5 Posts in 5 Days, I guess I am Back...

A couple of years back when I got back into ripping packs I didn’t really have any direction. I liked to buy packs, random packs, whatever caught my eye. I would hope and pray to get an auto, or a relic, or a refractor, or something cool with a serial number, or a card of my favorite player or at least my fav team… I just ripped randomly. If I got something good it went in a penny sleeve, if it was really good it then went into a top loader… if it was really really good it found its way into a screw down… if it wasn’t good enough to deserve a penny sleeve it just went into a box. You can’t throw away a baseball card, but I ended up with a lot of cards that I really didn’t care about. They were saved, but generally would never be looked at again.

When I started trading, that changed a bit. Suddenly pulling a Braves card, or a Dodger or Cardinal or Red Sox or Rangers player was cooler. It meant that it could be shipped away to someone else and would soon magically become a card that I cared about. The worst thing I could pull was a checklist. These were USELESS. I did actually throw these away. I didn’t want them and I couldn’t trade them. They were worthless, waste of cardboard. When you were plunking down 5 bucks for a pack with 4 cards in it and you pulled a checklist, you weren’t happy, you felt ripped off. I felt really ripped off…

Of course, this has all changed a bit for me… I stopped ripping packs. For now at least cuz I am physically unable and financially handicapped. I will probably start ripping again soon, but… Basically my collecting priorities have changed a lot. I stopped doing the player collector thing… (Except for Danny Tartabull, Jared Sandberg and Buck O’Neill – I will chase those 3 until I have every last card ever made of them!!!) and I have soured on team collecting for the most part. Now I am strictly a set builder.

Now checklists have purpose. Now I wish for them, I have them on my want lists; I use them to build my want lists. I buy them, I trade for them and I value them… When it comes to vintage, I really like the ones that are marked up, that show the original owner’s progress with regard to building the set. It shows that I was not the first person to chase that set or to use that checklist. I like that. Because I am obsessive, I do like the marked up checklists, but for the sake of looking good in the binder, I try to get a clean checklist, too. I keep the marked up list in the binder at the end with the clean checklist in its appropriate spot in the binder…

So, since y’all now that I like checklists, I use them, I collect them, I need them, I like owning them and I find them useful and valuable… With all that knowledge I am now making a checklist the CT Card o’ da Day… Yep, from 2010 Topps Heritage, card #437, the 7th Series short printed checklist. It has a little picture on it. I like that. It adds to the checklist which can be boring. I like that Topps did that. I prefer it when they picture a player or team that I like or at least don’t hate. I mean really, Topps, don’t you already feature the Yankees enough? Do we need more freaking photos of the New York Freaking Yankees??? I had no idea that Captain Intangibles and Co. were included on card #437 when I placed it on my want list. I merely knew it was a short print and I needed it. Well, now I no longer need it, but since I now have it I was able to use it to add names with numbers on my 2010 Topps Heritage want list, which is up to date and can be found right here. Incidentally, I only need 33 cards to finish this puppy off... Feel free to help me out, I aint too proud to beg...

On a slightly different note, I am watching the Cubs vs. Cards game on TBS and just saw Carlos Pena in a Cubs uniform. I don’t like it. It could be worse; he could be a Yankee…

Thanks as always for reading and enjoying the Collective Troll’s Card of the Day. Go Rays! Left handed hunt and peck Troll out. (After about 35 minutes…)