Off Hiatus: A Retrospective

Today is my two-year anniversary of kicking off my card blogging life. Last year, I didn't even realize that my one-year anniversary had passed until three days after it had hit. It's been a tough, strange, fun, crazy, off-the-wall, difficult year for me personally and professionally as I left BigLaw, basically was my own firm for about 7 months, then joined another firm in July of last year. 

Lew Burdette was happy for me to switch law firms.

In between last February and now, I spent most of my time trying to catch up with trades both incoming and outgoing.  To be fair, it comes and goes for me in terms of having time to put together the outgoing trade packages. I owe some of you a package currently, and I apologize for my laxity in not getting those together already.  They will go out soon.

This past year has been a great one for me in many respects. I lived through a war with Jaybarkerfan -- a war in six parts (1a, 1b, 1c, 2, 3, 4, 5a, 5b, and 6) that was declared a draw thanks in large part to an invasion from Canada and the proprietor of Dawg Day Cards, Angus.

I received cards from a multitude of countries too (and I know I still owe cards, now long overdue, to the Italian Completist...dude, I am VERY sorry...I will be sending you a package soon). As best I recall it, I've gotten cards from Canada (a few times), France, Italy, the Netherlands, and England as a start.

My most popular posts of all time all came in the last year, and I have no earthly idea why these posts are so popular. That's not meant as a jab at the person I traded with whose cards are highlighted in the past, but I still don't know why these two posts both have over 1350 hits each while no other post has over 500 (there is one sitting at 500). Those two popular posts? 

With 1385 hits, it's "Julie: A Trade Post." Julie's "A Cracked Bat" provides a wonderfully different perspective on card collecting, as Julie -- unlike most of us -- came to collecting as an adult rather than having collected as a kid and returning when we want to be kids again. Still, I think the reason that that blogpost gets so many hits is because I included an American Girl Doll reference in it.



Not that I'm above doing things to drive web traffic to my site or anything.

The other post that gets tons of hits -- at 1451 hits as of today -- is "Catching Up with a Trade Post." Mark Kaz is great and the 1990s Brewers he sent were awesome enough to lead me to post both photos of kangaroos and a Violent Femmes song ("Promise" in case you were wondering). But why so many hits for those two?

Of course, now that I think about it, perhaps all the traffic is just looking for a "trading post" and clicks through that way.  Maybe I should name all of my blog posts "trade post."

So, it's the beginning of year three for me as a blogger. While some people do resolutions at the beginning of the year, I tend to like to wait for a different day important only to me. Here are my resolutions:

1.  Grow my Robin Yount collection to 1000 items. It stands currently at 875 items, including magazine covers, mugs, bobbleheads, glasses, placemats, rulers, books, talking baseball cards, and autographs.

2.  Get more organized, again. With the addition of approximately 25,000 to 30,000 cards as part of that Christmas Horde, I have got an absolute crapload (sorry for the legalese) of cards to sort through again. I'm pretty sure I have to have over 100,000 cards now, of which perhaps 20% are Brewers. 

3.  With that said, I want to winnow my collection a bit too. Get rid of some of those Twins cards, or Expos cards, or Blue Jays, or Yankees. Especially Yankees. 

4. To do that, I need to sit down on a regular basis -- perhaps even a scheduled basis -- to put together packages to send out. I'm hoping the "SuperTraders" will help me with this. By the way, does anyone know a good Indians, Royals, or Marlins collector who wants in?
Actually, does anyone know ANY Marlins collectors?

5.  Stick to a better budget on buying cards. Rather, create a budget for buying cards. If I had a budget maybe I'd follow it.

6. Get my Brewers parallels, oddballs, and Paninis all organized and set up in proper want lists and, also, get my Milwaukee Braves post-1965 cards organized and get want lists created. I love my lists and want more.

7.  Last one: Keep up on the 1982 Blog and the "Meet the Brewers" posts, trying to do one a month each.

Okay, finally, one more thing. I wanted to show off a card I got at my local show yesterday:

 

It's a JSA certified Eddie Mathews autograph. I got it for $24 from Frank Moiger, the promoter of the card show, and I love it. I wanted a Mathews autograph, and this one will do quite nicely, thank you.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm still trying to get Coldplay songs out of my head after that Super Bowl halftime last night.

Breaking Out of a Rut

I've been a bad blogger lately. Yeah, I've been writing some over at the 1982 Topps blog, but those are easy -- post the card, research and write about the player, and set the post for publication. Granted, readership there isn't terribly high -- I'm too verbose for most people's tastes, I think, but in many respects I write that 1982 blog almost for myself.  It keeps me writing and researching and reading on a regular basis, and I've learned a ton about baseball in the 1970s and early 1980s in the process.

But I've let this blog -- and my trading -- languish a bit. I've been busy with other things, too -- organizing a 28-team, 2-league fantasy football monstrosity for our local Lawyer's Club, for example, and going to the Georgia v. Clemson game last weekend.  But I also have not been buying or seeking any new cards lately.

That changed today. After a few months away, I went back to one of the local card shows. And today I was ready like I had not been ready before.

The first time I went in January, I was bewildered and confused. I hadn't really dove back into collecting at that point; it was more along the lines of sticking my toe into the water to see if the temperature was okay. I did not know what to expect then, and what I saw was confusing and disorienting.

The second time I went in April or May, I was much further along in my return to collecting. I had started blogging by that point, and I had been sorting through all the cards I had from my youth for a few months by that point.  I may have even been I spent nearly all my time at a couple of tables. But, I also made a major mistake: I had not eaten lunch before going to the show.  So, at some time around 1 PM or so, I started getting so hungry that I had to leave.

This time, I went a little bit later to the show and picked up food before I got there. I've also started making lists as subpages on here of all the cards that I have for each of my player collections.  I've gotten through Ryan Braun and Yovani Gallardo at this point, so it's still in its primordial stages, but it's a start that allowed me to check on my phone to see if I needed cards that I found in my digging. That probably saved me at least a buck or two today, so it's already worth it.

I ended up spending about $100 today. That number surprised me at first, but I stopped at a bunch of tables and picked up a ton of Brewers. I also got some trade bait.  Today, I'll post that, and probably for the rest of the week I'll be posting about the rest of what I got.

The first group of trade bait resulted from wanting a Paul Molitor from a particular set. In 1997, Collector's Choice/Upper Deck had a set of 30 stickers called, imaginatively enough, Super Action Stick Um's, Surprisingly, on COMC, most of these are going for around a buck a piece. If you collect any of these players and want your guy or if you just want one for your oddball set, let me know.

Since I got that whole package for $3, I am glad to share these around.

The other package of trade bait also came from wanting a particular Paul Molitor -- this time, a manu-patch from 2009 Topps.  That one came with the following 8 manu-patches -- all of which are available for trade.

I tried to get this guy to sell me the Molitor patch by itself, but he wouldn't do it. Since the asking price was not exorbitant, I ponied up the money and figured that it gave me some pretty cool trade bait.

So, are there any Mel Ott collectors out there?