Disorganized

 

 It's satisfying as a Dodgers fan to see Braves fans warm to Joc Pederson in that "we already knew that" way that sports fans think.

It's not satisfying to discover that your Joc Pederson card has been filed wrong for at least a couple of years.

Welcome to my disorganized collection.

I like to think that my collection is very organized. My Dodgers binders, specifically, are sorted by year from the very earliest to the very latest. They are then sorted by set and then alphabetically. It's easy enough for most major releases. But when you throw in oddballs and inserts and such, it gets much more difficult, and I've worked very hard to figure out the "year of issue" of each card.

Or so I thought.

One of the advantages -- or maybe I'm thinking it's a disadvantage at this particular point -- of filing your collection on Trading Card Database is you discover how wrong you were. And how many times -- many, many, many times -- you were wrong.

My collection isn't organized at all. It's a disaster.

Since starting to file on TCDB, I have been pulling Dodgers cards out of my binders because they are laughably filed in the wrong year. There are now plenty of holes in those pages and I have a major refiling ahead of me.

Now, before I show some of those cards that were misfiled, let's go through the reasons why I am so disorganized. I submit that it's not entirely my fault.

1. I'm just not paying attention.

OK, this is my fault. I make assumptions sometimes about what year a card SHOULD have been made and simply file it under that year. That's not smart.

2. I didn't collect for an extended period.

 

Which happened to be the same period in which the number of card sets expanded wildly -- with the most bizarre release times.

3. Until TCDB came along there wasn't one easily searchable/readily available site to figure out when a card was released.

 

Baseballcardpedia has helped but you need to know the year of release often to find the set.

4. Copyrights are misleading.

 

This is another big one. Just because the copyright date on the bottom says 2003 doesn't mean the set was released in 2003 or, at least is considered a 2003 set.

5. Nobody except Fleer for a glorious period around the turn of the century put the year of issue SOMEWHERE ON THEIR SET.

 

This seems like a very basic idea and an easy way to help collectors decipher their collection. But we're dealing with a hobby that these days can't even put player names on the front of their cards in a font that's readable to anyone other than hawks. So never mind.

6. There are too damn many sets, inserts, short-prints, reprints and things like Panini Chronicles that ensures that nobody will ever know when every card was released.

 

In other words, why am I even writing this post? It's hopeless.

OK, let's see some cards that I have misfiled -- some for many years:

I filed this Johnny Podres TCMA card with similar-looking TCMA cards of Don Drysdale and another Johnny Podres with a different picture. Those other cards were released in 1980 and so that's where I put the above Podres.

But the fact this was color and the other cards were black-and-white always made me uneasy -- even though, the date on the back actually says, "1980".

But TCDB gently alerted me that this Podres card was released in 1987 as part of something called "1987 TCMA Collectors Kits Reprints".

So it's a reprint.

Reprints suck. If you want an organized collection.

So I was only seven years off there.

 

I admit I get dismissive about minor league cards. But, hey, at least I include my Dodgers minor leaguers in with the Dodgers big leaguers (although only those who eventually made the majors).

And the copyrights aren't helping here. The copyrights on the back say "CMC-1989". But TCDB told me this is the 1988 CMC Triple A All-Stars set.

 

This card was misfiled because of my own assumptions again. The card actually reads 1991 on the back. Twice. But I've had it in my 1992 section of my Dodgers binders because that was Strawberry's first year with the Dodgers. I keep forgetting that card companies everywhere were in a yank to show Strawberry with the Dodgers in 1991. I also keep forgetting there were 790 different entities issuing cards in 1991.

 

I left out above one of the other main reasons for why my collection is so disorganized -- I can't read tiny type anymore.

This Upper Deck insert card of Eric Karros says "1992" in the logo, but I couldn't read that and threw it in with my 1993 UD Dodgers.

 

This card also was filed in 1993 even though it's from 1992. I have an excuse though -- there is zero copyright info anywhere on this card and who the heck remembers RBI Magazine?

 

 

I collected a lot in the early 1990s. But I also collected somewhat with blinders on.

 

I bought mostly packs sold at retail stores because that's how I had collected for more than 15 years at that point. I saw all the new sets, Pinnacle and Select and Stadium Club. But if it was issued elsewhere -- say a hobby shop -- I didn't see it.

 

1993 Stadium Club Murphy was one of those sets, heck I still barely know what it is.

 

But apparently that set, which featured draft picks and award winners, used the 1992 Stadium Club design for its 1993 set. Gee, why would that be confusing to collectors who came along years and years later? It sure baffled me as I stored these cards with my 1992 Stadium Club cards for years.

 

They probably make more sense sitting with the '92 set anyway, but I can't be having '93-issued cards in 1992.

 

 More copyright shenanigans. Copyright says "Leaf 1992" on the front. Card was issued as an insert in 1993 Donruss.

I was confused because of that, but also because I didn't pay much attention to '93 Donruss. I bought some of it then, but never enough to get more than 1 or 2 inserts.

 

Wooo-baby I've had this misfiled for a looooooooong time.

Same deal as above. Copyright says 1993. Card was issued in 1994 Donruss. It's too sharp of a card for me to have the damn year wrong.

 

I didn't discover this misfiling through TCDB, but I don't know how I figured it out. Maybe it's because the back lists the 2003 doubles season leaders and I figured, well that has to be 2004 (it was filed with my 2003 cards). Of course, it doesn't HAVE to be 2004 because there's such a thing as update sets released a couple of months after the season, before the new year hits.

Copyright also says 2003 and it's from the 2004 set. We could eliminate all of these problems by just issuing card sets after the first of the year like they did when I was a kid.

 

This is just me not thinking. I thought this Heritage insert went with the 2016 Heritage set. Didn't even notice the rookie card logo. All of the Joc Pederson cards with rookie card logos are in 2015. That's the sound of me slapping my damn head.

 

I honestly can't be bothered with paying attention to when online-only cards are released. So I'm sure all of these have been filed wrong. But at least I corrected this one (a card that is fantastic by the way). It was issued in 2017, not 2016. I guess I should have been tipped off by that Bellinger floating head. He didn't show up much in 2016 sets.

There are lots and lots of other examples and I'm thankful that TCDB is setting me straight here. I'm maybe not even halfway to adding my complete collection on the site and who knows what other misfilings are lurking out there.

Once again, this hobby is a full-time job.