Sunday, December 20, 2015

I've Got Some Work to Do

Christmas came early to Off Hiatus HQ yesterday. My wife told me on Thursday that her parents had gotten me a big Christmas gift, and that they were making the 2+ hour drive to bring it to our house yesterday.

To be honest, I had no idea what they were bringing. I theorized that it could be a new grill since the one we have -- though just three years old -- is already looking a little worse for the wear. 

The gift arrived yesterday...in the back of my father-in-law's pickup truck.




I look happy there.  This photo is the realization that I need to go through these and sort them all out:



There are about 75 binders to go through.  Seriously. This is going to take a while.

Here's another view of the binders out of the truck, stacked in my screen porch:



My initial flip through these binders -- in moving them to my office and, then, getting them so they aren't just thrown all over the floor -- is that there is a lot of junk wax with a few oddball early 1990s sets thrown in and, randomly strewn throughout the binders, are cards from the 1970s. 

The man who had these cards passed away, and his wife and son wanted to get rid of them. The previous owner had pretty detailed inventories of what he had, so that's been helpful. However, his definition of star and my definition of star are slightly different. I would not, for example, have included Dave Bergman or Francisco Cabrera or Tracy Jones in a star binder.

Still, that's a lot of the fun.  It's too bad that I have a bunch of work to finish up today, as I might otherwise spend all day blowing through these things.

The best part for my wife and her parents was that this was a huge surprise to me. It's great to have in-laws who like me generally, but to care enough to find this, buy it, and deliver it to me is just unbelievable.

I really am a lucky man.

21 comments:

  1. That should keep you out of trouble for awhile. Plus it looks like you will never need to buy any binders again!

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  2. Great song to end the post with and those binders are going to take a GREAT amount of time to go through.
    It's times like these I wish I had some frequent flyer miles so I could lend you a hand. Good luck!

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  3. This has to be the single largest sorting/organizing project I've ever seen. Here's hoping there's a smorgasbord of gems in those nine-pockets! (And, at the very least, I think you'll be set on binders and pages for a while.)

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  4. Literally backing the truck up... Good luck, have fun and stay sane!

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  5. WHOA!!! Good luck sorting through all those! Hopefully we'll get to see some of the goods here.

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  6. A binder holds usually what, around 700-1000 cards ? So...yeah, tons of fun ahead !

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  7. That should keep you busy for ... well, a least a year.

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  8. Man alive that is a ton of cards. Hope you find some treasures.

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  9. Fantastic. I received one binder in the mail the other day and I thought that was great but this -- just wow.

    Makes me think my parents who attend auctions from time to time need to get on the ball!

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  10. Holy Cardboard Christmas! What a wonderful gift :)

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  11. And yet your wife let you bring them into the house. Well - it looks like the patio anyway.

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  12. Wow! That is an incredible Christmas gift.

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  13. That's awesome! Very cool they picked this up for you.

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  14. Even if it's all just junk wax that's a ton of binders and pages. Should come in handy for a major Brewers team set organization.

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  15. awesome !! Really looking forward to hear what you find !!

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  16. Holeee crud. Happy collating. Hope you find some awesome finds.

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