The Resurrection of a Collection

Greetings! After retrieving my old collection from my folks’ house and re-cataloging it, I started following several baseball card related blogs. Old habits die hard, I suppose.

I grew up in the Houston area for the most part, and still live here. Yes, the Astros always have been and always will be my team of choice. Through the good years and the lean ones, I’ll still pull for my ‘Stros.

As a kid, my card collection was varied and rampant. I spent most of my free dollars down at the local card shop, Baseball Fever in Sugar Land (RIP), and plenty of my free time reading, organizing, and reorganizing them. When I began focusing my collection with more specific goals, I opted to try to collect every card of my favorite player, Jeff Bagwell. I wanted an older player to focus on as well, so while my dad was tracking down all his Roberto Clemente cards I started acquiring those of Bill Mazeroski, one or two at a time at various card shows.

The autograph bug bit me early, as we went to the Astros Fan Fests in ’91 and ’92, where I got several signatures from the young budding players that would go on to become my heroes. Eventually I got my hands on one of Jack Smalling’s address lists, and I began writing to players as well.

So there’s a nice little intro. As to what I plan to collect now that I’ve re-entered the hobby, here’s a list.

  • Bagwell – Still working on him, of course. Currently I’ve got about 800 different cards of his.
  • Colt .45s / Astros – This didn’t start out as crazy as it became, but now I’m working slowly but surely on tracking down all of the different ‘Stros cards. Perhaps not all the variant prints and whatnot, but I’ll grab them as I see them. Definitely any oddballs.
  • Mazeroski – I’ve gotten all his original base cards. I’m still missing the 1961 All-Star, and I need the World Series Game 7 as well. There are some older oddballs, and of course any new issues that are released.
  • Nolan Ryan – Again, whatever I can find that I don’t already have.
  • Sets – I’d been working on ’88 Donruss as a kid, because I happened into a couple boxes of it. I’m about 100 cards away from that, as well as 70% or more complete on ’87 and ’89 Topps. Other sets I’m working on (some much less actively than others): ’88 and ’89 Score, ’83 and ’84 Topps, ’81 Fleer, ’84 Donruss, ’88-89 Pacific Legends I & II, 2013 Topps Archives, and ’75 Topps minis.
  • Autographs – I began mailing off letters again this year, mainly just looking for some interesting signatures and some older players, occasionally some non-baseball folks. I’ve got a pretty good collection of Astros, so I’ve made it a goal to try and obtain one from everyone who ever played for the club – preferably a card or photo featuring them in an Astros / .45s uniform.
That’s it for now! I’m always looking to trade, so hit me up and let’s work out a deal. Check the wantlist link over in the right column, and you can see my entire collection listed at the Trading Card Database website. Just click TCDB Profile over there.
 – Marc

0 Replies to “The Resurrection of a Collection”

  1. Welcome to the blogging world, Marc With a C! I would absolutely love to help you out with '89 Topps (my favorite set of all time, and I have oodles of duplicates), plus I have a cool Astro card or two that I think you might enjoy. Drop me a line when you get a chance. And, once again, welcome!

    Sincerely,
    Mark with a K

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