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Too many collections

 
The curse of multiple collecting themes in your collection is often they overlap and then what do you do?

I don't even have as many collecting themes as some bloggers and I run into this all the time.

For example, I received a few cards from The Angels, In Order recently as Tom was offering up some extras in his collection again.


These aren't the cards I chose. Tom sent them along because they were listed on my wants for the 1991 Line Drive Albuquerque Dukes set.

They were two of the final four cards I needed to finish off that set.

I am now down to John Wetteland and Jose Offerman to complete it.

But you saw the Offerman card already. It's in my collection. It's in my Dodger autograph collection.

That's a separate binder from where the '91 Line Drive Dukes go.

Now, normally I don't mind grabbing an extra of a single card to go into multiple collections. But something about this particular time annoys me just a little. Why do I need to bother getting a second Line Drive Offerman, some 20-cent card, just because there is another one with a scribble on it in my collection? Why can't I add the scribbled-on card to my Line Drive set and spend that 20 cents on a Wetteland and be done?

Of course I can do anything I want. And not a single person will call me out on it either, especially if I never mention it on here. But these are the conversations I have with myself as a collector.


Tom added another want from 1993 Classic. Karros was the final Dodger card I needed to finish this tiny three-card set. This is also the 450th Eric Karros card in my collection!
 


As for the cards I actually selected, no Dodgers there, but one would later become well-known as a Dodger. It's Happy Hooton!

I instinctively grab Pacific Legends cards as needed. Oh and cards issued by a sealable plastic bag company, too. That's a no-brainer.

I still need to send some cards back to Tom. I've been holding off on sending cards the last few weeks due to time and money, but the moratorium should ease up in the next week or two. I know I'm pretty sick of looking at the stacks-to-send on my card desk.

Comments

You know I have had that conversation with myself a thousand times over. Instinctively, I always decided each collection needed it's own card, not to be shared. Several PC guys just so happen to be Braves, and a few are big buck cards, so I always had to ask myself why do I need 4 copies of this card. Now days, since the Card Pandemic struck us, I most certainly quit doing that except for a set build still needs it's card. If a Brave is a PC guy, I mark it off the Braves team list, and put it with the PC. Same goes for parallel cards. I am quite comfortable with the newer system, but I still have a lot of clean up to do, once I start going through my Braves team binders (which won't be long now).
I thought for sure that I had the Wetteland and Offerman too, but couldn't find them.

I keep my Angels autographs with the team set, because that's a goal, to get the team sets autographed.
bamlinden said…
Inner dialogue….the best.

I lean towards one copy for each pc. Obviously, it’s easier when the cards are less than a buck.

I’m sure I’d cringe when it comes to a big ticket item.
Fuji said…
I like having multiple copies of a single card that fits into multiple collections, but sets usually trump everything. That being said... if I have one copy already, I'm less likely to chase additional ones since there are so many things out there I want.
bbcardz said…
Being a low-budget set collector, I try to keep it simple and just focus on completing sets. Still, I've managed to complicate that by spending too much time updating spreadsheets and arranging cards in binders in a specific order that makes sense to me. So instead of acuiring multiple copies of the same exact card, I acquire some parallels and variations to fill out binder pages.
Bo said…
I also keep my autographed cards separate, and don't count it as "having" that card in the setbuild.
Mike Matson said…
I wrote a post about this a couple weeks ago with the Paul Spoljaric autos I have..
GCA said…
My player collections overlap my sets and I have redundant copies for each. This does include things like the '71 Baylor/Baker/Paciorek RC. (I have three - one for each of the first two guys, and one for the set). As a rule, I put the better of the two in the PC and the lesser in the set.

There will be exceptions, especially if I eventually decide to start 1966 Topps. One Grant Jackson RC was hard enough to get at a reasonable price.
Nick said…
Baseball cards have been included with a lot of strange items over the years, but Ziploc has to be right up there with the weirdest card-product combo. My mind boggles at the idea of being able to get a card with a random box of plastic bags.
Jon said…
As someone who collects multiple copies of cards that I like, I don't mind having multiple copies for different collections, or just all on the same page together.