed, but it's well over double digits and I would say easily in the upper 20's to low 30's.  I won't set a goal as to how many I want to complete this coming year, just that I'd like to keep it going.  I had some great help last year with some set needs and team collections and I tried to help out as many as I could with theirs.

2. Limit my Set building.  That's probably the wrong terminology.  I bought a bunch or boxes last year of stuff I knew I wouldn't put a set together for.  So I guess I just want to focus.  I'll probably still dabble in a few pack breaks here and there, but here are the sets I want to go after:

• 2012 Topps Baseball (all 3 series)
• 2012 Topps Football
• 2012 Allen and Ginter - I'm sucked in.  I wasn't going to do it this year and ended up buying 3 boxes and hitting good stuff every time.  I also managed to put together a complete set with SPs.
• 2012 Heritage.  I stayed away from 2011 Heritage mainly because I threw way too much money at the 2010 set and still haven't finished it.  Plus I was worried that box prices would go through the roof like in 2010.  But I love the 1963 design and think I might have to make a go of it.

3. Finish my PC Collection tabs on the Blog.  I started a bunch of new pages last year that I'd find so time to add my checklist to them.  Not only is it a great tool for me to keep track of what I have, with out searching out my excel spreadsheet, but it's great for traders to see if I already have a card they might want to trade me something for.

4. Finish off a few more sets from my needs list.  Except for the Topps flagship Football and Baseball, I've been trying to complete the sets listed on the Help me Complete a Set for a few years now.  This goes back to my #2 Limit my set building.  In 2010, I tried to put together the National Chicle and T206 sets, as well as, the Heritage, A & G, Flagships, and Finest.  All of which except the flagships still are not complete.

5. Start a Vintage Set.  This isn't something I plan to finish this decade, but I've always loved the 1963 design and I've got a few cards in my vintage collection.  I realize this isn't a set you can just whip together.  There are some very pricey cards in this set, but this is more of a life collecting goal and one that I plan to officially start this year.

6. Get back into Drawing.  Your probably thinking what does this have to do with your card collection?  Well let me tell you.  I use to be pretty into drawing and cartooning, but seems like I've taken the last year off from even doodling.  Problem is my drawing table is covered baseball cards and comic books.  So one goal is to clean up and be able to use the table for what it was meant to be used for drawing.  And while I have always been more of a cartoony comic guy I'd like to try my hand at some sports subjects.  I guess it would be great to get good enough to have Topps offer me a job doing some sketch cards.

7.  Post more on my other blogs.  I seem to neglect my other blogs from time to time and I'd like to get back into posting on them for what they were meant for.

8.  Send out more TTMs. Last year I don't think I sent anything out.  In 2010 I was having a good time making my own custom auto-postcards, mostly of nonsports figures.  I've been toying with trying to do a Brewers auto project much like AJ's Yankee's project over at the Lost Collector. 

I think that's enough goals for one man.  As for the collection.  I've added some great cards this year as I've posted here and on my PC blogs, the Yount Collector,  Rollie Fingers Collector, Long Way from Lambeau, and Miles From Miller.  And with #6 I've turned what was once pretty much a blog about me ranting about stupid people to my studio blog over at the 13 Tenets of Cynicalbuddism.

Happy New Year Everybody.

cb out