Another lengthy absence...

Unfortunately it was unavoidable.

I have been pre-occupied with my pursuit for employment, which has used up the majority of my time and energies.

Despite this however, others did not forget about me and I'm able to report some hits to my lists.

Tom Housley hit my lists with 4 hits to my 1968, 1974 and 1975 Topps lists for a total of 12 hits towards my overall goal.

In addition I can report that I'm expecting the Hank Aaron 1956 Topps in the mail as I found one for a reasonable price to add to my set, so things should finally pick up a little as I have some more time, and more importantly some funding to put towards progress for my sets.

So with this newest group of additions (not including the Aaron) here is where I stand:

Cards in my Collection: 4,729
Total Cards needed: 17,936
Cards remaining to achieve goal: 13,207
Percentage Complete: 26.36%

Back from the Dead...

Not really, although it would appear that way given my extended absence.

Unfortunately this summer has been slower than planned. Despite this however there remained a slow trickle of incoming items and now I can at least put together a post to recap them.

In May, Peter Mead sent along 5 hits to my 1968 Topps set. This puts me at 21% completion for the set, which is fairly reasonable given that I officially started the set at the end of last year and haven't done much with it for the last few months.

Just today another pair of envelopes came in:
- The first from Mark Talbot included 4 hits to my 1960 Topps list. These additions moved that set to over 42% completion, making 1960 Topps easily my closest to completion from the 60's. I think a fair goal for this year might be to shoot for 50% by the end of the calendar year. It will require a little bit of focus on the set, but it's certainly doable.
- The second package came from Steve Rittenberg. This envelope contained 7 hits to my dwindling 1974 Topps set. At just 26 short of completion I shall likely make a final push to complete that one before the summer is out before I add another set back onto the list. It's destined replacement on my list will be either the 1978 or 1966 Topps set. Time will tell on that one.

So that's it in terms of the update. With these additions taken into consideration my overall tally stands as follows:

Cards in my Collection: 4,717
Total Cards needed: 17,936
Cards remaining to achieve goal: 13,219
Percentage Complete: 26.29%

Still chugging along slowly....

As my lack of recent posting suggests, there has been little to update in recent times.

Fortunately some unexpected packages did make there way here, allowing for a small update.

First off, thanks to Father Pat for an envelope containing a hit to my 1975 Topps set as well as 6 hits to my growing 1968 Topps set.

The other envelope came courtesy of Ron Perry, who responded to a package of mine with 5 hits to my 1961 Topps set.

These packages combined to move both 60's sets mentioned over the 20% completion mark, which is always a nice thing. So 12 hits in total for this update, which brings my current totals to the following:

Cards in my Collection: 4,701
Total Cards needed: 17,936
Cards remaining to achieve goal: 13,235
Percentage Complete: 26.20%

Just over 4700 cards now. Progress is a little slow but I'd expect it to pick up a little over the summer once I have the time and resources to make some runs at some 70's sets. I'm still pretty confident I can shoot over 5000 for this year and maybe complete a set, time will tell.

This week in cards...

The relative drought continues as cards trickled in this week.

Trader Sean McGowan sent along a single 1954 Bowman as well as a single 1955 Bowman to add to my respective sets. Thanks to Sean.

Dan Angland chimed in on Friday to add a single 1975 Topps hit in the form of 1974 RBI leaders Johnny Bench and Jeff Burroughs.

So that's actually it for this week, another 3 cards brings the totals to the following:

Cards in my Collection: 4,689
Total Cards needed: 17,936
Cards remaining to achieve goal: 13,247
Percentage Complete: 26.14%

Not expecting anything else this week, but one never knows what come out.

Two weeks of updates...

It's been a fairly quiet two weeks to be honest.

In particular all the activity last week happened on Monday and it wasn't until this past Monday that anything else happened. In total the 14 business days combined to bring 13 new cards to my sets. Here's the recap and basic breakdown:

Monday the 5th brought 5 hits to my 1968 Topps set, including Harmon Killebrew, Carl Yastrzemski, Brooks Robinson, an RBI leaders card and another single.

This was followed on Monday the 12th with 7 hits to my 1956 Topps set from long time buddy and associate Ken Morganti. This particular envelope has actually brought me to within 9 of the half-way mark on the set.

