Goals for 2022

 I only had seven goals last year, though I was only able to fully meet one of them. This year, some of those will be adjusted, some might be removed, and others might be added. Let's see what I hope to accomplish in the next twelve months.

Have you seen this card?

1. Player Collections. I need one card for Charlie Hough, one for Zack Greinke, two for Tony LaRussa. I'd love to find all of those. There are only about a dozen Japanese cards I need for my player collections, but they are not easily obtainable. I need three autographs, three jersey cards, and one or two bat cards. If I can get everything but the Japanese cards, I'll be quite happy.

2. US Sets. There are 79 sets on my want list. Let's try to get down to at least 70. I still need several mini cards for the frankenset, so I want that completed. I'd like to finish one vintage Topps set this year, as well.

3. Japan Sets. I have 58 sets on that want list. This won't be easy, but I'd love to get down to 50. Even finishing three sets would be quite the accomplishment. I need 225 Pokemon cards; I'd like to get that down to 100. I would also like to get one BBM and one Calbee set I'm missing.

4. Theme Collections. I still need one card each for my hometown and knuckler collections, though they are rare tobacco-era cards. There are seven relics for that collection. And as I mentioned recently, I've been starting up a few new collections. It would be great to finish the three existing collections, and of course I want to knock out a large chunk of the new ones.

5. Custom Cards. Again I'll carry over the goal of creating and hopefully printing some custom cards. I'm not looking to do any professional printing right now, just testing out to see what I can accomplish. I also don't really want to print out a full set of anything, as that would take up a lot of space, which I don't necessarily have these days. Perhaps just a few single cards.

6. Management Goals. I have several tasks on my to do list relating to cards, mainly managing lists and scan data. I want to get those taken care of. I also want to finish properly naming my type collection scans and possibly getting the set scans renamed.

7. Blogging. Six months with no posts isn't a good thing. I really want to post on a regular basis. Let's see how that goes.

8. If I'm Home Goals. There's a strong chance I'll spend this year living away from my home apartment. But if I actually do end up living at home, I'll have more free time to work on physical things. I need to do some more scanning; cards won't take too long, but there are several other things I want to digitize. I also have some non-sport cards I've neglected to deal with for a long time. They need to be sorted and cataloged. Finally, I want to complete the labeling system I started about a year ago. 

One extra goal this year brings me to eight! Although, if you count all the little pieces, there are 18 subgoals plus four tentative at-home goals. Will I stay focused enough (and open up my wallet enough in some cases) to get everything done?

2021 Goals In Review

How did I do in 2021?

Actually, I didn't do so well with my goals. Yes, I've done a lot of collecting, but actually meeting these goals has been difficult.

Goal 1: Player Collections. I was able to find the four cards I needed for my Michael Jordan baseball collection, with the last card being #626 in the 2009 Upper Deck 20th Anniversary set. I also got Bartolo Colon's 2012 Heritage card in February to finish his mini collection. Tony LaRussa is still missing two cards, one of which I've never seen. As for Japanese players, I need several cards of Tyler Austin, Alex Ramirez, and Motonobu Tanishige, though I've found several throughout the year.  I've also started five more player collections, three of which are mini-supercollections. Despite just starting them in November, I've made some good progress. One of my PC goals was to get three figures, but I only managed to get one: Clayton Kershaw. All of my US purchases go to my mother's house, and she has been complaining about the amount of space I take up, so I haven't really been working on that part of my collection. Grade: B.

Goal 2: Themed Collections. I got a few Pokemon cards early in the year, and I've gotten some minis to get me closer to a full frankenset. I also found a couple more relics for the relic type collection, needing just seven more. My alumni and knuckler collections remain two and one card short, respectively. And for the third or fourth year in a row, I have neglected to hunt down the minor league and non-sport singles I need. I've got a few more themed collections ready to go, but I might not actually start them until 2023. We shall see. Grade: C.

Goal 3: BBM and Calbee Sets. This is the only goal I fully met. In April, I finished the 2008 Calbee base set, in May I completed the 1998 Calbee set, and the 1996 BBM set was crossed off my list in mid-June. I'm extremely close on a couple more Calbee sets and the 1995 BBM set. Grade: A.

Goal 4: Set Collections. I started with 84 US sets on the list, with a goal of getting it down to 75. It sits at 80 now, but three of those are 2021 sets, and four others are sets I added in the past two weeks. As for Japanese sets, I started with 63, wanting to get down to 60. There are 58 sets on the list. Grade: A.

