Some Goals For 2019

My four collecting goals from 2018 worked really well and were generally successful.  There are several directions that I can go for 2019, but I am generally going to keep the same four goals with some slight modifications.  Consistency is one of the keys for owning a great baseball card collection.  However, there is also some room for growth. 

Let's go.  

1. Less Sets, Sort Of....

Here is the list of sets that I want to put together in 2019:  Topps Series 1, Topps Series 2, Topps Update (perhaps I could have just said the complete Topps base set), Topps Heritage, shown above, and Topps Heritage Minors.  That's it.  I will probably go to Target, or Wal-Mart, or wherever and buy a few packs of Topps cards throughout the year, but I am really considering just going the Ebay route to acquire these sets.  

I had considered adding Pro Debut to the list, it is a Minor League product, but opted against it.  The autographs are cheap, usually stickers, and are frequently inexpensive as single cards on Ebay several months after the product is released.  I did not touch the Pro Debut base set last year, but did manage to find a few singles that I was interested in using COMC and trades.  

2. More Single Cards, Again.  

It's hard to say what specific cards I am going to go after in 2019, but I hope to continue to collect some of the Cardinals and Durham Bulls players who already have a solid presence in my collection.  

Hopefully some more Blake Snell cards.....

and some Jack Flaherty cards......

I am sure I will adopt a Durham Bulls players to collect.  This past year I went after Anthony Banda cards.  Banda autographs were the annoyance of every case breaker this year and I was happy to find their $3.99 Buy It Nows on Ebay.  

Although, I might just go ahead and start collecting Genesis Cabrera cards.  I was looking forward to him playing for the Durham Bulls this year until.......

he got traded to the Cardinals in the Tommy Pham deal.  Cardinals collectors should just go ahead and start getting his cards now.  They're still cheap.  

I might also do more with posting small inexpensive lots of cards that I get through COMC or trades.  I made a two part set with a small bundle of Cardinals cards I picked up off of COMC, nothing too exciting, but....

plenty of cards from sets that I have enjoyed collecting over the years.  Always fun to look at these types of cards.  

3. More Small Projects 

I did three big projects in 2018, one of which is actually spilling into 2019.  I want to finish up the Glossy Mail-In sets project, but I also want to take on some smaller projects too.  I have spent a little bit of my down time recently looking through some of my boxes looking for ideas, and I actually came up with two based on two boxed up sets I blogged about on here.  

One idea is from the Molten Metal Xplosion set I put together two years ago.....

This was a fun set to put together.  An incomplete insert/parallel set from the 1990s with a very unique look.  It took a long time because it was a big set, 150 cards in all.  However, there are other insert sets from this same era in my collection which are half done, or better.  They would be easy to finish and I could probably finish them off through a little work on Ebay or COMC.  They are also generally less than 150 cards.  

Trades are good, but they are time consuming.  Most of these Molten Metal cards are a dollar or so on COMC.  People sell them in lots on Ebay that are cheap.  Smaller sets, but also being more efficient with my time will help me be able to put a few more projects up.  

First one, coming next week....

Should be fun.  Second type of project.....

I believe the 2001 Topps Archives set was the first project that I ever posted on here.  It was long ago and took way too long.  There are plenty of other sets that I have like this one that are older and are missing a small amount of cards.  A little time on COMC or Sports Card Singles and I should be able to complete a few of these types of sets this year.  

4. More Cardinals and Durham Bulls 

That's break this into two pieces.  The single Cardinals and Durham Bulls cards are going to not be a very big problem.  Those just sort of happen.  

The 1990s Cardinals posts are going to continue in 2019, but I am open to stopping them at the end of the year.  There are still some more interesting stories, players, and cards left to make more posts.  In fact, there are some rather important players who have been skipped the past year and a half....

At the same time, at some point I will run out of players who are worthy of a post.  Last year I did roughly 40 posts on top of almost 20 in 2017.  Another 40 puts me right around 100.  Sounds like a good time to take up another project in 2020.  

As for the Durham Bulls posts, the team is over 100 years old and there have only been certified autographs cards for roughly 20 years.  Some of the more important players from old Bulls teams have been put into autograph sets, but there are plenty who have not.  Do you want to hear about every single Rays/Devil Rays prospect from the last fifteen years, or would it be more fun to find some non-autographed cards of older players?  

I am going to throw Vic Lombardi out as an example, but my answer is yes.  I am also going to try to pin down the Durham Bulls posts to a day, or some sort of frequency.  Most of my autographs are from the Bulls time as a Braves and Rays affiliate, so the main focus of the older player/non-autographed posts will be the pre-1980s players.