A New Year Means A New Strategy

The calendar has turned on a new year and so that means a couple of things.

1. The hockey season is halfway over. For the first time in a couple of seasons the Bolts are still in playoff contention.

2. New commitments have been made.

3. I've turned in my entries for the 2010 Lawton Chile's Memorial Death Pool. It's juvenile and in bad taste, but hey no one is perfect, eh?

4. I have a new collecting strategy for 2010.

Overall, 2009 was a pretty good year for me in terms of collecting. I picked up the writing on this site, met some great traders and actually recouped some of my investments by selling some cards on e-bay.

Some things didn't work out so well. I didn't finish off the Allen & Ginter set or any other set. I also didn't get rid of enough cards. When you have 80,000 cards in a closet (and on a desk, and a counter, and a dresser) then getting rid of 300 cards here and there doesn't make much of a dent.

At this point I need to get rid of boxes at a time. Therefore, with some inspiration from this site, I've decided to separate my hockey and football cards into teams and donate them, along with some junk wax baseball, to local children's hospitals.

However, my loyal readers will have first crack at them so don't despair. Let me know your favorite team and I'll see what I can do for you.

In addition to that I'm going to be a little bit wiser in my purchasing. It is my hope that in 2010 my card spending is budget neutral. That means I'll only spend as much as I make selling cards. The good news is that I do have about a $30.00 head start thanks to a couple of successful auctions in December.

Buying boxes is out of the question for right now so instead of collecting this sets I'm going to delve into the wide world of player collecting. That's right I'm crossing the line.

The players are few:

Baseball:

Carl Crawford
Adam Jones

Hockey:

Vincent Lecavalier
Peter Bondra

I've updated most of the player collections (except for Adam Jones since I just thought of him 5 seconds ago on my new Zistle page. Check it out! For trade purposes also feel free to send me your unwanted O's, Rays, and Lightning cards.

It is my hope that I can reduce my collection to the point where it all fits in half a closet and has a more personal feel to it.

If for some reason you need cards from 1988-2008 let me know and I'll see what I can put together for you.

So that's the plan. Who knows if it will keep, but at least it's a direction