What I've Been Up To on the Card Front

Howdy everyone - it's been a while since I rapped at ya. Everything's still cool, cards are still being collected, just not a whole lot of blogging's been getting done over here.

I will say that I've spent the last 3 weeks or so really honing my collecting goals, and that's been fruitful. I'm focused on 4 core areas right now:

1. Collecting the entire run of San Francisco Giants Topps Heritage cards, from the start of Heritage in 2001 to the 2020 set. What I've really been doing is working my way backwards. I've got 2012-2020 team sets almost totally done, as well the 2009 and 2010 team sets. We're talking base cards here, though I'm not above picking up any and all parallels, chromes and all of the other Giants-related funny business that Topps wants to throw at me over the last 19 years. I love the Heritage designs and this is a fun and rewarding goal. Funny enough, I don't have a single card from 2001 through 2008 of the team, so that's going to be one of 2021's projects.

2. Collecting the entire run of regular Topps San Francisco Giants cards, 1969-1982. This is even more fun, because it takes in the cards of my youth. I'm doing pretty well here, because I've been working on it all year. Aside from 1969 - which I've barely started - and a bunch of missing cards in 1970 and 1982 (the latter of which I can probably close out for $4 online tonight if I want to), I'm nearly complete here as well. Favorite years? Well, 1972 and 1975 of course. What else? (Actually love 1971, too). After I knock all of this out, I'm going to work my way backwards from 1969 until 1958. Because of guys like Mays and McCovey, this is going to take an inheritance or a big year-end bonus from work to really get completed any time soon.

3. The O-Pee-Chee 1974-75 WHA hockey set. Hey, that's not baseball! Been working on this all year, and I've now got 63 of the 66 cards. Who are the three mulletted rogues I'm missing, in case you're overflowing with doubles from these series? Why, that would be #49 (Vaclav Nedomansky), #58 (Andy Brown) and #64 (Jacques Plante). For some reason, these are really pricey online, and I'm not sure why. My Bobby Hull and Gordie/Mark/Marty Howe cards from this series really weren't all that expensive, so not exactly sure why those three are. Earlier in the year I completed every Topps Oakland Seals / California Golden Seals team set, from the late 60s through the late 70s, and honestly those + this WHA set are the sum extent of my hockey card-collecting goals.

4. 1965, 1971 and 1972 Topps baseball complete sets - along with the 1976 SSPC complete set. Yes, Greg from Night Owl Cards, we can call it the 1975 SSPC set, I'm cool with that. You're almost certainly right anyway. These four sets have really focused the mind the back half of this year. I'm not going to complete any of them any time soon, but once I announced here that I was attempting to, really phenomenal people like Ken in Missouri jumped in to help me out. I mean, really helped me out. My 1971 and 1972 set were deeply enriched by his doubles, and I can't thank him enough. These 4 sets are - so far - my favorite sets in the history of baseball cards, so I'll spend the rest of my lifetime chasing all of them.

Those are the big four areas. I also somehow knocked out all of the 2020 Topps Heritage Minor League cards already, just by buying a hobby box, getting a nice package from Padrographs, and then buying singles online. Done! It's been a fun year, folks. Trading with and getting to know some of the people who read this blog has been the best part, honestly. I'll try to keep a better posting volume going forward.