The weird things collectors do

It is interesting to me how card collectors seem to have so much in common, as far as interests, personality tendencies, how their brains are wired, etc., and still can be so different.

There are many things that card collectors do that confuse the heck out of me. ... Why? Why would they do that? ... And there are many ways card collectors think that don't match my collecting thought process at all.

I think the influence of the time period in which a collector grew up has a lot to do with the differences. And that's what I'm going to chalk up to the excuse I am now giving to whatever lost soul decided to grade a 1982 Topps Burt Hooton card.

Let's go through the reasons why there's no need to grade a 1982 Topps Burt Hooton:

1. The card came out in 1982.
2. It's Burt Hooton.

I'm done.

But, I'm thinking, somebody grew up in a period when everyone was grading cards and that, yes, even commons should be graded because, you know, they could, uh ... they could, you know ... they could ... just do it, OK??

There is no reason to grade this card.

And, also, there is no reason for me to break this card out of its case. This item was sent to me by Max of the Starting Nine for the sheer novelty of it. As far as non-graded 1982 Topps Burt Hootons, I have plenty. There's one in my Dodgers binder. There's one in my 1982 Topps completed set. There have to be at least five or six in my giant Dodgers dupes box.

But this is my first graded 1982 Topps Burt Hooton.

So, uh, that's something. I guess.

Let's see a few more useful cards from Max:

Weeeee!!!!! How about that?

That is all of the 2020 Topps Finest Dodgers, except for rookies Lux and May, plus an additional refractor of Walker Buehler.

This is most welcome because, with Finest -- even though I like the brand -- I end up gathering my Dodgers needs from the set about 10 years later because I can't buy the cards down at the retail shop. I feel very fancy owning almost all of the 2020 Finest Dodgers in the very year they were issued.

I suppose I should feel fancy with this card, too.

It's one of the bajillion Panini Donruss parallels from last year. I believe this is the Independence Day parallel, which has some sort of dignity to it. At least it doesn't seem as silly as the Baby Shark or On Fire parallels that Donruss wants you to chase this year. We team collectors do a lot things that don't exactly make us proud, but I think putting the Donruss "Look at This" or "100" parallels on our want list is pretty embarrassing. At least to me. If Donruss is doing stuff like this, the border parallels could be infinite. Think of any image to strip around a photo and that's a parallel. There could be thousands and thousands of parallels of one player.

Oof ... I feel sick.

Let's bring it back to something that sort of makes more sense ... maybe.

Max pulled both the regular Series 2 Corey Seager and the variation card, in which Seager is doing the hokey-pokey. I am much obliged, mostly because it may take me to 2021 to even get the regular Series 2 Dodgers.

I own this card already. But it's a significant upgrade over the one in my collection and besides it's so gosh darn fun to show, so here it is again. Is there anything more French than a guy named "Belanger" on an O-Pee-Chee card?

My quest to complete the 1982, 1983 and 1985 Fleer sets has been overshadowed by several other set completion tries lately. Maybe by the fall, I'll focus my attention on these more, but meanwhile, I welcome your charity, especially if it's going to include Pete Rose or any of the other '80s stars I happen to be missing.

Coincidentally, another collector recently sent me a 1985 Fleer Pete Rose, too. So, where I once had none, I now have two.

No. I'm not going to grade it.