The last hit of the week came on Wednesday the 14th in the form of this:

A 1968 Topps Willie Mays, making another solid addition to my 1968 Topps set. From a personal standpoint this also marks my first Willie Mays card, which is surprising given that I'm up to 4 Mantle's already.

So obviously you can see the most recent hits were divided pretty evenly between my 56' and 68' Topps sets. With these latest additions this is how my count stands at the moment:

Cards in my Collection: 4,686
Total Cards needed: 17,936
Cards remaining to achieve goal: 13,250
Percentage Complete: 26.12%

I'm not expecting things to get more active in the near future as most of the items I'm expecting have come in, but anything is possible.

Progress will hopefully continue of my main sets, although I am largely torn as to whether I want to continue pursuing the 68' Topps stars or if I want to start hunting down some groups of commons. I suppose I'll just take whatever I manage to find since that's what's been working so far.

Something a little different...

Normally I wouldn't do anything to distract from the progression of my quest, but today a box of packs rolled in which I had some fun busting. As a result since my next progress post will be at the end of the week I would make a post outlining the old school pack busting.

First we begin... with the box...

Here is the box in all it's glory. With address and distinguishing address stuff edited out... of course. It was actually a rather large box given that I purchased 6 rack packs and a pair of cellos. The part I really like though is the postage label attached. $6.70 to ship something nearly two pounds from Illinois to Canada is pretty darn good. This of course furthers my assertion that Canada Post is fleecing us all. I actually send a much smaller, lighter box to the US and all it took was almost $9 to send it via Airmail just like this one, but I digress... now to open the box...

Wow, that is a TON of packing material....

I actually intend to keep this stuff since I can use it the next time I need to send something out. So I guess I can thank my buddies at the Baseball Card Exchange for that little unexpected bonus.

I have to give them credit, they did a great packing job for a $20 order. It's clearly their intention to drum up repeat business by taking care of the customers product... how novel... Now to what's inside...

Awesome... For those keeping score at home, contained within the box was 4 rack packs of 1987 Donruss Baseball, 2 rack packs of 1987 Topps Football and 2 Cello Packs of 1983 Topps Football.

As you might imagine these packs did not last long after this photo was taken. Overall I was pretty pleased with the results, but there was some disappointment. So let's go through the breakdown:

1987 Donruss

There was some potential here. The inclusion of rookie cards of Greg Maddux, Barry Bonds, Bo Jackson, Will Clark, Rafael Palmeiro and some other lesser ones meant that there was a good chance with 180 cards of a 660 card set that I could hit something.

Alas it was mostly not to be. Obviously there were some hits:

I pulled really sharp cards of Tony Gwynn (2 infact), George Brett, Ozzie Smith, Joe Carter, Lee Smith, Don Mattingly and others. The rookie content however was a little bit on the lacking side.

Obviously there was a Will Clark (2 of them actually), as one was showing at the of a pack and the other was found inside one of the other racks. I did also pull some other minor rookies in David Cone, Duane Ward and others. Complete shutout on the big guys however... and I had my heart really set on a Bo Jackson...

The question at this point when one misses is usually, "was everything on the up and up with the rack?"

Based on what I found when I opened them, I would say yes.

While I managed to miss out on the bigger rookies, I pulled my fair share of star cards, and more important found that there was no discernable pattern to the Donruss racks. I actually tried to track the order of the cards and found that during one rack I actually had consecutive cards come out in sequence within the same part of the rack and more consecutive cards coming in the other racks. This is actually what produced a second Will Clark rookie and led me to conclude that these racks at least were completely random for their content.

So I moved on to the 1987 Topps Football racks which went notably better.

How can you not love having a William "Refrigerator" Perry out of your packs? I also got Lawrence Taylor, Phil Simms, Cris Collinsworth, Jim McMahon and this guy...

This of course dispels any notion about the packs having been searched. I know for a fact that all 80's Topps racks have a sequence, and even a rank amateur could figure them out well enough to extract all the Flutie and Kelly rookies as they were the two major rookies to be found in the set. I also got a Jim Everett rookie to round out the second tier rookie category.

Needless to say I really like this set and it will take all my will power not to immediately order another few racks, but time will tell.

