There is a VERY cool site if you're looking for oddball checklists: http://www.geocities.com/gormanv/oddlist.html
There are a bunch on there, and there are a lot of pictures to help you identify the cards in question. I can't remember the card I was researching when I came across his site, but when I found the site, I knew I had to bookmark it ASAP!
Bart, the baseballcardman, sent me a stack of Indians cards a bit ago in exchange for a stack of Royals. Unfortunately, he is still waiting for those Royals to arrive. Have no fear, they are being sent out on Thursday! Sorry for the delay, but I wanted to make sure I found some 1986 Topps Tattoos (hope ya need 'em!) before I sent them along. :-)
My Indians collection has been growing, especially lately with various by-mail trades and purchases I've made in relation to my All-Time Jersey Numbers. According to my database, I am sitting at just over 6600 non-duplicated singles. The program is not really a "complete inventory," so 6800-7000 is probably closer to the latest tally. One thing I have learned about collecting a particular team's cards - no matter how big the collection gets, there will always be cards you need... One of the difficulties in collecting team sets, though, is that you never REALLY know how 'complete' your collection is. In 2002, I bought a CD with only Tribe cards listed (got it on eBay, not a bad purchase, but not very helpful in a lot of ways since I do database programming), and it had roughly 15,000 cards listed. I knew that was incomplete because I had many cards that were not in that database. Unfortunately, I have yet to understand the crazy reporting system in CardCollector to get it to simply tell me how many INDIANS cards it has in its database. I must be thinking too hard on that one. In any case, I would venture to say that if I aimed for 50-75,000 individual cards, that would be a good start. So, in some respects, I am sitting at roughly 10% of the total population of Tribe cards.
Am I trying to collect one of each and every Tribe card? Yes. But, as I've said here before, my actual "primary" goal is one set-type card for every style of Tribe card made. I am not a fool, knowing full well that snagging some of the greats from very early sets would cost a small fortune even in "Tipton" condition. That is why I am shooting for set-type examples, and then expand into full sets as I can or as they come to me. For example, I suddenly find myself owning 4 or 5 "Fine Pens" through my Uniform posts. Likewise, I currently have one set-type of the "Play Ball" and "Batter-Up" sets. And for me, that's a great place to start (or should I say continue to build?)....
You have a great approach to your Indians collection. It is virtually impossible to get one of everything between those rare vintage cards and the one of one cards we have now.
ReplyDeleteI had it in my head long ago (before 1/1's) that I could have a complete collection, splurging when and where I needed. But, the whole 1/1 thing is exactly what put me off to building a truly complete collection. I do have some 1/1's that were picked cheap (unknown/minor team stars), but there will always be at least someone else out there collecting or holding on to the 1/1 cards. That's when my focus shifted to set-types as a foundation to build on. :-) In a weird way, NOT trying for the true complete collection has kept the FUN of collecting alive in me! :-)
ReplyDeletedavid, what kind of program are you using to track your inventory? right now I'm using excel spreadsheet as i have found most of the card collecting software either too complicated or not user friendly for large collections.
ReplyDeleteDavid
ReplyDeleteI was wondering how many Tribe card you had, now I know .Yes I need 1986 Topps Tattoos.
Thank you.
You are great!!!!