Reconstructing the want lists from scratch

I suffered yesterday one of the great misfortunes that can happen to a modern-day card collector.

A web browser crash ate my want lists.

All of them. They're all gone.

I'm not sure how it happened. I was updating the want lists with some cards that arrived in the last couple of days. I closed the file and then returned to my list of posts. That's when I got the rotating "loading" circle and -- wap -- the browser crashed.

When I opened the blog back up and went to my want lists page, it was empty. Years of work and 60 years of want lists gone.

The Internet Wayback Machine wasn't much help. It could retrieve my want lists from April of last year, but that would mean trying to track down a year's worth of updating and that didn't sound attractive at all.

Shockingly, what did sound attractive was starting up my want lists from scratch.

So that's what I'm doing. 2017 wants are already up and I've started on 2016. I've also just re-added the 1975 Topps buybacks. The whole undertaking is painstaking already, it will take forever, and there are probably dozens of collectors who will curse me out once they agree to a trade with me, click on my wants and see just three years worth of numbers.

But this is my blog and that's what I want to do. The wants needed an overhaul anyway. I'm changing slightly how it is presented and hopefully it will be easier for people to navigate (I'm already finding out that Topps isn't making it simple with its recent funky way of presenting and numbering inserts).

If you urgently require my feedback on whether I need a certain card, just shoot me an email. Because it's going to be months before everything is back up to speed. (This disaster did have to happen on the final day of my vacation).

There have been a lucky few collectors who were able to check out my want lists before they were erased from the face of the earth. You'll be seeing the cards I received from those people over the next week and a half or so. Then there will probably be silence because nobody knows what I need anymore!

Anyway, how about some cards from Scott of I Need New Hobbies? He didn't just send me the 1972 Topps Tim Foli In Action card that completed that set. He added more cards!

Those are all cards, plucked off of my late, great want list, that I needed from the 1994 Ted Williams set. To my recollection, I'm down to 6 or 7 needs from this set. I should be able to get that on the new list very soon.

Here is a variation from 2017 Donruss. Instead of Corey Seager's name it says "ROY" in honor of him receiving the Rookie of the Year Award last year (and you thought his nickname was "Roy").

This is one of those "yeah, I guess I'll take it" variations. My new want list -- like the old want list -- will avoid listing variations. There are just too damn many and I will never see 90 percent of them. Just assume that I want them if they're Dodgers. Same goes for parallels. I'll list some on the new wants page, but it's ridiculous to try to list them all.

The rest of the cards Scott sent were football cards. The above are two Bills from the respective 1970 and 1971 Topps sets. Like baseball, Topps stepped up its game in 1971 after a pretty bland 1970 set. The 1970 football set looks much older to me than something issued in 1970.

As for the 1971 card, more cartoons on the front of cards please!

Finally, this nine-card salvo from my most favorite Topps football set. I needed all nine of these 1977 gems.

The disappearance of my want lists will definitely get me to finally include a '77 Topps Football list in the new version.

See? There are lots of positives to this disaster.

Of course, let's see what my tune is when I'm trying to update my Dodger wants from 1999.