Goal 5: Type Collection. I didn't focus at all on my US type collection this year. COMC has been very difficult to work with, as new inventory just didn't show up for the first several months of the year, and I rely heavily on COMC for singles. While not a stated goal, I have worked on my Japanese type collection the past two years. Grade: W (dropped)

Goal 6: Custom Cards. This didn't happen. Too many other distractions. It wasn't a high priority, so I'm not so disappointed. Grade: F.

Goal 7: Collection Maintenance. I didn't expect to spend all of 2021 living away from home. The labeling project couldn't happen, though as I've added new cards, I have been implementing the new format. I haven't been 100% focused on my card scans, but I've made progress in properly naming them. Grade: C.

That was it for my written goals for the year. It looks like I averaged around a B-. If you go with just the first four, most important goals, I end up with a B+. As a side note, I hadn't started any vintage Topps sets, so I didn't set goals for completing any. But I began three sets and finished one of those: 1976. I'll leave the other two for a future post

In the near future, I'll lay out my 2022 goals. Until next time...

Half-Year in Review

Howdy, folks! It's been a few weeks. I don't know how I've been keeping busy, but here we are. I've been busy. I haven't neglected collecting, and I do have some scans that I hopefully will be sharing sooner or later (perhaps some in this post?)... but until then, 2021 is already halfway through, and I thought it would be nice to take a quick look at my goals for the year.

If you're interested in the original post where I introduced my goals, just go back to this January 1st post.

1. Finish certain player collections. Two of the four US collections are done, and the others are moving along as much as possible. I haven't made much progress on my NPB collections, either. But I did get the card above - the 1990 Calbee "Big" card for Motonobu Tanishige. I've also added a few new players to my collection, but I haven't actually begun to collect them.

2. Complete certain collections. Nothing completed, but I did find a few singles here and there to get me closer. Nothing to write home about! 

3. BBM and Calbee sets. I've met my goal, as I've finished a couple Calbee sets and I finally finished 1996 BBM last month. This is the only goal that's actually completed, halfway through the year!

4. Reduce my US want list size. I have finished a few sets, and if I ignore this year's additions, I'm making some good progress. But overall, the list is just as big as before, thanks to new releases and beginning a few new vintage sets.

5. Knock a bunch of inserts off my type collection want list. I haven't started on this goal. It's possible I could tackle it late in the year, or even on an idle Sunday. But I've always figured this was a stretch goal.

6. I wanted to create some custom card sets, but I haven't done anything with this. Another goal that I need some free time for! I have figured out one aspect of creating the cards: I can print photos quite easily from local convenience stores or at electronics stores (I'm not sure which is cheaper, since I haven't priced them yet).

7. I also wanted to properly label my type collections and card scans. I've finished the bulk of the non-set scans (I'm not sure I'll ever do the set scans, but it's possible). But I've been working away from home all year, and it looks like I might be here for the remainder of the year. As new sets have come out, I've been properly labeling my cards, but the older sets need to be done. Because I'm not at home, I doubt this will get completed this year. Labels don't write themselves.

Beyond my annual goals, it's been really hard to get complete sets, but I've started on 2021 Donruss and 2021 Diamond Kings. I  haven't had any luck on Stadium Club yet, and Ginter hits shelves in a few weeks. This might be the year of unfinished base sets. (Ugh.)

Until next time...

This Year's Goals: Short and Sweet

 A new year, a new set of goals. I have no idea what the next 365 days have in store for me, Japan, and the world.

I spent a large part of the past year living away from my apartment, and this year may be more of the same. The Olympics could happen, and I could be attending a few events. I would like to go back home and visit my mother for Christmas, but there are lots of factors at play right now.

But here are my hopes for this rotation of the earth around the sun, at least as far as card collecting goes.

1. Finish some player collections. I'm hoping to complete my Michael Jordan baseball collection, Bartolo Colon, Tony LaRussa, and Tyler Austin for the US, and Alex Ramirez and Motonobu Tanishige for the NPB. Plus, I'd like to add three figures for my player collections; I currently need nine.

2. Complete various collections. Pokemon needs 41 from the new generation, plus about 175 variations. I need around 50 minis to finish that Frankenset, and just a few cards each to complete my relic, alumni, and knuckler mini-collections. Some of those cards are quite rare or costly. Also bundled in here are the MiLB and non-sport singles I need for a couple collections; this goal keeps getting pushed back year after year but perhaps the time is now.

