A cutting crisis

A few posts ago, I wrote a Blog Bat-Around on all of the various items I collect and in the process exposed what has been an ongoing crisis in my collection.

One of the things I collect is 1970s oddballs, specifically Hostess cards. And I showed some Hostess panels, which I picked up at the most recent area card show (way back in October).

Back on that post, I mentioned that those Hostess panels, as great as they are, would soon be cut into the more typical cards, as the dotted lines suggest. Whenever I obtain sheets or panels or what have you, the mission always is to reduce it down to its purest card form. I'm about the pure card, not the panel or sheet or box.

Or so I thought.

It's now been five months since I purchased those Hostess panels. And none of them are cut.

I can't do it. I just can't.

Something about these are simply too cool to alter.

It's not that I fear I'd make a mess of them. I'm sure I'd cut them straight and true. Yeah, I'd be a tad nervous, but I think I could get them all approximately the same size. I'm not some sugar-spaz 9-year-old kid anymore.

But I still can't do it.

They seem much more special in their untrimmed state.

Then I was reading someone else's blog bat-around. The Fleer Sticker Project mentioned that he owns a complete run (1975-79) of Hostess panels. Man, so jealous of that, and they look, so, so, so, so, so, so, awesome.

Maybe I should be trying to complete the '76 Hostess panel set instead of merely the '76 Hostess set.

That would kick serious oddball ass.

So I'm a bit stuck.

I already have these. A bunch of previously-trimmed 1976 Hostess cards.

Do I collect a trimmed set AND a panel set because I don't have the guts to cut the panels?

And what about these?

Do I maybe cut all the '76 Hostess panels because I have so many already-cut '76 Hostess cards and then keep the '79 panels intact?

What to do? What to do?

Yeah, I know, do what I want.

I just don't know what I want yet.

I'll let you know when I figure it out.