When I started this blog I had 195 cards and my aim was to reach 394. It's fair to say I smashed that. I added 374 cards to the collection from my blog launch date to the end of 2020.
What started out as one binder of cards has expanded into five binders, which are varying degrees of full.
There are getting on for 12,000 Tony Gwynn cards listed on Trading Card Database. It would be possible to aim for adding 394 new cards to my collection every year. Possible, but not very sensible. I have other things happening in my life and I spend a lot of time looking for cards as it is. (Although, if I did decide to do this, I have already reached 50 cards in 2021.)
Recently I have wondered whether to try and collect 394 cards per decade. Currently my collection stands at 619 cards split by decade as follows:
1980s - 72 (first card = 1983)
1990s - 329
2000s - 125
2010s - 55
2020s - 38 (after only 2 years of the decade)
The 90s would almost be complete if I chose to do that. However there are a couple of years at the start of the 80s that will always be empty. Tony's first card was a TCMA minor league card released in 1982. It's on my wishlist, but there are still only eight years in the 80s when Tony had cards released.
If we were going by career decade rather than calendar decade, then we would be looking at different breakdowns of years and cards, as follows:
1982-1991 - 104
1992- 2001 - 382
2002 - 2011 - 46
2012 - 2021 - 87
There's a 'career decade' there that covers the most prolific era in card collecting - the ten years after the UD Boundary is the equivalent of the Cambrian Explosion in card terms with the rapid expansion of companies, sets and rapid evolution in baseball card techniques. So, it's not surprising that well over half of the cards in my collection are from that 'decade'.
Meanwhile the most sparse decade, 2002-11, would lose two years with a lot of cards, and gain two very poorly represented years in return. The post-2012 decade would be boosted by adding 2020, with its 35 cards. 2022 would be the start of a new decade and I could say that I'm only going to collect cards issued in the first forty years after Tony's first card. But I can't even kid myself that I have the willpower to not buy any of the cards that will inevitably be released next year.
I'm hesitant to go down the route of career decades otherwise I am going to be stuck hunting for cards from after Tony retired. Although, that would be a problem with calendar decades as well.
Maybe, and here's a strange thought, I don't need a numerical target at all.
If anyone has any bright ideas, then please leave a comment!
The idea of collecting 394 cards from each of his playing decades is fun and interesting, but ultimately you should collect whatever way is fun and entertaining to you. For some that's setting guidelines, parameters, and creating goals... while others try to collect every piece of cardboard they can. I'm the guy who wants everything, but accepts that my budget will never be that of a super collector.
ReplyDeleteMy main player collections are focused on just the cards issued while the player was active. Or maybe you could just focus on cards that really appeal to you design wise?
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