2018 Collecting Goals

Everyone associates New Year's Resolutions with just the first day of January, but since my birthday is the 9th, I figure I have the first ten days or so to review things and set targets for the coming year.

Resolution the First - Keep a steady blogging pace.  I racked up 146 posts this calendar year, my first "official" one as a regular card blogger.  I slacked off in July (vacation) and December (new dog).  Otherwise, I managed to put up over a dozen posts a month.  Generally I tried to hit Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  This year I hope to continue that pace and increase the quality....

Resolution the Second - Be more positive and creative in my posts.  Trade posts are always good, but I feel like my commentaries and reviews have been largely negative and complaining about the same things.  I want to strive to be more like Night Owl, Fuji, and Dime Box Nick and many others and show more of what I enjoy about cards and not what's wrong with them.  More posts about customs (and how I do them), and quirky things about my collecting (that don't get their thunder stolen by the better bloggers) will appear here regularly if I can get my mind on it.

Resolution the Third - Clean up and put all this stuff away!  

My card room is chock full of binders, set starters, show loot, trade loot, and storage supplies - some of which are still where they landed in August after the National and Michigan trip.  Not to mention all the stuff I took to sell at the show that won't go back into my cabinet since it was put into bigger boxes.

I gotta get my sorting desk back and clear off the little couch so the dog will like to stay nearby when I work on cards.

At some point I'll have to consider rearranging the room to make more binder shelf space.

C'mon Dad, there's no place for me in there....

Resolution the Fourth - Complete the 1960, 1970, and 1972 Topps Sets.  This one should be a cinch with my buddy Marvelous Marv in Michigan hooking me up with 1960's.  I'm down to the last nine big guns to kill off.  Might take a little while just to spread out the costs.
The other two have been hanging on for the whole year.  They should have been gone at the National, but I just couldn't kill them.  Figured it would be easier since I'm not looking for gradeable mint at all.  Down to ten minor star high numbers for '70 and Pete Rose IA, Fritz Peterson (both), and Piniella 72's plus thirty high numbers including only Morgan & Fregosi traded, Carew, and Mazeroski as big names. Then I'm ready to crush '64 and to start '63 and '62.

Resolution the Fifth - Ramp up the trading with my original group and keep up the blogger trades.  I've really enjoyed becoming a member of the "in crowd" of traders among bloggers, but in doing so have sacrificed keeping up with my main trading group on Yahoo.  I get the collected emails with everyone's requests and trade posts, but got to the point where I was just dumping them in dozens because I never took the time to read them all as they came in.  It's a generous group, so I feel like I'm slacking and missing out on "thinning the hoard" around here.

Resolution the Sixth - Knock out a lot of old want lists.  Even with all I have, there are still pounds of stuff still listed on my site that have been there forever.  Since I really didn't buy a lot of 2017 product and don't anticipate getting much more in 2018, I should ride that trend and pare down what I've missed in years past.  I should make a concerted effort to thin out the want lists and not just keep adding to them month after month.  (And help others do the same).

That should be plenty to think about this year.  I'm not sure at this point whether I'll make it to Cleveland for the National.  I liked it the first time a few years ago, and would love to meet a few of the other bloggers and traders I deal with.  I'm also on the verge of just stopping the collection of certain sports and narrowing my focus a bit.  (Mostly because my house won't hold it all for much longer.)  At least it seems like the dog doesn't like to chew cardboard....