3. Get at least one BBM set and one Calbee set. I'm currently working on the 1995 and 1996 BBM sets, and need five other sets that I could pick up complete. For Calbee, there are six series from 1998 through 2010 that could make this happen, including the entire 2006 set. In addition, I need one more card to finish the 2008 Calbee set: a mascot card that has oddly eluded me.

4. 75 or fewer sets on the US want list. I'm at 84 including last year's sets. Some are very close to completion! And 60 or fewer sets on the Japan want list. I'm currently at 63, so it's not a big jump, but these cards seem really tough to find.

5. Type Collection Inserts to 70%. I'm at about 67% complete on insert cards for my type collection, and getting to 70% requires about 200 cards. I think this can be done with a little focus. A second goal for this collection would be getting parallels to 50%; I again need about 200 cards to make this happen.

6. Create custom sets. I'm already planning to make some cards to fit in my collection where cards don't currently exist. I'd like to make some other custom cards or sets from my travel photos and some other hobbies or themes. Time will be a factor here.

7. This year's to-do list: complete the type collection labeling project I started last year, and properly label my card scans.

That's about it, half the number of goals as I had last year. Some of my goals are somewhat combined, so overall I might have the same number of tasks. Five of seven goals are purchases, since these are things I can do online, no matter where I am. Time to get started on those purchases!

2020 Goals in Review

What a year, huh? I'm still in Japan, doing what I've been doing. I had originally planned on returning home for the holidays this year, but for obvious reasons, I'm sitting in my apartment.

I haven't posted in seven months; as usual, I guess, I went on hiatus again. I post about as frequently as Rick and Morty episodes come out. Oh, I finally discovered Rick and Morty. And Brooklyn 99. And I'm about halfway through Night Court, the 1980s sitcom. I've watched a lot of TV and movies this year, I suppose like everyone else.

Things in Japan aren't as bad as Europe and the US, so I made it to two baseball games during a vacation in September. I've managed to do a little local sightseeing in the areas I've been working. After a pretty busy late May and June, I was sent to Gunma, a little bit north of Tokyo. It's a rural prefecture, with lots of nice hiking spots and some historical sightseeing destinations. And the past two weeks saw me in the Nagano area. If I'm there long enough, there are some top-class natural sights to see!

Being away from my apartment makes it difficult to post, because I can't scan cards, and there aren't any shops to get new stuff from anyway. But thanks to sites like COMC, Sportlots, and of course eBay, I can pick up some MLB stuff. And Japanese online sources have helped with my NPB collections. 

So, in all, I had 13 goals, plus a to-do list of sorts. And I didn't do too bad with them. Here's my year-end wrap up.

1. Get the Donruss 2004 set. Completed May 18th. I now have every Topps (since 1978, my birth year), Donruss, Fleer, Score, and Upper Deck flagship set ever issued.

2. Get my wantlist down to 80 sets. Completed last week. Technically, there are 84 sets on the list, but five of those are 2020 sets. I've also made some great strides in reducing the number of cards needed for several of the remaining sets. The most recent completed set is 2003 Diamond Kings DK Evolution; I picked up the Ripken off eBay.

3. Finish my Pokemon card collection. Completed May 25th. This gets me through the first 800-ish Pokemon; a new series of monsters came out about a year ago and I have yet to finish that collection. But I did meet the goal of finishing through Melmetal!

4. Get at least 25 minis for the Frankenset collection. Completed November 8th. After getting five 2018 A&Gs in April and five more 2020 Ginters in September, I found 15 more random minis on COMC to scratch this off the list. But... over Black Friday, I finished off everything except the 200s card numbers. Which means I only need about 50-60 more to complete that collection. 

5. World Series and Japan Series team cards. Completed last week. I spent a couple evenings making some fairly simple custom cards to fill out a collection where cards didn't exist. I am still hoping to eventually find suitable licensed cards for those spots.

6. Order MiLB and non-sport cards. This is my first incomplete goal. I just never got around to it, yet again.

7. Organize and label my Japan Type Collection. Completed April 10th. Very early into the emergency declaration here, I had enough free time at home to sort everything out and get labeled sticky notes in place. I've since decided on a slightly better labeling format, but because I have been on the road, I've only managed to get a little of the relabeling completed.

8. Reformat my Japan Singles Collection spreadsheet. Completed May 18th. I did a lot of inventory maintenance that day. I got the singles sheet retyped and organized and reformatted the set list too. 

9. Merge some of my spreadsheet files together. Completed June 2nd. I've also been considering merging a few more that would work combined.

