Sunday Question
Finishing a collection is rewarding. Anyone who has put that last card in a sleeve and can revel in their set knows this feeling.
But how many projects get started and are never finished.
So, this week’s Sunday Question: What collection did you start and halfway, or even early on, realized this was a bad idea?
It could be something such as trying to collect every card of a player who has over 10,000 cards, and counting. Although, I’m not sure I know anyone like that.
Or it could be trying to complete a set full of SP that you just never see available.
Don’t worry about the sets you have finished. I’m saving that question for a later date.
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Can anyone say Yankee Stadium Legacy? Holy Cow. I was aware it would probably take years to finish, but it's hard to want to put money towards that project when I like my player collections a whole lot. Sigh.
The 1991 Topps Desert Shield Mets team set. I got one or two as type cards back in the early 1990s when they were available, but expensive.
I rediscovered them a couple of years ago and added a few more to my set because they were so cheap.
I still don't have even half of the team set, but I'm just not that interested in finishing. They're relatively rare, but they're still just 1991 Topps cards with a gold foil stamp.
Diamond Kings. When I came back to collecting after stopping in 1991, getting all the Diamond Kings seemed a fun way to go. I didn't realize that they stopped putting them in the base sets, making them next to impossible to get on my meager spending limits.
Then I found out they made whole sets of them for three years, that was cool, but getting the subsets like HOF Heroes and Timelines is really out of the question.
I have all the sets from the beginning of (Donruss) time until 1995 and the 2002, 03, 04 and (almost) 05 sets. I still pick up singles I don't have and troll ebay, but there is no way I'll ever get it all done. At least Donruss doesn't have a license anymore.
A few times I've tried to complete a Topps Chrome refractor set. I would get 60-70% of the base cards before realizing that finding the autos will be too painful.
I tried the '92 Bowman set once. Even though I had most of the better cards, I just lost interest in hunting down the commons.
I foolishly started to collect the 04-05 UD Legendary Signature Miracle Men autograph set. It's only 18 cards (I think) but three of them are super-duper short prints and go for hundreds of dollars. Also, two of the '80 US Olympian hockey players are not even in the set. I am now going to attempt the far less expensive and glamorous '95 Signature Miracle on Ice set. Has all the players (even Herb Brooks!) and is a fraction of the price.
a couple years ago, i tried to do a detroit tigers team set from the 1991 topps desert shield set. i got 4 cards deep…
I'm not willing to consider any of my unfinished sets a "mistake." I intend to complete them ALL someday!
Nicely put Night Owl.Mine is not guite a mistake yet either,but it's close.I'm trying to collect a sample from every set ever made including base cards,inserts,game-used and parallels. I have a 5000 ct.box nearly full and probably will have to expand when I add in my 2009's.
Anything with shortprints in it, I question my sanity for trying for these sets.
For whatever silly reason, I've started to collect the Topps Black Yankees. On a side note, I was at the show at White Plains today and saw 2 topps black yankees I needed (Ponson and Coke), the dealer was nice enough to offer both of them to me for a total of $40. ("They book $50 ya know.")
I always think I am crazy for collecting Jeter. There are so many other Jeter collectors out there and he has soooooo many cards.
I haven't figured out how I want to collect Jeter either, which I think is part of the problem. I just try to get whatever cards he has.
Paul – $40, really? For those two guys? That's pretty silly. If that show was anywhere else, you would probably get both those cards for $10 or less.
Yeah, I couldn't believe it either.
I'm thinking to myself, OK, ebay .99 each and $3.00 each for shipping.
My pet project, one that is impossible to finish, is collecting the autograph of every living Yankee and New York Giant…or at least every person that had a card made of them. I have a few hundred Yankees so far, enough to take up two whole books worth and the Giants are moving along nicely as well with about 200 signed cards. Because every year there are new Yankees and Giants I don't think I'll ever finish but that doesn't mean I can't try.
I started putting together the 2009 spectrum black parallels (all #'ed to 50) but simply lost interest after finishing the red parallels and was over halfway done with the green parallels… Not a total failure though as I ended up with a few nice cards for my personal collection like a black Pujols #50/50.
I'm with Night Owl on that one. I intend to complete them all. But if there was one thing that I have overshot my bounds a bit, it was trying to collect all the Upper Deck Hockey base sets. I already had 90/91-93/94, 96-97, and 98-99 when I got the brilliant idea. Then the wheels fell off when the mid 00's hit. Two many Young Guns cards that garner a "premium" price tag. I have only partial 06/07-09/10 sets and nothing from 2000-2006.
1956 Topps is my favorite set of all time. The first half of that set, cards 1-180, all come printed on white or grey stock. Not typically a variation collector, I decided to give the "master" set a shot, getting white and grey backs for everything.
Two years later, I stood about 10 cards away from completing the run, yet felt drained of any further interest in the concept. Still loved the set, but hated trying to find those final cards for affordable $.
I decided to scale back with "just" the base set and slowly traded away or sold the extras, resolving never to blow my enthusiasm for a vintage set doing something like that again. So far, so good!
My friend got 700+ into a McGwire collection and promptly stopped last week…