These are a few of my favorite things - Looking back at 2020's good stuff

 Hello everybody,

I have been a complete slacker on posting this year.  Well posting things other than my contests.  Speaking of which my Super Bowl contest will open next week after the final regular season game and be open until the first wildcard game.  Ahem, but this post is an attempt to brush off the craptacular year that 2020 was and look at some of the bright spots, the good things, and stuff I like this year, at least as far as this hobby goes.

Let's start with Topps' Project 2020.  Sure it was drawn out, got a little repetitive, and was kind of expensive, but there was a lot to like about the project.  First, Topps introduced me to 20 artists I had not known about.  Not only that but I can say Topps really turned me onto quite a few I now follow on various social media platforms and who's artwork I really enjoy.  Second, I got to add some really cool new cards to my collection.  And thirdly, I'm glad to see Topps really thinking outside the box with the project and trying something new.  We can see they continued on this trend with a couple of their other offerings this year, whether it was off shoots of Project 2020 like Ben Baller Chrome baseball or the recent collaboration with Steve Aoki and Super 70s Sports.  

Second I'm grateful for all those retail hording scum bags.  No seriously you saved me a ton of money not being able to impulse buy trading cards when I went to the store.  

Thirdly, I found a cool feature over at COMC.com that's probably been there for year's but I've just now noticed it.  

When your looking at a card in for sale and it has multiple parallels COMC offers this great Parallels and & Grades side panel to show you what else is available on the site and for how much.  But the feature I really like is the little checkmark on the left that shows you what you already have in your portfolio.  Obviously this only works for stuff you still haven't shipped, but since shipping has been backed up I've got a lot!  

Next I want to thank everyone in the hobby especially those on Twitter and over at the TCDB.com.  It's just been nice to commiserate and share with each other.  I've made it a point to be exclusively positive when commenting or working with other collector's online this year (I usually do that anyways) but this year I made a special point to congratulate a collector that added or snagged a great card, complemented them on their displays, and I've helped out where I could.  

Next while I've been home bound on and off, which I'm lucky I could do with my job at least partially (and I'm also very thankful to still have a job)  I was able to work my way through boxes and boxes of decades worth of baseball and football and get them all sorted into teams.  I'll be looking to move these via trades or outright selling soon, but it was nice to take the plunge and soon the purge!!

(My wife wasn't all that happy I took over the spare bedroom)

And lastly  I'm grateful and happy both of my LCS made it through what is hopefully the worst of the pandemic.  Both of them adapted and catered to the collector as best they could and I am well aware of how lucky I am to have not one, but two awesome LCSs up here in Anchorage, Alaska.

How have you guys been doing?  Anyone have any positive hobby stories to tell this year?

Stay safe and stay tuned for my 11th Annual Super Bowl Contest!!!