All right, a quick post to get the bad taste of the last post out of my head.
Perhaps you've been wondering what I've been doing the last month? Yeah, you know about all the work. It's March and all that. But this is a baseball card blog! What else? Sure, you know people are sending me cards. That's plain as day. But what else? What am I -- individually -- doing to help my collection, my hobby? You know, anyone can ride a motorcycle up and down the street as a hobby -- there's plenty of that going on and will be for the next seven months -- but am I doing something actually constructive in my hobby? Am I contributing to my own collection?
I'm happy to say that I am -- even with precious little time.
Just recently I completed the 2006 Topps Dodgers' gold team set. Strangely Jose Cruz Jr. was the last card to arrive. But the '05 Dodgers weren't a desirable lot.
TCDB says Jose Valentin is also a needed Dodgers gold. He's mentioned as a Met on his card but wearing a Dodgers uniform. But in the 2006 base set list on TCDB, he's not listed with the Dodgers, but the Mets. So I'm ignoring that. It's complete.
A year or two ago I mentioned a bid to finish the gold Dodgers sets for at least the years where I enjoy the gold parallels. This is the third one finished, after 2008 and 2009. That means I should work on 2007 next. There's a fair amount to get for that one, but I don't see an easier team set available.
It's little completion quests that I enjoy the most, those under-the-radar chases that occur while I'm doing other things, both on the blog and in life. I can spend a few minutes achieving something almost every day. The hobby is great for that.
Here's another thing I've been doing in the last month:
I'm reaching milestones. When I picked up this Von Joshua 1975 Topps buyback, I was able to officially round up to 80 percent complete on the buyback quest at 527 cards of the 660 total.
Joshua was particularly difficult, or maybe I just noticed its absence more since it was a Dodger card.
Then these buybacks showed up. What a great trio. Ever since 2024 Heritage came out, leaders cards have been posted for unreasonable amounts. But I happily found the ERA leaders card for super-cheap. Then I found the Tolan card, which I thought didn't exist. And what the hell, let's add the Blue Moon Odom in my cart and at 530 cards, we're at 80 PERCENT, no rounding!
But not done! Even though there is baseball to watch and way too much slave-driving, and people getting sick and jobs being lost and all kinds of ill behavior, the card pursuits still go on!
Two more. Now at 532 cards. The Sutton means there are just four Dodgers cards, not including subsets, to get -- Garvey, Lopes and the Rhoden and Solomon rookie cards. I know both Garvey and Lopes exist and I'm sure the others do, too.
And that's what I've been doing. Nice-and-productive. It's my way of blowing off steam without breaking noise ordinances or sitting in front of the tube.
Maybe one day this constructive behavior will involve more creative blog posts. But that's for another month.
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