This of course leaves me to my final set of packs in the 1983 Topps Football.

I'll preface this whole last section by stating that I now understand why people talk about Cellos as being the least desireable in terms of getting nice cards out of them.

There was little to talk about in the 1983 Topps packs... I love the design, but the cellos were wrapped so tight (which actually proves as well that they were good untouched cellos), that some corners felt their wrath, and worse was the effect of the tight wrap on the cards as half the pack would bow in one direction and the other half in another as the gum in the middle was being compressed between the two rows.

This effect produced some rather serious warping and a pair of lost cards through excessive gum residue.

Fortunately warping is at least something I can do something about. I have elected to take a bunch and put them flat with a phone book and a monster box weighing them down. Hopefully they can be flattened back to normal, but we'll see.

Anyway, as for the contents... it was more or less a shutout. Very few recognizable names, but I was able to secure this one...

Joe Theismann... pretty good... you can't complain about getting Joe in a pack, unfortunately Joe was the only one who came along... The card itself is actually pretty nice but as you can see centering is a bit of an issue with this set.

Overall I give this break a B average. The Kelly rookie was great, there was some decent star power in the 87 Donruss, but the 83 Topps cellos and lack of upper tier Donruss rookies brought the average down a little. The biggest lesson one can take away from this...

STAY AWAY FROM THE CELLOS!

Seriously... I also like the 1983 Topps design so I will likely go after a set, but you can rest assured that the next purchase I make will for wax or even a rack pack if I can find some available.

Anyway, hopefully that was somewhat entertaining and I hope you enjoyed...

Quiet Week overall...

It has been somewhat quiet in these parts this week.

I did manage however to receive two packages from ebay.

The first of these contained another small group of 1971 Topps. Included within this group was actually an upgrade for my Pete Rose, an extra Willie McCovey, an extra Rod Carew and a few others. 3 new ones were also present and were added to my set.

The second envelope was a little more noteworthy. Contained within the envelope was a single card:

A 1966 Topps Mickey Mantle. I'm always happy to add another Mantle to my collection in general and to add one like this for a reasonable price is certainly welcome news anytime.

Obviously this is a major hit for the 1966 Topps set and it continues to move along quietly under the radar.

I'm expecting some new items next week, hopefully they will allow for some more activity, but I think you'll agree this is another one of those "low on quantity, but high on quality" kind of weeks.

With the latest damage as represented by the Mick here, I added another 4 cards in total to my collection.

As a result, the updated collection totals are as follows:

Cards in my Collection: 4,673
Total Cards needed: 17,936
Cards remaining to achieve goal: 13,263
Percentage Complete: 26.05%

Sorting, sorting, sorting...

All that sorting means that there has been some good mail this week.

The week began quickly on Monday with a package from OBCer Linda Fitak, who sent a padded envelope brimming with cards. After sorting I was able to record hits to my 1955 Bowman, 1956 Topps, 1960 Topps, 1961 Topps and the 1970 Topps sets.

Tuesday was more of the same as OBCer Rick Johnson added about 20 hits to my 1974 Topps list. An ebay package added 8 hits to my 1971 Topps sets for a total of 28 hits on Tuesday.

Wednesday and Thursday were quiet, but Friday made up for it.

Friday yielded a box (literally) of cards containing a 1952 Topps, a pair of 1954 Topps, a 1955 Bowman, a trio of 1955 Topps, 4 1956 Topps hits, 6 1958 Topps, 2 1959 Topps, 4 1960 Topps, 2 1961 Topps, a pair of 1962 Topps, a single 1963 Topps, 3 1965 Topps, 1 1966 Topps, a pair of 1969 Topps cards, a 1973 Topps, 3 1975 Topps and a single 1978 Topps hit.

In total this package brought me another 39 hits.

The end result of thus flurry of activity is a total 87 hits. So here are the newly updated totals:

Cards in my Collection: 4,669
Total Cards needed: 17,936
Cards remaining to achieve goal: 13,267
Percentage Complete: 26.03%

I expect things to quiet down a little bit now for the next little bit, although I am expecting another Mantle in the mail. Obviously when that happens it will merit a special place in that weeks post, but we'll see about that when we get there.

Finally! It's here...