10. Create/complete some custom card sets. Completed through last week. I left this one open as "some", so I guess I have done this. I've made custom cards to pair with my non-sport relic and autograph cards and the custom cards mentioned above for the World Series and Japan Series team cards I needed. 

11. Sort my Japanese collections. Completed by April 11th. At the start of the year, I alphabetically sorted my gaijin (foreigner) collection. I sorted out all of my complete sets in March, and in early April I sorted a second type collection and my Pokemon cards. April through early May also saw the sorting of my other smaller collections (players, singles, etc), and the complete scanning of every Japanese collection and type card I have.

12. Clear out the clutter. Not completed. I was hoping to perhaps set up at the Tokyo Collector's Show or find some other way to sell off some extras I've accumulated. I got everything sorted, but the card show never happened. So everything is basically ready, just waiting for the right opportunity.

13. Pick up certain key cards for collections. Partially completed. My first goal here was a McGwire autograph, which I found right at the beginning of the year. I met the goal of getting three figures: Masahiro Tanaka in January, Adrian Beltre in October, and Tony LaRussa in November. I never got a Bartolo Colon 2012 Topps Heritage card. I found a Michael Jordan bat relic, but I'm still looking for an affordable baseball jersey card.

The to-do list was met with mixed success. I'm happy to say that all of my Japanese cards are scanned, though the images aren't all properly sorted and labeled yet. I created and knocked a large part of a Tony LaRussa collection down. I added an alumni collection and a knuckleballers collection, both of which are done except for a few pre-war players.

I completed four BBM flagship sets - 1999, 2003 1st Version, 2007 1st Version, and 2010 1st Version. I started two more - 1995 and 1996, neither of which I expect to finish anytime soon. Calbee 2004, 2007, and 2009 are done, and 2008 only needs one more card. I also completed the 1974 Topps set, my second Topps set from before I was born. 

I read 18 books this year. I probably would have read more but I got stuck on one particular book that's just been difficult to read. In fact, I could have possibly knocked out 24 books if I had either ditched that book or just focused on finishing it sooner. (It's still not done!) My goal was to read one book per month, and I did better than that, on average. But there were a couple months this fall that I just never finished a book.

I wanted to put up some sort of card display. I used to have a type collection of Topps, Donruss, Fleer, Score, and Upper Deck cards as a sort of border along one wall, but I ended up taking those down when I moved to a new apartment. I'd like to put it back up in some fashion, or do something else on a wall. I also never printed out any custom cards, which I would like to do just to see how they look. 

Overall, though, 11 of the 13 goals were met (one of those partially) and I feel like I accomplished a lot this year!

2020 in Foresight: Goals for the Year

Last year, I had fourteen goals. I feel like I did pretty good with them, but let's see what I want to accomplish in 2020.

The first seven goals are continuations of last year's lists:

1. Get the Donruss 2004 set. This will give me all of the flagship sets for Topps, Donruss, Fleer, Score, and Upper Deck - all of the major manufacturers - from my birth year to present. Panini doesn't have a flagship set in my mind, but I continue to pick up their annual Donruss offering. I just picked up the '05 Donruss and Fleer Tradition sets, and now the wait is on.

2. Get my wantlist down to 80 sets. Carrying this over from last year, I am continuing to work on finishing off all of those old sets, some of which I've been trying to complete for over 15 years. But that does mean that many are very close to completion, so I should have some success this year!

3. Finish my Pokemon card collection. I'm three away, not counting the newest generation. I'll also start on the new generation.

4. Get at least 25 minis for the Frankenset collection. Finding minis in Japan is pretty difficult, mainly because it's so hard to find US card singles. I now need 124, so that would get me down below 100.

5. Once again, try to get team cards for World Series and Japan Series teams. Or I'll make my own. I really want to pare down my want lists.

6. Order MiLB and non-sport cards. This is another carry-over from last year to knock some sets and singles off my want list.

7. Organize and label my Japan Type Collection. This will happen if I'm actually home. It really needs to happen! It's been about five years since I last printed labels.

And continuing with goals and projects for 2020:

8. Reformat my Japan Singles Collection spreadsheet. It's messy, and the cards are unsorted as well. It's not such a long spreadsheet, but if I wait much longer it might get unwieldy. Also reform the complete set list, and fix my Owner's League listings in my type collection.

9. Merge some of my spreadsheet files together. I deliberately pulled some out last year, but I want to combine some of the other sheets into one, or into existing sheets. Switching from file to file is more difficult in Google Sheets than going from sheet to sheet in the same document.

10. Create/complete some custom card sets. I enjoyed making some custom cards last year, even though I haven't printed anything yet. I have a lot of ideas in my head that I think would be fun to put together, if I have the time.

