Well that was a lot of excitement over nothing, huh? Nobody outside of the long deceased are headed to the Baseball Hall of Fame this year. Enjoy counting those tourist dollars this summer, Cooperstown. Might want to tweak your rules, Hall.
But enough about that. Cards are what are most important here, not some stuffy museum. And the more colorful the cards, the better from this bird's view.
I just added the 2001 Upper Deck Decade 1970s set to my want list this evening. I know I shouldn't be contributing anything more to that monstrous thing. I believe it was this blogger who said he sees a lot of cards on this blog but the want list doesn't ever seem to grow smaller. It's a curse, believe me.
But as far as set completion goes, I'm in need of something to add to my 1972 and 1977 Topps chasing. And this set fits perfectly with what I collect.
The Upper Deck Decade '70s set (what an awkward name, by the way) is a semi-blatant rip-off of the 1975 Topps set as UD had a tendency to do. But that didn't prevent me from stopping in my tracks in a drug store one day in 2001, staring at these cards hanging from an end cap and giving them my best "whazzzzdis???" look.
I was so far removed from cards in 2001. It had been seven years since I truly collected a set and three more years before I'd even try again. But these cards were colorful enough to get my attention. I actually bought a few packs. That's testament to the set, because it was so unlike me at the time.
Since then I haven't picked up any more cards from the set except for the Dodgers. So everything that I have are from that day when the light bulb went on again in that drug store. I basically can trace my return to collecting to this set. True, I would get more heavily involved with the 2004 Topps Fan Favorites set and chasing down the 1975 Topps set that same year, but '01 Upper Deck Decade (once again, very clumsy) showed me that, yeah, modern collecting can be fun, too.
The set is only 180 cards. Pretty common for this time period. It has the usual inserts and relic/autograph/patch cards. I don't care about any of the "hit" cards. But I do want to collect all of the inserts.
For those who don't want to search out my wants for this set in my giant want list, I've duplicated them here:
2001 UPPER DECK DECADE '70s
#2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14, #15, #16, #18, #19, #20, #21, #22, #23, #24, #25, #26, #27, #28, #29, #30, #32, #33, #37, #38, #39, #40, #41, #43, #45, #46, #47, #48, #49, #50, #52, #53, #54, #56, #57, #58, #59, #61, #66, #67, #69, #71, #72, #73, #74, #75, #76, #78, #80, #81, #82, #83, #84, #85, #87, #89, #90, #91, #92, #94, #95, #96, #97, #99, #100, #101, #102, #103, #104, #105, #107, #111, #113, #115, #116, #117, #118, #120, #122, #123, #124, #125, #126, #127, #128, #129, #130, #131, #133, #135, #136, #137, #139, #141,, #143, #144, #146, #147, #148, #149, #150, #151, #152, #154, #155, #156, #157, #160, #161, #162, #163, #165, #167, #168, #169, #170, #171, #172, #173, #174, #175, #176, #177, #178, #180
Bellbottomed Bashers - #BB1, #BB3, #BB4, #BB7, #BB8, #BB9, #BB10
Decade Dynasties - #DD1, #DD2, #DD3, #DD4, #DD5, #DD6, #DD7, #DD8, #DD9, #DD10
Disco Era Dandies - #DE1, #DE2, #DE3, #DE4, #DE6
The Arms Race - #AR1, #AR2, #AR3, #AR4, #AR5, #AR6, #AR7, #AR8, #AR9, #AR10
Tom from The Angels, In Order got a head start on the list. He's been working overtime sending cards to me lately. I don't know how he does it. I'm STILL trying to drag myself out from under Christmas.
He found three cards from the many subsets in the set:
The historic moments Decade Dateline set featuring the self-described "Designated Hebrew."
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOG!!!!!!!!!!!!
And my first card from the World Series highlights subset. It would be Bucky &$@#* Dent. I despised that guy in 1978.
Not all the '70s memories are great.
But this set is, and I'd appreciate it if anyone has any cards from it to send me. I'm backlogged quite a bit on trades, but I'll be sending out a few more packages in a couple of days, and ... well, I'll be caught up by March anyway.
Meanwhile, Tom seems to be doing just fine, because he added these want list needs to the Upper Deck Decade cards:
And, the second-to-last need from that '91 Archives set. Just Pee Wee is left.
With no 2013 set to complete this year, sets like '01 UD Decade and those '70s sets (including you, 1975 minis) are going to take top priority in the coming year. It may be all about camouflage parallels and Heritage minis for a bunch of collectors, but for me, it's back to the 1970s, MAN!!! Dig it!
Truth is, I never really left.
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