So here's where I stand today. I've added up all the receipts from my purchase of 2010 Topps and it comes to around $250. I bought six blasters from Target and the rest have been rack packs.
I'm still 16 cards short from completing the base set. I can't even begin to describe in words how ridiculous this is. I'm not even missing anybody good. (The best player on the list is Adam Dunn. Second is Francisco Cordero.) I've purchased about 900 cards by my rough estimate and I'm still missing 16 cards from a 330 card base set. I swore in 2007 that I would never do this again. But here I am again.
Luckily, I flipped a Rickey Henderson variation and 85 insert cards on ebay and spent the $$$ on '66, '67, & '71 cards of Al Kaline, as well as a '67 Bengal Busters card. I've still got about $5 left in my paypal account. I've also got a nice trade lined up with a fellow blogger that I'll comment on when the deal is finally consummated. This weekend I listed the 60 Target Throwback cards and the 12 Million Card Giveaway cards that I had laying around. It looks like I'll do well enough with those to grab another 3-4 Kaline cards from the early '60's, which is what I should have done with my money all along.
I bought 4 more packs today, peeking through the wrappers to try and get some of the guys I was missing from my set. I was able to get about 50 cards that I was missing, plus one more MCG game card that I just HAD to redeem to see what all the fuss is about. I'm now the lucky owner of a '93 Andy Benes card (of which I already own). Whoo-boy.....
At this point, I don't know if I'll even bother trying to finish the 2010 set. Once again Topps has sucked all the joy I have out of collecting and building a set.
I'm interested to see how this all plays out in the hobby. Topps is royally screwing over the last of old school set builders like myself. Meanwhile folks are lining up at the trough to get the game cards, hoping for the grand prize of a '52 set, while more likely to end up with a '90s common card.
Is this really where collectors wanted to see the hobby go, or has collecting passed me by? I'm really hard pressed to think of a reason why I should continue throwing my money away. I'd love to hear others take on the state of the hobby.
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5 comments:
Maybe you should try buying cards individually to complete the set rather than tossing money at packs. I haven't bought a pack in years...why waste money on stuff I'm not interested in instead of knowing exactly what I'm getting?
You could do what Jon said, but collecting via packs is part of the appeal. But why are you buying packs and blasters at Target? You're doomed to getting a bunch of packs with the same collation. You'd be much better off buying a hobby box or two if you want to try and build the set or buying a Jumbo box, which almost always guarantees a full set. These will run you $50-80 if you get them when they first come out instead of the $250 you're spending.
Trying to build a big set like Topps with so many inserts through just packs and blasters is a fool's errand--even if you refuse to buy individual cards, which I totally understand. I hate to say it, but your pain is self inflicted.
So you were the one sniping the Kaline cards last week. :) I was searching for a few myself and we may have bid against each other once or twice.
I wonder about the card distributions at Target and Walmart, given their special status of having their own branded inserts. I swear I've gotten packs with nearly the same set of cards from Target (almost like early '80's Fleer packs). I think Hobby Boxes are the better route these days.
I met a dealer who sells nothing but singles of new stuff who I hook up with in Chicago a few times a year at the shows. I'll get the rest from him next month.
I'll remember that about the jumbo boxes for Series 2. I always thought they had even more inserts than the regular packs so that's why I hadn't bothered with them. The overload of inserts gripes me as much as the poor collation.
I just got those Kaline cards today! Were you the one who won the '60 Kaline? I would've paid double for what it went for, but I didn't give myself enough time to big again.
So I went and bought two more rack packs today. (I admit I have a problem). Since you can see right through the rack packs, I memorized my list and went through the packs until I found two that had guys that I needed. I opened them up and they are virtually the same pack. Each pack had the same 5 cards I needed. Each pack did however have the base Mantle card, giving me 6 on the year.
Ah, 80's Fleer. As a set builder I LOVED their collation. In '86 I was down to something like 12 cards from finishing my set. I went in the local card store and bought a couple of dollars worth of packs. One of the packs has ALL 12 cards I needed to finish the set. Beautiful.
I ended up getting a '67 Kaline/Cash card, and a few from a 1955 Topps set break. Kaline is the killer for collecting Tiger sets through the 50's and 60's.
I remember getting a box of 1981 Fleer for Christmas and not getting one double - and I was one pack worth of cards away from the entire set.
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