Pt 2 - When a fourth equals a thousand

This post continues the eagle eye view of the cards sent to me by Andrew. The photo above isn't even all of the cards that made the cut in this go-round! You will see some of the others later in the post. But, I can tell you that today's winners (and by 'winners,' I mean those that were added to my collection) amounted to nearly the same size stack as yesterday's! And, only thirteen (13) cards were already in my Indians binders this time! That is absolutely amazing to me.

I think what surprises me the most is just how many cards I actually *do* need for my collection. I mean, look, if I had to guess, I'd say there are what - 150,000 or more unique Indians cards that have been made, right? So, my overall collection at this point might represent less than 1/10th of what's ever been produced. But, having someone send me this many cards that I *need* for my collection leaves me kinda dumbstruck.

Like the previous post on these cards, this group includes a rather eclectic look at brands, types, and styles of baseball cards. And it's all made the better because they are Indians cards, of course! There are O-Pee-Chee stickers, Bowman, Bowman Chrome, Bowman Draft Picks, Bowman Chrome Draft Picks, Bowman Future Gamers (and their Chrome counterparts), Topps, Topps Finest, Stadium Club, Fleer Tradition, and on and on and on!

As a side note here, do you remember the crazy trend where the manufacturers were making all these "post-2000" cards *BEFORE* the year 2000? In this case, I came across what I thought were Fleer E-X 2001. Why? Well, stamped on the front, they said it. On the back, however, the date is actually 1998! Leaf did it in like 1993 or something when they came out with their Team2000 series. Frankly, I always hated that trend. Of course, Donruss had disappeared and re-emerged, so they pulled a 180 on the whole thing. They made cards that were "retro" to fill in the gaps. Remember things like the Donruss 1999 which were actually made in 2001 or some crazy thing? (Yes, my dating of these sets may be a bit off. I'm not writing an expose' here. Well, yeah, sorta, but no. Just stick with me, okay?)

I have to say all these future sets, past sets, inserts, chases, etc, could make a collector go berserk and toss his collection into the ring of fire (Johnny Cash's, not that horrid thing Adam did on Idol last week!! Though, his could be tossed in the fire, too.)... Take for example those Black Diamond cards. They *look* like regular Black Diamonds, but in reality, they are the 'special rookie' insert set. Of course, having the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards close at hand helps tremendously...

Had I known before I started writing that I needed just one more card to make this post have a nice round number for the total cards in my collection, I would have pulled out the next card I needed and entered it. As it is, however, my collection currently stands at 8,799 individual, non-duplicated Indians cards. I need to look back and see how many I had when I first started this blog. I'm sure I wrote it somewhere...

Again, thank you so much to Andrew for this box of cards, and a bigger thank you to EVERYONE that has helped me take my little Indians baseball card collection to places I only dreamed it would ever go!

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Crazy 'want' time: While entering cards, I came across a card that I would dearly love to add to my collection (See below). If you know someone that has it, drop me a line and I will gladly find something to trade for it! There were 10,000 produced, but I don't know how many have survived:

That is a 1997 Upper Deck Sister Assumpta Trivia card. I didn't even know these existed until the past few days. If you don't know, Sister Assumpta is a HUGE Indians fan. She began baking cookies for the team in 1986 as a 'thank you' and she has been associated with Indians baseball ever since. There is a very nice write-up (though a bit dated nowadays) about her here.

I'd love to add one of these to my Tribe cards collection.