2009 - How Did I do as a Collector?

As I celebrate the close of 2009 on the couch (a couch that we didn’t own at the beginning of 2009) I recall that at the beginning of the year I laid out a three prong approach to my collecting strategy for 2009. So let’s take a look and see how I did.

1. No Blasters - Well that one failed mightily. As a matter of fact I just finished busting a blaster of Heritage High Numbers. I did cut down on the number of blasters I bought, which left me more money to spend on-line for boxes.

I found out that Target is way to close for me to resist the siren song of immediate card purchasing. Since all of the loose packs are well rifled through the only option left was the row upon row of blasters. So I delved into them on occasion, and didn’t pull anything special out of them. Was it a waste of money? Perhaps, but it was still fun to rip them open.

2. Pick one or the other - Topps or Upper Deck - I was successful on this one. I chose Topps because I liked the design better and wasn’t disappointed. The base set was filled with great photography and interesting inserts. The short print cards of veterans were nice to chase (even if I haven’t gotten around to getting any of the O’s). I did pick up a few packs of Upper Deck Series One late in the year as a free throw in from Dave and Adam, but they just confirmed that I made the right decision.

3. Limit what I buy and stick to it - I did alright on this one. As I already mentioned I didn’t buy any Upper Deck Base. I also skipped Obak, UD Idols, UD X and Topps Unique. After buying a box of Allen & Ginter I realized that I didn’t really care for this years release and have started giving away as many as I can. So if you need some shoot me an email!

This definitely kept the collection down, all of my baseball purchases fit in one box which is nice. Of course, it limits what I can trade to people looking to complete sets, but I’ve managed to work around that so far.

A bonus idea was to give away 5,000 cards. I don’t think I got quite to that level, but I believe I gave away at least 2,500. This year I’m really going to focus on culling the collection, especially older hockey and all of football.

Next up - what I’m going to do next year. Big changes coming!