Needless to say this week has been not unlike Christmas in my early youth, filled with agonizing anticipation for the eventual payoff which I already knew would be worth the wait.

It seemed that fate would conspire to deny me for another long weekend, with the snow storm in the middle of the week slowing the mail down and with nothing coming in yesterday... however this post clearly indicates that after mocking me endlessly the mail gods have at last rewarded me for my reluctant patience. Before getting to that though...

Tuesday brought a second package to my mailbox courtesy of Father Pat Wattigny containing a dozen hits to my various lists including 6 1961's, a 1968, a 1970, a 1975 and 3 1974's, one of which was the Dave Winfield rookie. Very nice, thanks Father Pat.

So obviously between my last entry and this one we have quantity and quality. The final package of the week came on Friday and put the exclamation point on the quality portion of our program.

Yes indeed, my 1956 Topps Mickey Mantle finally arrived. It goes without saying but I am most pleased. This has long been my favorite Mantle, although the 53 and 52 Topps come a close second, but this one is one of the first ones I spent a lot of time looking at in the old full color price guide I received for Christmas when I first started collecting.

Obviously you can see that the Mick has taken a hole punch to the head for some reason, but this was part of the reason it was affordable. Beyond that though, this is probably one of the nicer poor condition 56 Mantle's you'll see.

For those interested, here is the back. I believe you can click on the image for a bigger version of the picture to get a better look:
So there you have it, quite the exciting week for me. In addition to the 80 hits from Monday's package the two other envelopes this week added another 13 hits, this in turn brings the progress at the end of this week to:

Cards in my Collection: 4,582
Total Cards needed: 17,936
Cards remaining to achieve goal: 13,354
Percentage Complete: 25.54%

Big Envelope

Normally I wouldn't post an update right at the beginning of the week, but I was surprised with an envelope of sufficient note that it warrants it's own entry.

Contained within the large padded envelope was no less than 11 1974 Topps and 72 1975's. A few of the 74's were duplicates, but in total I was able to scratch off 80 numbers off of my lists.

Here is how things stand at the moment:

Cards in my Collection: 4,569
Total Cards needed: 17,936
Cards remaining to achieve goal: 13,367
Percentage Complete: 25.47%

I easily shot past 4500 cards and I've should pass 4600 before the dust settles on my recent ebay wins. The next major milestone is 5000 and I can see it in the horizon, maybe in a month or two depending on how much progress is made on the 75 list.

Clearly this means that this week is already the biggest week in terms of damage to my list since I started this little chronicle to keep track, so I'll just make the appropriate update to the counter and I should be back at the end of the week with (hopefully) a few more items I'm expecting.

First February Update

Since nothing came in during the latter portion of last week I decided to wait until the end of this week to post my newest update.

This week yielded an even dozen additions to my lists, combining quality and some quantity. Among the newest additions were the 1974 and 1978 Topps Nolan Ryan cards as well as a 1970 Topps Roberto Clemente and a high number. Some additional 1974 Topps and 5 1968 Topps singles rounded out the additions.

While 12 is not a ton, it none the less succeeds in moving me to and past the 25% mark. Another similar week and I would shoot past 4500 different cards, and considering I'm expecting an envelope containing more than that from one source alone, it's a foregone conclusion.

All this and I haven't even gotten my 56' Mantle yet. Although I was made aware this week that it was in the mail on Monday so now it's a matter of when Canada Post sees fit to bring it my way. Here's hoping for that next week.

So with that here are the latest numbers:

Cards in my Collection: 4,489
Total Cards needed: 17,936
Cards remaining to achieve goal: 13,447
Percentage Complete: 25.02%

Rare mid-week update.

Normally I wouldn't bother updating in the middle of the week but since it's the end of the month and some unexpected packages came in just in time I thought it might not be a bad idea to include them in a final update for the month.

Four envelopes in total have come in this week. And as a whole they managed to contribute the final 1976 Topps card required for my set, 3 1960 Topps cards (including HOFer Eddie Matthews), 18 1961 Topps cards, a single 1968 Topps and 21 1974 Topps cards (effectively bringing me to 90% completion on the set).