11. Sort my Japanese collections. There are some Frankenset collections I've been working on, but as I've added cards, I haven't been keeping them sorted. So if I'm home enough, I want to spend some time organizing those boxes.

12. Clear out the clutter. I have a lot of stuff I want to keep, but there are cards and other random things taking up space in my already tiny apartment. Hopefully they can find a home.

13. Add a Mark McGwire autograph to my collection, three more figures for my player collections (I need 11 more figures), and Bartolo Colon's 2012 Topps Heritage SP card. I'd also like a Michael Jordan bat card and jersey card (or one card with both). One goal finished as I wrote this post - the card you see to the right is now in my collection!

Of the thirteen goals, seven are "shopping list" items, but only one of those seven is a new goal.

There is a fourteenth goal of sorts. I have made a to-do list of tasks which I'm going to try to complete. They're mundane things, so unlike last year I won't type them out, but if anything interesting happens with them I'll be sure to share. And this list is sort of a work-in-progress anyway, so additional tasks could get added in.

Last year was pretty successful, and I hope to make this year at least as good!

Until next time...

2019 Goals in Review

I've been busy for the past several days. My vacation started Saturday, and I've been working on card stuff almost exclusively since then. I've gone through a lot of my cards, getting caught up on organizing and scanning. Which leads right into today's post.

While I didn't post much during the year, I stayed pretty active working toward my goals. I came up with fourteen back in January, so as usual, let's review those goals and my progress.

1. Acquire flagship sets. I was specifically looking for reasonably-priced complete sets for:

• Topps 1995
• Topps Traded 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1995, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2012, 2014, 2015
• Donruss 2004, 2005
• Fleer Tradition 2005

My goal was ten of these fifteen sets. I got fourteen. What did I not find? 2004 Donruss. 2002 Topps Traded, 2005 Donruss, and 2005 Fleer Tradition are "short" sets without SPs, which is perfectly acceptable in my mind.

I now have the complete run of Topps Traded/Update sets, with the acquisition of 2002 Traded in November. I also added 1978 and 1979 Topps to my collection, meaning I now have a complete run of Topps flagship sets from my birth year forward!

2. Have 80 or fewer sets left to complete.

I started the year with 100 sets on my list. Today, I have 93. Ten of those are from 2019, meaning I knocked almost 20 sets off the list. I also made significant progress on many of the other sets, as I see several needing only one, two, or three cards.

3. Complete my Pokemon card collection.

I needed 12 cards in January. I'm down to three. I came pretty close on this goal, and might be able to hunt those three down in the coming year.

4. Complete the mini frankenset.

I needed about 200 cards in January. I need about 125 today. I'm not too surprised that I couldn't meet this goal, as I'm still avoiding using US card services. Finding 75 or so minis in Japan was a pretty good feat.

5. Get team cards for Japan Series and World Series teams.

I never tried to do this. My first real failure of a goal for the year. To be fair, these don't really exist in Japan for what I want, so I might need to make customs.

6. Re-check players with "no" cards to see if that's changed.

In mid-November, I went through my lists and picked up a bunch of pre-war players with newly-accessible cardboard. I also checked through my Japanese want lists and found a few good cards.

7. Get one Nolan Ryan card.

I needed 1968 and 1970. I now need neither. My Nolan Ryan career Topps flagship run is complete! My 1968 card is a PSA 1, but at least I have one now. The 1970 is an SGC 70/5.5. I picked both up in March.

8. Get an Ichiro or Masahiro Tanaka autograph.

I found an affordable Ichiro autograph in March from the Leaf Best of Baseball set, and just a couple weeks ago I got a Ma-kun autograph (#5/5!) to cross him off the list too!

9. Add 3 MLB figures to my player collections.

In March, I found a Charlie Hough bobblehead and a Miguel Cabrera figure. And in October I got a 1988 Starting Lineup of Julio Franco. Of course, I still need many more.

10. Get my Japan set want list down to 100 sets.

This is one last-minute goal I can check off the list. I think I cleared off about 35 this year, and now I'm down to 84. Several sets were deleted. Others were complete except for SPs or insert sets, or complete only as SPs/inserts, and I have no real interest in building the other side. And I managed to finish several sets as well!

11. Add at least 3 Calbee or BBM sets to my collection.

I picked up five sets: 1994 BBM was completed in May, and I found 2005 BBM 2nd Version back in January. March brought me 2007 Calbee, in August I finished 2013, and I found the entire 2011 Calbee set in November. I'm two cards away from finishing 2004 Calbee, too.

