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!!!

Let's Talk About Topps Project 2020

Seems the sport card world has gone a little bit crazy as of late. Especially when it comes to one of Topps newest offerings. I'll be honest I was a little skeptical when Topps announced the project.  Twenty different artists doing their take on the same 20 iconic Topps cards.  It was an interesting concept. As an artist I actually really love the idea, but a few things popped into my head before Topps issued the first card. 

First, art is subjective.  What I mean by that it not everyone is going to be into every art style.  And I'll hand it to Topps they really did a great job of finding a group of artists who's styles run the gambit.  Second I worried about only doing 20 different cards.  First you narrow your market for team and player collectors and thirdly the same cards redone over and over just seemed like it would get boring.  I also thought the $20 price tag per card was a little steep.

I guess I was wrong.  Well sort of.  The project started off pretty slow.  Not surprising there was no major advertising for this other than on Topps social media.  So those of us that follow the card world knew what was coming, but I have to say the vast majority of people probably did not.  Also this project started right at the start of the pandemic lockdowns and the card companies still had new products coming out.  So the first few weeks print runs for the cards hovered between 1 and 2 thousand.  Not too bad.  Considering what other on-demand offerings sometimes sell.  Fast forward a couple months and the market for these cards has gone through the roof.  Especially the earlier cards that were issued when no one was really paying attention.

So what the hell happened??  Well it's really a perfect storm for Topps.  The printing facility in Texas that Topps uses to produce it's big brands like flaghip Topps, Bowman, Gypsy Queen, etc.  was shut down due to the Coronavirus, but Topps' on-demand printing is done in Florida and those factories were not shut down.  So when Topps had to push back their releases consumers eyes started looking elsewhere to fill the void.  I don't know if it was a combination of breakers, flippers, Gary Vee acolytes, bored housewives, art collectors branching out, or whatever, but the secondary market for the early Project 2020 cards went through the roof.  And it's still up there as I write this.  Not only has the secondary market skyrocketed, but the print run of the new issues has also picked up big time.  With print runs in the tens of thousands now.

We are only on card 88 as I write this so we have over 300 card more to be issued for this set.  So will demand continue?  Who the hell knows?  It's unlikely, but I didn't think the project would be that big of deal and seeing early print runs I was kinda right.  With Bowman finally hitting shelves and new releases getting updated release dates, society opening back up (for better or worse)  I think the big buyers scooping up these cards will start drifting on to the next big thing, but who knows?

With the uptick in popularity I can almost say with 100% certainty we are going to get another helping of Project 2020 or will it be Project 2021?