Stumped but pleased

 

A couple of weeks ago I was supposed to travel to see my in-laws for the Christmas season and gift exchanges.

That didn't happen for reasons not worth getting into, but it left me in a little bit of a lurch because I was pretty sure my sister-in-law had gotten me some hobby-related materials -- she always does -- and I was in desperate need of some supplies.

 

I didn't know when my gifts and I would happily unite, but quicker than I expected, my sister-in-law shipped them to us and they arrived last week. I opened them Friday in a covid-booster-shot haze and immediately took a nap afterward.

 

 

There they are all protected and festive. As someone who knows my sister-in-law and has been in the hobby for quite awhile, I knew most of what I was looking at before I even opened it. Those hobby shapes are unimistakable and the little gift bags must be gift cards (they were).

The only one I didn't know was the green package on the left. It turns out they were the penny sleeves you see at the top of the post. I am not familiar with that packaging configuration. Also, as I've mentioned many times, I have never purchased penny sleeves in my life since all of the blog trading has given me a lifetime supply. I will never run out.

OK, this is what I knew about the other packages prior to opening:

The red package front-and-center was a binder and pages, a definite need. I could use like four more of those, but we'll start with one. The silver package on the right were more pages. Always need "more pages." They go so fast.

Now about the green rectangular box.

You've all seen that shape before.

I knew immediately that it was likely a complete set. Knowing the hobby these days and the state of retail shelves and my sister-in-law's pedal-to-the-metal habit when she's buying me hobby things even though she doesn't know much about cards at all, I pinpointed exactly what it was.

Yup. It's a complete set of 2021 Topps.

A few things:

a) High-five to my sister-in-law. I can see her triumphantly taking that to the checkout counter. I am so proud.

b) I have never received a complete set as a gift in my life. I know this practice is completely familiar to a number of collectors. I have come across many people, who aren't as active collectors as me, who have said, "I received a Topps complete set for Christmas every year." That never happened to me as a kid, it's never happened to me until now.

c) I don't like 2021 Topps. I believe I've mentioned this before.

d) What do I do with this?

My first thought when confronted with a set that I'm not collecting is to see if it can be sold for parts ... er, I mean mined for Dodgers.

But I have all the Dodgers in this set already.

So my next thought was to either dutifully enter it into a binder (there's another binder I would need) or maybe sell it (sorry, sis).

Then there's the matter of this:

One in three sets is a complete parallel set.

What if it's a complete parallel set????

 

Arggh ...

What to do? What to do?

OK, maybe I'll write down my options, this sometimes helps:

1) Leave it sealed until an idea comes to me

2) Open it for the possibility of parallels with a 67-percent chance of being disappointed.

3) File that sucker in a binder like the dedicated set-collector I am. I'll learn to love it. A complete set is a complete set!

4) Sell it.

5) Give it away as a blog prize.

6) Open it and turn it into some sort of series of blog posts.

I'm sure there are other possibilities.

I am actually considering all the above options seriously, although probably not the last one. I don't think I need to post any more 2021 Topps on this blog.

So that's where I'm at: stumped but pleased.