12. Complete the following tasks:

• Organize my Japanese single card collections.
• Organize my Japanese player collections by year.
• Order MiLB cards needed for Japanese MLBer and Player Collections.
• Order non-sport cards needed to finish off sets.
• Reformat my Japan Type Collection spreadsheets. 11/20
• Update/print labels for the Japan Type Collection, and apply labels to cards.
• Update MLB Archives list for 2018 11/13
• Update MLB Type Collection for 2018 11/24
• Update MiLB Type Collection for 2018 11/23
• Verify Japanese MLBer list 11/13
• Verify NPB Foreigners list 11/13

I didn't get the cards ordered, and I never got a chance to print labels. Printing would require me to be home, which didn't happen very much in 2019. I was just lazy when it comes to ordering the non-sport and minor league cards. But I got all of the 2018 and 2019 updates done in the middle of November, which means I don't have to do them next year. And I also updated the awards for 2019's recipients in Japan and the US.

13. Organize my complete set lists.

I went through my main list in October and pulled out the specific collections. All of the want lists stay on the same spreadsheet, but set runs like Allen & Ginter and themes like USA cards are now easily tracked on another sheet like I do for my flagship sets.

14. Create some custom cards.

I wanted to actually print cards, which I didn't do. I made card fronts for a lot of sets I wanted to do, though I haven't made any card backs yet.

Only two goals were complete failures this year, and four goals were satisfactorily completed, though not completely met. Eight goals were 100% met, four goals passed, and only two failures. Not good for an air traffic controller, but good for a hobbyist.

What will I try for next year? Tune in next year to find out!

BBA/Question Revival: My Trading Card Bucket List

Do you remember 43Things? It was a social networking website created about 15 years ago where people would post their life goals. You could have up to 43 active goals, and you could mark completed goals and write reviews of your experiences. Other people could have the same goal as you, so conversations were shared among all users.

Thanks to the Wayback Machine, I can see that I first joined the site in 2007, and one of my first goals was to visit Japan. How about that? And back in 2007, I had two goals on there related to trading cards: to sell my old baseball cards, and to make a trading card set from my photos.

Well, twelve years later, I've done neither of those. I still have all my extra old baseball cards taking up space in my storage unit. And I have yet to make a trading card set from my photos, though I've made some mock-ups, a few of which have been published on this blog.

Thanks to a post by Fuji, though, I'm inspired to revisit the concept of a bucket list. I set goals for myself every year, so why not set some lifetime goals?

Fuji's idea was inspired by Cardboard History writer Billy. But I saw Fuji's post first. And both of those were made last summer. Looking at Billy's list, many of them are unattainable or simply dreams for the future. To each their own, but my bucket list is about things I can do.

So, similar to Fuji's post, let's first look at some impossible dreams. Like Fuji, I'll include my guess as to how slim a chance I have at completing these.

1. Complete my type collection. Chance of success: 0%

My type collection spans the entirety of baseball history, and the entirety of the baseball world. Every set, insert set, and parallel set. MiLB seems the most possible - almost all of the sets were created in my lifetime, and while they are oddballs, they aren't impossible to find. But in total I'd need about 65,000 cards (of which I have 17,000 or so) for MLB, MiLB, and Japan, plus cards issued in other countries like Australia, Korea, and the Netherlands. And just in the MLB list, there are several sets with only one card, with a print run of only one. Not to mention the expense of locating all the cards I need.

2. Complete an entire set run of Topps from 1951 to present. Chance of success: 1%

Infinitely more possible, but still unbelievably expensive, is the dream of having a complete run of Topps sets. I have a pretty good start: all of the sets from 1978-2019 are under my belt, and I have the 1973 set. So what's left? Every set that costs more than a Benjamin, basically. Unless there's an unlikely bottoming out of the market when all the Boomers die (sorry, it's just the truth, I'm not trying to offend here), or I win a big lottery jackpot, I am never finishing this goal. It would be nice to at least have all of the sets from 1971 to present. (Don't get me started on Calbee.)

3. Have a relic or autograph card from all of my favorite celebrities. Chance of success: 5%

It's a matter of logistics here. There are some celebrities who will probably never have an autograph or relic card made of them. Some will have cut signatures, or there's the chance for in-person or through-the-mail autographs. But there are some who I just can't get on cardboard. That said, there aren't that many celebrities I don't have something for already. Perhaps it's just a matter of time.

