The Hundredth Post
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| Encore! Encore! |
Good grief, this post has been a long time in the making. Indeed, you read that headline right – this is
my one hundredth post here at Remember The Astrodome. I started this blog back in January, which put me right about at a post every three days. That was a better pace than I anticipated. Well, this post has taken me about a month to get done, so let’s shift that a bit. Either way, I didn’t think I’d clear a hundred posts in a year. Much of that can be attributed to the wonderful trades that have shown up in my mailbox, so many thanks to all of you fantastic collectors that have helped this blog along the way.
Life has been kind to your fellow card blogger this year, including some of the transitions that have kept me a bit busier than usual. I began working full-time at my new job this week, and I managed to get all of my grad-school application submitted on time. Those two tasks have eaten any blogging time that I might have had recently.
As a way of marking this momentous occasion, I figured that it would be a good idea to assess the current state of my collecting and my current goals. I don’t want to get too bogged down in this sort of reportage, but I think it’s a pretty important assessment for me to make at this point. As you all well know, this collecting thing can start spiraling on you, and all of a sudden you’re chasing down things you never thought you’d need, er, want. I decided to break down my collecting goals into a few tiers. (Oh, and apologies in semi-advance, but all the scans today are repeats).
The first tier involves my main collections.
- Jeff Bagwell. I forgot to mention it in my post, but the recent trade package from Roger of Sports Card Mask-a-Rade actually pushed me over the 800 card mark for Bagwells. That’s a healthy 13% of the approximately 6,100 separate listed cards of my favorite first baseman.
- Bill Mazeroski. These pickups are generally destined to be fewer and farther between, but I’ve added some nice vintage pieces to my Maz set. In taking another look at this, I’ve decided that while all the later-issue cards are nice to add, I want to tackle this in the vein of Jeff at 2×3 Heroes and try to complete the missing pieces from Bill’s playing days.
- Astros/Colt .45s Autographs. There are a few goals here – I’m currently sitting around 100 signatures from the 900 or so current and former players, managers and coaches of the club. I’ve managed to figure out most of whom has already passed, so I know some of the signatures that I’ll just have to outright purchase at some point. I’ve managed to add a couple dozen of these guys TTM, including a few more that just rolled into my mailbox recently. What I’d really like to do is find a better way to display who I have and need here on the blog.
- Houston Astros/Colt .45s Cards. Oh jeez. I don’t know if this is the final priority in my top tier or the first priority of my middle tier. I just want all the cards, is that too much to ask? Seriously though, I’ve probably added about a thousand Astros just in trades, and I still haven’t fully updated my want list for post-1999. You guys are fantastic.
- Brubakers. As far as I can tell, there are two Brubakers who have baseball cards – Bill and Bruce. Bill’s include a couple of Play Ball issues from the 30s, while Bruce has a couple of 60’s Topps cards. Why do I want these? Well, they share my last name – so why not?
- 1974 Topps. I need a few dozen cards to finish off this set. They’re mostly HOFers and semi-stars at this point.
- Oddballs, Inserts and Subsets. 1968 Topps Game and things like Hostess and Kellogg’s cards come to mind here. I’m toying with the idea of a DK set, and have a few inserts that I’d like to track down.
- Player Collections. I’m planning to cut this back. I think this is basically going to be down to Ripken, Randy Johnson, and Pudge, as far as more modern players go. I’ll let the vintage guys like my eccentric pitchers and the old Pirates trickle in as well, but the more I think about it, the less I feel like I need to keep dudes like Strasburg, Verlander, Harper, etc. separated.
- Other Sets. I’m going to cut back on my want list and probably dump some of this junk wax. It was super fun to have everyone bombard me as I chased down 1989 Topps, but the idea of putting together several sets that I won’t ever look at has caught up to me. Not to mention the fact that my wife would probably rather not have even more extraneous cardboard hanging around. That said, I am still planning to chase some of these, including my beloved 1988 Score, and yes, I have succumbed to the Ginter bug – I want to put together 2014 A&G, Just a base set though. If you recall, I scored a box of 1995 Skybox E-Motion not long ago – I’m a few cards away from completing that as well.
I think that’s plenty for the century post. Now, onward and upward! Here’s hoping the Royals wil pull this game out tonight and win that championship as well.
– Bru
I hear ya with the accumulation v. collecting. Tons of Padres cards that I love, but I'm not an "everything" collector, so I'll go through a purge now and then. I've only found one player that shared my last name – Simon Pond. Only played part of a season, only have one of his cards.
Congrats on the big 1-0-0!
Congrats on 100 posts!
Congrats on 100 and all the exciting life changes that are occurring!
Congratulations on the 100 posts. I hear you with the accumulating v. collecting. I have probably 3000 cards for every major league team that existed prior to 1990, and I have no clue how I will get rid of all of them.
I can start you out with this year's Ginter, as well as kill some 88 Score. Glad I read this before I started pulling other 80's & 90's for you. QAPLAGCA at yahoo.
I can send pretty much any 2014 ginter you might need as well as 88 Score. I can also do any ginter base or mini you might want from the last few years..