As you can imagine such progress is helping to make short work of some of my sets. The total damage above is 44 more cards to my collections. As a result my totals at the end of the first month of 2007 stand as follows:

Cards in my Collection: 4,477
Total Cards needed: 17,936
Cards remaining to achieve goal: 13,459
Percentage Complete: 24.96%

I normally wouldn't bother with two decimal places, but I elected to in order to emphasize how close I came to reaching 25% this month. By my math I only needed 7 more cards, soo close, so very close.

Next month should be fun as I'm expecting a few star cards to bring my lists further down, including of course my 1956 Mantle.

It's deja vu all over again...

Well, it would appear that the powers that be decided that last week ran smoothly and thus decided to do an encore for this week.

Mail delivery was just a trickle again, although the one envelope I received delivered a 1976 Topps Carl Yastrzemski. This card thus reduces my set to within one card of completion, a good turn of events indeed.

The fates compensated me for the lack of cards in hand by making the promise of future riches however, and as a result I was able to arrange for the delivery of the final card for the 1976 set, another hit for my 1975 set, several hits to the 1974 and 1970 set and this doesn't even count the most exciting item I'm expecting.

In a glorious turn of events I was able to have a chance to acquire the 1956 Topps Mickey Mantle for my set at a decent price point. This is of course an exciting development indeed as I'm always glad to add another Mantle to my quest, especially when it happens to be my favorite one.

Needless to say I'm looking forward to the next few mail deliveries as it should be a relative avalanche compared to my last two postings.

For the sake of continuity I shall post the latest numbers which are virtually unchanged:

Cards in my Collection: 4,433
Total Cards needed: 17,936
Cards remaining to achieve goal: 13,503
Percentage Complete: 24.7%

Quality over Quantity...

As the title states this week seems to have been a quality over quantity week.

Things were slow in general but I did receive two Ebay lots which gave me a 1976 Topps Ted Williams All-Time Greats (one of three I needed for the set, now down to two), a 1978 Topps Jack Morris RC in the same envelope (not expensive BV wise but the rookie of a great pitcher who should be in the Hall of Fame).

The last envelope (which shamefully came in a toploader with no sleeve (when will cheap sellers learn?) came a 1975 Topps Nolan Ryan. Fortunately the card was unharmed otherwise I would have to do some screaming at the seller. As is the card joins my new 75 Topps project and moves things along.



So with that obviously the counter moves ever so slightly this week, just three cards, but it does increase my total complete by a decimal point, so any progress is good.

Cards in my Collection: 4,432
Total Cards needed: 17,936
Cards remaining to achieve goal: 13,504
Percentage Complete: 24.7%

Oh Canada Post... please your time...

My friends at Canada Post seem to have elected to take the scenic route for some of my recent Ebay winnings, so this past week was rather slow on the card front.

I did manage to accomplish something however as a visit downtown to see a friend of mine resulted in a side trip where I picked up 25 overpriced 1975 Topps singles at one of the shops in T.O.

My newly minted 75' set also received the addition of the Aaron Highlights #1 card via Ebay.

To round out the week I managed to find a pair of 1956 Topps that had mysteriously wandered into a pile of papers. Both turned out to be ones that I needed but had forgotten to file in the binder. The end result being another 2 hits to my list without actually receiving anything, which is always bitter-sweet since I like being closer to my goal but really hate misplacing things.

So this past week knocked 28 more cards off the list in total. Progress is progress, and I expect some more items to come in this week.

Cards in my Collection: 4,429
Total Cards needed: 17,936
Cards remaining to achieve goal: 13,507
Percentage Complete: 24.6%

First real update

The first mail day of 2007 has proven to be a fruitful one.

Although only one package came in the mail for me today, it was a good one as it contained my group of 10 1955 Bowman cards.

Getting 10 1950's cards in general is great, but 10 direct hits to my list is even better. The list at this moment thus stands at 177 cards remaining, meaning that I need another 17 more to be at the halfway mark. Not a bad package to start off the year right...

I'm still awaiting some hits to my 1970s lists that should come in sooner or later this month, but for today I shall be searching ebay carefully to see if I can't put some more dents in my lists.

After this package, my progress stands as follows:

Cards in my Collection: 4,401
Total Cards needed: 17,936
Cards remaining to achieve goal: 13,535
Percentage Complete: 24.5%

As you can see, this actually knocked me over the 4400 card mark, only 99 more before I can make such a claim again...