4. Have 100% of wanted sets on my non-sport set list. Chance of success: 15%

I mentioned this collection yesterday. It would take around 600 sets to finish this off. Not all of them are expensive, and if I visited a good non-sports card shop I could probably come home with a big stack of sets I just haven't bothered with yet. But there are some rare oddball sets I've discovered but never got my hands on, plus the vintage sets which are extremely difficult to track down and pricey. I do regret not keeping all of those Garbage Pail Kids stickers I had in the 1980s.

5. Complete my archive collection. Chance of success: 0.01%

Let's finish with another impossibility. There are major league players out there who never received a card. Conlon Collection certainly helped with many of them, but there are countless others whose careers are but a couple lines in a stat book or a few pieces of data on MLB's website. Even having a card for every player who ever received one is virtually impossible, as I just can't afford those vintage cards. Reprint sets have been a big help, and NPB Card Guy provided me with a bunch of old reprints (T206!) to get the ball rolling. There have been 19,489 players to take the field according to my records. Yes, through 2019; Kyle Zimmer is sitting right there in front of me. It would take an amazing effort by a trading card company (and dozens of series) to issue a 20,000 card set. Plus all the subsets and inserts and autographs and relics to keep people buying packs and boxes.

Now how about the realistic bucket list goals?

1. Finish every set on my want list. Chance of success: 75%

If I exclude all of those vintage Topps flagship sets, I need less than 100 sets. Some cards are expensive, but I only see three actual cards which are pretty unattainable. As I continue to chip away at the list, more sets get added, but those modern sets are much easier to complete than those more than 15 years old.

2. Have 25% of cards for every year in my MLB type collection. Chance of success: 50%

Over the last few years, I've made it a goal to have 25% or 50% of cards for each year in my type collection, working all the way back to 1978. I don't have over 25% for any year prior to 1978 except for 1951 for some reason (four out of 13, 31%). But I am close for every year between 1951 and 1978. And then there are cards from the pre-Topps eras. In all, I need about 250 vintage cards to reach this goal, and many, many more (less expensive) modern cards (2016-2019). The vintage cards won't be that cheap, but it'll be a nice challenge. The real challenge is the 19th century cards!

3. Complete my player collections. Chance of success: 75%

The few base cards, figurines, and single autograph (Masahiro Tanaka) I need are easily attainable. But (excluding 1/1s) I need five Buck Farmer rare cards, a bunch of Charlie Hough and Bobby Cox oddballs, and plenty of Jose Altuve and Michael Jordan inserts.

4. Create my own trading card set(s). Chance of success: 99%

If this is so easy, why is it here? It's been a goal of mine for over a decade, yet I still haven't made it happen. I've made some big progress toward meeting this goal, and perhaps I'll see it through in the near future. There are tons of ideas in my head.

And a quick thought, here: what items might have been on my bucket list when I was a young collector? Owning my own card shop (I had a "card shop" in my bedroom when I was in high school... and my best friend was my only customer), owning a card company (which I suppose #4 is the evolution of), having my own professional baseball card (I got those "card" photos when I played Little League, but I dreamed of being on the Braves), and open up a baseball card museum (blogging has been my way of living out this dream). 

I'll probably have more on this in the future, but this post is already long enough.

So, until next time...

2019: Goals and Ambitions

While last year wasn't the best in terms of posting, I met a majority of my goals. With so much accomplished last year, 2019 will prove to be quite difficult. Or, perhaps things will go my way and everything will get done. We'll see, right?

In no particular order, here are my goals:

1. Acquire flagship sets. I'm specifically looking for reasonably-priced complete sets for:

• Topps 1995
• Topps Traded 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1995, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2012, 2014, 2015
• Donruss 2004, 2005
• Fleer Tradition 2005

That is a total of 15 sets. If I get ten of those, I'll be really happy. Actually, while I'm writing this, 2004 Topps Traded should be on the way, so nine more to go!

2. Have 80 or fewer sets left to complete. In 2018, I knocked about 20 other sets off my want list. Can I get another 20? My new goal is to have only 80 sets that need finishing. I can count 15 sets that have three or fewer cards left to completion. But are those cards easy and reasonably priced to obtain? We'll see.

3. Complete my Pokemon card collection. I only need 12 cards. Let's get this finished!

4. Complete the mini frankenset. I don't know exactly how many minis I have in the set, but I'd like to finish it off. I might be about halfway done, and since I want #1-350, that means I need somewhere around 200 minis. What's really going to make this difficult is that I want to get those minis here in Japan. I could go on SportLots or COMC and grab random minis to just knock everything off the list, but I don't want to do that. Luckily, I recently came across a card shop that has a good number of MLB cards, and prices are decent. Where will that get me?

