Stealth set collecting and someday sets

Some card blogs, for whatever reason, do not show up on my Blogger reading list. To find them, I must go to the blog roll on my sidebar.

This causes me to miss some posts from blogs that show up solely on my sidebar, only because I've been in the habit of checking my Blogger reading list since 2008. So apologies to Cardpocalypse,  Diamond Jesters, CrazieJoe's Card Corner, Collecting Cutch, Wrigley Roster Jenga, A Cracked Bat and a few others. I do get to ya, but often it's only after I discover I haven't seen ya lately. (I think it comes down to whether you have the Followers option on your sidebar, but that doesn't explain why wordpress blogs show up in my Blogger reader).

Anyway, one of those blogs that appears only on my blog roll is Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary. This becomes an issue during Brian's weekly Friday contests.

Not only does HSACA not show up on my reader, but it does this weird thing where it won't be listed with an updated post on my blog roll and then suddenly it's there, about three blogs down, mentioning that a new HSACA was posted an hour ago.

AN HOUR AGO????

I've got to get to that contest!

And then I go there and two-thirds of the prizes are gone.

Fortunately, a few contests ago, I wanted something that nobody else wanted. And when I showed up late, it was still there waiting for me.

The item that jumped out at me was six cards from 2005 Topps, plus an '05 Opening Day card.

2005 Topps is one of those sets I am collecting secretly.

What do I mean by that?

Well, I don't really want anybody to know I'm collecting it.

Yeah, I know I just told everybody I'm collecting it. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices for blog posts. But, really, go back to what you were doing. There's nobody talking about collecting 2005 Topps here.

The reason I want to collect this secretly is it's not a set or collecting goal high on my priority list. Surely you know what I'm talking about. I see your want lists with "high priority," "medium priority" and "low priority." I do the same thing with sets.

I want to collect 2005 Topps, but I'm busy with other more desirables right now and if you send me a bunch of 2005 Topps, I am not going to be too enthused, because I won't have time to collect what I want to collect RIGHT NOW.

You dig?

There are a lot of sets I'm collecting on the down low.

1987 Fleer. Do you see a want list for that? No you don't.

2004 Topps. No want list for that either.

2003 Topps. Same.

1989 Donruss. Yes, really. DON'T SEND ME THEM. Or if you do, keep it to under a 100, please.

1982 and 1983 Donruss. These are "someday sets." I will definitely be collecting them. And, actually, I won't care if you send me cards from those sets right now.

1969 Topps. Someday, in the distant future. Again, not complaining if I get some.

There are others. Lots and lots of others. But the names will be withheld to protect the innocent -- me -- from a bombardment.

So, let's return to 2005 Topps. Why is this a set I'm collecting stealthily?

One reason, really.

It's weird.

In a good way.

The design seems to come out of nowhere with its weirdness. Let's review:

A giant last name identifying the player. The player's name REPEATED, this time first and last, and written sideways. The team name written sideways but traveling the other way. The team name REPEATED, yet in wordmark form. Holy redundancy.

The border around the photo covers a significant amount of territory. And the player images continue the trend from 2004 in which some are exceedingly small.

Finally, 2005 Topps does what I wish every set that was ever made had done: print the year of the set on the front.

That's why it's a stealth collecting goal for me.

There is no want list for this set. Honestly, I have so little idea of what I need and what I don't that some of these cards from Brian could actually be dupes.

I don't know when you'll see a want list for '05 Topps. It could be five years from now. It could be 15. It could be never.

I was casually following baseball in 2005, as I slowly pulled out of my baseball malaise from the late 1990s (currently in another one of those, by the way).

But that year I was on the edge of following more enthusiastically. I was collecting again, finishing off my 1975 and 1974 Topps sets, and I had discovered the Topps All-Time Fan Favorites cards in Kmart. The very next year -- 2006 -- I would return to collecting modern cards.

So, yeah, that's the reason why I jump on '05 cards periodically when the mood strikes.

But really there are lots and lots and lots of other card interests I place in front of 2005 Topps.

And don't ask about 2005 Opening Day.

Because I think I like that even more than 2005 Topps.