Let's try this again, shall we?

I set up this blog in 2010 thinking I'd like to blog about collecting. I guess I changed my mind.

But I'm changing my mind again, and giving this blogging another try. I'm hoping it will be a fun way to interact with the hobby besides just collecting cards and then throwing the in a box. So this is one of my collecting goals for 2015- to blog occasionally.

My other collecting goals for 2015:

Begin collecting the 1971 Topps Baseball set.

•  My goal for 2015 is 100 cards.

Start a spreadsheet for my main player collections.

• I actually started this yesterday and finished my Stanton, Yelich, and Hornacek spreadsheets. I'm not sure which other players I will also add. Probably Marcell Ozuna. I don't really have enough cards of others to warrant a spreadsheet yet.

Buy a Killebrew Rookie Card.

Other goals for 2015 that aren't really collecting, but are baseball related:

Visit 3 new Major League stadiums.

• In 2014 I visited Dodger Stadium, US Cellular Field, and Wrigley Field for the first time. 

 Visit 3 new Minor League stadiums.

I'll be working on the formatting and how I want this blog to look, so stay tuned!

Continuing to Focus

So it’s been awhile since I’ve posted. Since the last time, I’ve been to a few more card shops, went to my first card show, and continued to think about focus.


In my last post I thought I’d probably only pick up a basketball card here and there and do more with football. Well, as it turns out, I’ve completely switched that around. I’ve found that as much as I love football, the cards for some reason just aren’t that interesting to me. I’m not sure why.

I am finding that I am loving searching for Utah Jazz cards, especially the 90s teams. While I love Stockton and Malone, I’m going to try to build a pretty extensive Jeff Hornacek collection. His autographed stuff is a little more in my price range, and it doesn’t hurt that I’m apparently related to his wife.  Picked up the begining of the collection on Ebay.

I went to my first card show last weekend. Well, the first show that I went to specifically for the show. I used to go to the regular show at the Har Mar Mall in Roseville, MN quite often, but that was to go to the mall and I just browsed the card stuff just because it was there.


It was a small show, but it was fun. Browsed through a lot of singles and picked up a few. I have been thinking about hockey cards quite a bit in the last week and thinking about what I’d like to collect. I started looking up some of my favorites as a kid and the name that really stuck in my head was Dino Ciccarelli. There’s not much out there but I watched a few on Ebay. At the show a guy had one of the cards I was watching, so of course I had to have it. Probably paid a little bit more than I should of (I really suck at bargaining) but I don’t care. I love the card and will enjoy it for a long time.

Focus!

The more I’ve been looking at cards, the more I realize I must focus! I can’t collect everything or everyone. Even narrowing it down to a handful of players has been difficult.


For sure I will be collecting Twins stars, past and present. That’s quite a few players and I’m sure as I go on I’ll have a better opinion on what cards I like and don’t like, so I won’t feel like I have to buy practically every card for each player.

Outside of the Twins, deciding who to collect has been a little harder. Living in South Florida Marlins players are an obvious choice. I’ve chosen to start building Mike Stanton and Chris Coghlan collections. Since Stanton is a rookie and Coghlan is in his second year, I’m not far behind. I also think they’ll both have very good careers, so it will be fun to follow them wherever they may eventually wind up.

As for cards other than baseball, for the most part I think I’ll probably just pick up cards here and there where I find good deals of some of my favorite players, past and present. These will probably be mostly football, but if I run across a really cool John Stockton or Karl Malone card, I wouldn’t pass it up. Just sayin’.

Then there’s NASCAR. I’ve been a big NASCAR fan for over 15 years now, and I already collect Mark Martin stuff, so why not cards? For the most part he’ll be the only driver I’ll look for, but my nephews are really big Tony Stewart fans so if I come across something cool, I may pick it up for a gift.

Got a few fun things in the mail this week:

 
 

The beginning of my Mike Stanton collection.

The beginning of my Colby Rasmus collection.

Picked up a pack of PressPass Premium '10 cards at WalMart one day for the heck of it, and wound up with 2 Mark Martin cards, including this one.

I think I’ll be going to a St. Lucie Mets game later this week, and plan on hitting up a card show and a Marlins game this weekend and hope to share about that next week.

A Trip to the Card Shop

I made a trip to a card shop in Orlando over the weekend, Orlando Sportscards South. I haven’t been to a card shop in many years, and even then it was only Schinder’s in Minnesota (I miss Schinder's!).


The store was great. They have tons of stuff. They were having a sale-all singles 50% off, and since my collection is in the beginning stages, there was a lot I wanted. I showed a little restraint, however and only picked up 7 cards, for a total of $4. I will definitely stop in there again the next time I’m in Orlando.

I picked up a few cards of my all time favorite Twins player- Frank Viola. One of them is just a silly, cartoony card that I just find fun.

I also picked up a 2010 Upper Deck Ballpark card of Target Field. Not real special, but I love Target Field and it was half off, so I thought, “what the heck?

Tonight when I was scanning the card, I read the back more carefully and became puzzled. See if you can see why I am puzzled.

 
They’ve made three World Series appearances, but they’ve only won two. Just seems a little misleading for the card to say “championships” when they probably mean “appearances”, don’t you think?

A Few Favorites

Thought I'd share a few of my favorites I've gotten during the first month of collecting. 

2010 Topps Tribute Harmon Killebrew

Carlos Gomez Rookie Refractor

 

My Regis!

Still getting the hang of the scanner, especially since the software for it isn't really compatible with my computer, but it sure is fun!

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog! I hope to talk mostly about my re-discovered hobby of sports card collecting and sports topics in general but you never know what might pop up.

I say re-discovered because I did collect baseball cards as a kid (late 70s to early 80s), and also at one time collected 87 and 91 Twins team sets, but I really hadn’t given much thought to cards since then.

A year or two ago I remembered those Twins team sets and tried to find them. Even though I know exactly what they are in (a black binder), I haven’t been able to locate them. I’m 99% sure they have not been thrown out and they are just in a box somewhere.

Since those boxes are in Minnesota and I’m in Florida my opportunities to search are few. Knowing that, a month or so ago I decided I should just start trying to replace those sets. And so, a new obsession for collecting was born and not just to replace my missing sets.

Since I last paid attention to cards, there are so many new and interesting things. Who knew you could now get game used bats and jerseys and autograph cards? Who knew there were so many different inserts, refractors, etc? I sure didn’t. But I’m hooked.

With so much out there, I need to narrow my focus on what exactly I want to collect. Twins obviously, although I will probably focus on current and past stars instead of whole team sets. Former Twins who are now stars? Probably, especially Santana, Hunter and Ortiz. I’m certainly going to collect Carlos Gomez, who isn’t a star but is a sentimental favorite after a spring training incident a few years ago.

Beyond Twins, I’ll probably also collect Marlins stars. I don’t have a whole lot of other favorite players outside of the Twins and Marlins, but Colby Rasmus of the Cardinals is another sentimental favorite from spring training games.

I don’t think I’ll really be trying to collect entire sets with one exception. 2010 Allen & Ginter. I know the Allen & Ginter sets have been around awhile now, but they’re new to me and I love them. I just like the look and all the interesting inserts and minis. It also doesn’t hurt that they have a Regis Philbin card. So I am going to try to collect all the 2010 base cards, and as many of the minis and other inserts that I can.

So that’s where I am. I’m excited about collecting, and excited to be blogging about it and sharing some of my hits and finds.