5. Get team cards for Japan Series and World Series teams. I'm still missing dozens of cards that really should be off my list already.

6. Re-check players with "no" cards to see if that's changed. Several older players have no cards, or at least very few cards. I'm hoping some have found their way onto cardboard in the past couple of years.

7. Get one Nolan Ryan card. I need his 1968 and 1970 Topps cards. If I get just one this year, I'll be happy. If I get both, I'll be ecstatic. 

8. Get an Ichiro or Masahiro Tanaka autograph. I need both of them.

9. Add 3 MLB figures to my player collections. I need 12.

10. Get my Japan set want list down to 100 sets. It's around 125 now. I never really cleaned up the list last year, so there are some things that I can just get rid of. And there are plenty of sets that are near completion.

11. Add at least 3 Calbee or BBM sets to my collection. This shouldn't be too hard. Finishing the 2004 Calbee set would be great, and I've also gotten started on 2003 and 2009.

12. Complete the following tasks:

• Organize my Japanese single card collections.
• Organize my Japanese player collections by year.
• Order MiLB cards needed for Japanese MLBer and Player Collections.
• Order non-sport cards needed to finish off sets.
• Reformat my Japan Type Collection spreadsheets.
• Update/print labels for the Japan Type Collection, and apply labels to cards.
• Update MLB Archives list for 2018
• Update MLB Type Collection for 2018
• Update MiLB Type Collection for 2018
• Verify Japanese MLBer list
• Verify NPB Foreigners list

13. Organize my complete set lists. They're a mess, mainly because perennial full sets like Allen & Ginter and Gypsy Queen are mixed in with one-off insert sets, Diamond Kings, and other set collections.

14. Create some custom cards. I've played around with and actually designed a couple sets, but never printed any. They focus on filling gaps in my collection where cards just don't exist. I'd like to make actual, tangible cardboard cards.

Fourteen goals this year. I've never had a perfect year, but will things change this time? Only.. um.. time.. will tell.

Gotta recognize...

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...

One 2018 Goal Done! Figures In Hand!

Last year, I hit my goals hard early in the year. And throughout the year. And at the end of the year.

This year, I'm trying to not be lazy, and be as successful as 2017 in reaching my goals. But last year, several of my goals could be knocked out pretty quickly; this year, it's not so easy. That's fine - I designed a lot of it that way.

My New Year's vacation wasn't very pleasant thanks to a cold and more importantly an infection, but all the home-time means that I could work on my to-do list.

While the to-do list isn't completely finished, I've verified my Japanese MLBer and NPB Foreigner lists. And I've even been keeping it updated with the most-recent signings (tentatively, of course - there's no guarantee even Shohei Ohtani will ever play an MLB game until they actually step on the field). 

I also spent an afternoon updating my MLB and MiLB type collection lists as accurately as possible from Trading Card Database's listings.

That's all good, of course, but most of my goals focus on milestones in my collections. And one area that is seriously lacking is  figurines for my player collections. I have 32 player collections, and I started the year with 14 figures - less than half. Okay, Geoff Geary has no figurine and probably never will. But it's still less than half.

So one of my goals for this year was to obtain three figures. And if you read the title of this post, you'll know I've met that goal.

 Yeah. I stole these images from eBay. But these are the auctions I got, so whatever. I got both of these figures on New Year's Day, kicking off the year with a bang. The Altuve is an Import Dragon figure, while King Felix is a McFarlane.

 I've picked up a few MLB figures around Japan. A few fit into my type collection (yes, SLUs and McFarlanes are in my type collection), while others are just fun novelties. But I found an Albert Pujols bobblehead at an anime shop in Osaka, and a local secondhand shop is where I found my Bobby Cox bobblehead. I've also been keeping my eyes on Yahoo! Japan Auctions lately, looking for cheap figures. And timing was right that I could pick up this Tom Glavine SLU at a decent price to finish off my goal. The auction was won back on the fourth, but I received it earlier this week.

While we're talking about figures, this SLU pair was found at a secondhand shop that focuses on anime merchandise. I didn't really need a Jeter/Ichiro figure, and this package is big, but it's a cool figure and will eventually look nice sitting displayed on a shelf... if I ever have a shelf for it to be displayed on. And I have to figure out how to get all this stuff I'm collecting in Japan... home. (The Altuve and Hernandez figures were sent to my mom's house in the US.)