Beginning of 2008

I would love to have had several updates between my last and this posting but unfortunately things have been pretty slow since the end of September last year.

In the interest of keeping you up on what I have managed to do, here is a brief recap of the activity since my last update.

September 4: An ebay envelope produces another hit for my 1956 Topps list in the form of former HR King Hank Aaron!

September 17: OBCer Jim Silva surprises me with a hit to my 61' Topps list, a pair of hits to my 74' Topps list (reducing that one to 20 remaining) and 9 hits to my 1975 Topps list. Quite the awesome variety pack Jim, much appreciated.

September 24: An ebay lot came in, adding a 1968 Topps Hank Aaron to my collection.

September 26: Joel Gyselink surprises me with 43 hits to my 1975 Topps list. Thanks very much Joel.

September 27: In another surprise, OBCer Bill Ashton sends along a hit to my 60' Topps set, a 74' Topps and 35 1975 Topps including Joe Morgan, thanks very much Bill.

So obviously my 1956 Topps Aaron did arrive.

My recent item comes from ebay in the form of this:


A 1960 Topps Mickey Mantle, quite the addition indeed.

So while there haven't been too many updates lately, these additions do combine to knock another 95 cards off my project. As such the numbers stand today as follows:

Cards in my Collection: 4,824
Total Cards needed: 17,936
Cards remaining to achieve goal: 13,112
Percentage Complete: 26.89%

So right now I stand 176 cards away from 5,000. Once I can devote some property time and energy into it this shouldn't prove to be much of a problem given the large gaps remaining in my 1975 Topps set.

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...