2018 Goals in Review

I'm several weeks late, but let's look at my 2018 goals again, and how well I did, shall we? This is a good way to get back into the posting habit.

First, what tasks were completed, or nearly completed?

1. Complete a to-do list. The housekeeping tasks were easy to do early in the year, but I missed the purchasing tasks.

• Verify Japanese MLBer and NPB foreigner lists completed 1/9
• Update Archives list with 2017 rookies completed 1/6
• Update MiLB type collection lists completed 1/6
• Update MLB type collection lists for 2015-2017 completed 1/6
• Order non-sport cards needed to finish sets not completed
• Order certain MiLB cards not completed

Those two orders weren't made because... reasons. It wasn't because of a lack of funds, but a plain lack of effort. They'll carry over to this year.

2. Reach 700 foreigner NPB players in the Gaijin collection. I reached 618 in January, and by mid-February, I had 722, after a shopping spree at Wrappers. completed 2/18

3. Add 3 MLB Figures. On January 1, I found a couple eBay auctions and picked up a Jose Altuve figure and a Felix Hernandez figure. The goal was met just a few days later when I got a Tom Glavine figure to go with it. And since then, I've added a couple more, blowing this goal out of the water! completed 1/4

4. Add 2 Player Collection autographs. Manny Ramirez was the first, easiest one to get. I picked up a dual autograph card in mid-January. It wasn't until several months later that I could knock another off the list - Barry Bonds. I've picked up several Charlie Hough autographs, and also added Adrian Beltre, Miguel Cabrera, and David Ortiz to my Player Collections, but Manny, Barry, Ichiro, and Ma-kun were the four I needed when I made this goal. completed 7/13

5. Get the 1972 and 1975 Topps Nolan Ryan cards. I had most of Nolan Ryan's flagship Topps cards, but many of his earliest cards were still missing in my collection. I met this goal about a quarter of the way into the year, and have since gotten very close to completing my Nolan Ryan collection. I have also added the 1971 and 1969 cards, and now only need the 1970 card and his iconic 1968 rookie with Jerry Koosman. completed 3/5

6. Complete the Jersey Number collection. I sat down and did almost the entire thing in one day. I was missing one more card until December, but essentially this goal was completed in March. marked completed 3/21

7. Add 2 new flagship BBM sets. BBM's sets are sold in series that they call "Versions", and while numbered sequentially, the two versions are rarely sold together. I got the 2nd Version sets for 2006 and 2008 from a Yahoo Japan Auction seller, and have since picked up a couple more sets, in addition to the 2018 sets. completed 6/23

8. Complete the 2000 Calbee set. I've been working hard on a few Calbee sets, and in 2018, I finished several of them. The 2000 set is just one of those, but I also finished 2005, 2016, and part of 2003. There are several cards left on the other modern Calbee set I want to finish, 2004. And then all those SPs from the 1973 Crossed Bats set... completed

9. Finish 2008 Stadium Club. While I'm still hunting the autographs, which I'm not counting as the base set, I do have all of the regular, short printed, rookie, and rookie variation cards from the set. Thanks to Stadium Club's crazy short printing system in the set, and both hobby and retail parallel versions, I made a FrankenSet of sorts, using parallels wherever needed because it's cheaper or all that was available. The last card to finish my set: Clayton Kershaw's variation card. completed 1/17

10. Get a bunch of other base sets. I finished my Score set run with the 1992 set on June 5th. I wanted to finish the Donruss run in 2018, but I haven't found the 2004 or 2005 sets. I picked up the '98 set in March and the '89 set in April. 2003 was added to my collection in August, but I still need those last two flagships. I am one year away from finishing the Fleer set run, and I also added some Topps sets to my stack. While I didn't really get those last two Donruss sets, all the other additions more than make up for it. completed

11. Complete my MLB Type 1 Collection. Type 1 is the major releases. While that sounds pretty simple and easy, what I consider a major release may not match your opinion. And when you go back to the 1970s, 1960s, and all the way back to the 19th century, it gets even harder. Would you consider tobacco cards to be major releases? They're tough finds now, but I consider them major, important sets from the infancy of card collecting. And with that in mind, my collection was completed (through 2017) with an N172 Old Judge card, actually picked up about a week ago! completed 1/17/2019

12. Get my US want list down to 100 sets. It needs a little updating, and actually sits at 106 lines. But 8 lines are single cards, not sets. And once it's properly updated, it'll reflect being lower than 100 sets. completed in December

13. Get my Japan want list down to 125 sets. While there are 124 sets listed on the spreadsheet, some are completed and just haven't been fully updated. So I met this goal! I didn't reach 100, my stretch goal, but I'm happy with what I have so far. completed in December

What goals did I not meet?

1. Organize Japanese single cards. Not being home meant that I never really had time for this. Maybe this year?
2. Update Japan Type Collection. I managed to verify my list's accuracy, though there are some known issues. I've reformatted one of the three spreadsheets (the biggest one), and almost all of the cards are sleeved. But I wasn't able to print labels and thus put them on the cards.
3. Get World Series and Japan Series team cards. I found a couple, but need dozens more.
4. Start a Jersey History collection for NPB. I have essentially abandoned this goal, at least for now. I may come back to it someday.
5. Do a bunch of posting. I kept up with new 2018 sets for quite a while, but of course, once I stopped posting, I ended up falling way behind... five months behind now. I didn't do any Calbee Through The Years posts, didn't post about card shops in Japan, and never posted the card index I had been working on. I keep pushing these goals back. When will they finally get met?

WIth a whopping 18 goals in 2018, I did pretty good, meeting 13, or nearly 75%!

Let's see what 2019 will bring, shall we? Until then...