Getting close

In less than a month, I'll have been working on the Serial Numbered Insanity set for 4 years.  Sometimes feverishly, other times going months at a time without adding a card to the set.  It's been a labor of love that is nearly at its conclusion.

Going through the first 500 cards this evening, I found a couple of pages that had the same player twice.   The first instance was cards 37 and 45, both featuring Francisco Liriano of the Minnesota Twins.  Even better, both cards are blue chrome parallels. 

Cards # 150 and # 152 both feature Manny Ramirez, another happy accident.  I haven't come across two exact cards of the same player while perusing, although if I remember correctly there is a pair of 2011 Topps Heritage Chrome cards of Tim Lincecum among the nearly 1500 cards.

Speaking of nearly 1500 cards, I just finished another order from COMC.  If there are no snafu's, the set will be down to a measly 4 cards.

By my calculations, I need 1 Oriole, 1 White Sox and 2 Astros.  Those 4 cards will need to have the serial #'s 1175, 1209, 1305 and 1314.  I've looked long and hard for these cards, so much so that my eyes hurt after a marathon searching session on COMC.

Maybe someone else out there might be luckier than I am....

Thanks for reading, Robert

Possibilities

It is great to be back and functioning again as a blogger.   You don't know how much I've missed being a part of the community for the past few months.  Between the move, and not having the necessary equipment after the move, posting has been virtually non-existent.

I'm hoping that this is going to change.   Honestly, I really want it to change.   I enjoy writing, and showing off cards that I've acquired either through trade or purchase.

My SNI project with all 1500 cards (when complete) gives me quite a large # of possibilities for posts.  I happened to be trolling through the first binder on Sunday and came across some potential World Series match ups.

Remember the I-70 series of 1985?   Blue Jays fans such as myself would rather forget it (Damn you Jim Sundberg), but there's a real possibility that it could happen again this year.   Losing Carlos Martinez is a big blow for the Cards, but with Adam Wainwright coming back (maybe?) you'd have to think that the Cards will be right there for the NL Pennant.

Fast forward 15 years and you have the subway series that sent New Yorkers into the stratosphere.  While this may not be quite as likely to happen this year, the postseason always brings about a surprise or 2, so this is definitely something that could happen.

A Pittsburgh-Toronto World Series is also a possibility, and if it were to happen, you probably wouldn't see or hear from me for up to 7 nights while my ass would be glued to a chair.  My lifelong fandom of the Blue Jays, coupled with my recent obsession with the small market Pirates and how they've built a contender from the ground up would only be strengthened with this match up.

Yes, there are other teams in the mix...Dodgers, Cubs and whoever survives the AL west to mention 3.

I just have this feeling that this postseason might be one of the most memorable ever.  There are a lot of strong teams in the mix right now, and choosing World Series participants may be more difficult this year than it has in recent memory.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Is it worth it

Right now, with my collection separated by 1250 miles of highway, I've kind of come to a point where I want to start something new, because a lot of the older stuff that I've been working on isn't accessible.

That's where 2015 A&G comes in.  With the limited selection of cards at the big box stores (limited in my eyes), it's the only set that I feel like buying packs of.  When you only get 6 cards in a pack for $3, and one of them is a mini (which I have no use for), a 350 card set can be a tough nut to crack.

So in the end, the question for me becomes, is it worth it to try and put together this set, or do I rely on purchasing cards online/waiting for shows for other projects that I've been working on.  Maybe talking it out through some scans will help....

I have 12 minis so far, 5 of them A&G backs.  Weren't these supposed to be difficult to obtain, or am I just really lucky so far?

I have no idea why the Allen & Ginter "logo" is different colors on different cards.  Does that mean anything?
I'm sure that the Black bordered Strasburg, and some of the other minis up above probably would look better in some other person's collection(s).  I do have my address file with me, so if you're interested in any of these, just let me know.  It's also weird that the only Blue Jay A&G card that I have so far, is of a guy who isn't even a Blue Jay anymore.

As a set collector, the one thing that I really like about A&G is its consistency.  350 cards every year.  Cards 301-350 are SPs.  Pictured above are the 7 SPs that I've already pulled (I do have a dupe of Escobar if anyone is looking for that card for their set/collection).  I know what to expect when I start on an A&G set building journey.

While writing this I'm thinking to myself that if I do take on the task of collecting this set, it's going to take a while.   I currently have just 51 of the 350 cards, and unless I break down and pick up a hobby box ($85.95 at Dave & Adam's...) I'm going to have to rely on packs not drying up at the big box stores in the area.

It appears that I have a lot more to think about.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Back to business

I couldn't take any more pictures with my phone, because it just drove me nuts.   I finally broke down and bought a printer/scanner today and my first scan to try the machine out was these three Thome cards that I added to the collection a while ago, but just haven't gotten around to showing them off.

I'm liking this so much that I decided to scan 3 more Jim Thome cards that were part of the last order as well.

Exciting!  (at least for me)  I've wanted to write for the past few weeks, but it was such a turn off using the phone to take pictures, when I've been spoiled with having a scanner to do the dirty work for so long.

I've felt so out of touch with my cards, and the blogging community as a whole for the past two months.  Having this scanner is certainly a step in the right direction for me.  I've also found a monthly card show that I'll be able to attend starting next weekend.   It's less than 10 minutes from where I work, so I can head there after my shift on Friday if I'm so inclined, or if I'm too tired I'll go on Saturday.

Now I have no excuses for sitting down and writing, because I also bought myself an office chair today.  It's a little more comfortable than the solid wooden chair that I was sitting in.

Back to business!!  If you're looking for my new mailing address, drop me a line at rmitchell6700 AT yahoo and I'll send it your way post haste.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Upon further review

As I had mentioned last week, I finally took the time yesterday to go over the 3 binders that comprise the SNI set.  My lackadaisical tendency to put the cards away at times led me to believe that I may have made some mistakes when it came to reconciliation time on the spreadsheet.

I did better than I thought.  I was only missing 3 cards that I had on the spreadsheet.  Not a major catastrophe, but it means that I now have 23 serial #'s left to find for the set.  It also means that the post last week about 23 teams being complete is also incorrect.   I'm back down to 21, as 2 of the 3 cards I was missing were for Red Sox players, and the 3rd was a Pirate.  

Going through the pages also allowed me to stumble on something that I found interesting.   Cards # 620 and 621 to be precise...

Back to back in the set are a pair of Kevin Youkilis cards.   Totally unintentional.  Even better is that they are from 2 different teams with Sox as their nickname. 

I also noticed that I had 2 Yovani Gallardo cards from the same set (2012 Topps Heritage), although those serial numbers are quite far apart, 382 and 1129.  I may have some fun when this set is completed, figuring out such things as which player appears the most, which set is represented the most, etc. 

For now, I'm just happy that I was only missing the 3 cards....

thanks for reading, Robert