The Organic Nature of The Budget Trading Card Collection Pt. 2

This is a continuation of the post in which I looked at the organic nature of my trading card catalog.  The myriad number of sets to the growing number of cards, in its organic nature, my card holdings seem to have a mind of its own.  Recently, I have added even more variety to my collection.  I gave in and went off budget and acquired one of those special cards that I wondered if I would ever own.  1982 Topps card #21, the Ripken rookie card.  With the acquisition of this card, I also now have hope and the possibility of completing the 1982 Topps checklist.

In a recent haul, I acquired what I believe to be a complete set of 1992 Topps Home Alone 2 and the 11 sticker cards.  As a whole I am a fan of Topps and the sets that they produce.  While I am not ravenous about non-sport cards, I like them okay.  But the Home Alone set has to be one of the worst sets that I have ever had the misfortune to catalog.  It is not as if a photographer had to be dispatched to get the shots for the set, just take them from the movie.  The images are grainy and, to me, do not tell the story of the movie well.  But it is cards in my catalog, it increases my non-sport numbers as well as my over all numbers.

Early in this period of collecting, I acquired a large block of cards and in it was a stack of 1987/1988 Pacific MISL Soccer cards.  I put off cataloging these cards for a long time.  Then as I started to work on the set and am now over half finished, I find that I am beginning to like the set.  There are no great photo shots, but over all it is a set that I am now enjoying adding each new card.

I am working on the 1991 Impel Marvel Universe set.  Shades of my youth and Spider-Man comic books.  I was hoping that the entire set was there, but alas I think it is missing a couple of cards.

Another small stack of cards that I recently came purchased, 1976/1977 Topps Hockey.  I was able to pickup over 50 of these and they are nice.  I do not collect much Hockey, but I am proud to have these in my catalog.

Yet another small stack, about 60 cards, came my way, 1982 Fleer Baseball.  1982 Fleer Baseball is not a popular set as it is not a very well produced set.  All this being equal, I like the set and am very pleased to have my small holding of 1982 Fleer increased.

In the high production era, 1987 Topps Baseball cards are everywhere.  I do not purposely seek these cards but add them if they happen along.  I cracked a couple of repacks lately and, as usual, many '87 Topps, '88 Donruss and '89 Topps.  My number of '87 Topps is up to 524.  I have a complete set, but decided not to break it just to add to my catalog.  Just letting the '87 Topps grow organically.

And some other cards that I have added lately.

Another stat that I follow in my catalog is the number of cards from Topps Baseball base sets 1953-2005.  I am speaking of just base sets, not Traded or Total, Opening Day, Chrome or anything other than base sets.  Total number of cards(with variations that I have cataloged thus far) 34059 and of this number, I have 4271 for 12.54% complete.

• Cards from 735 different sets
• Would take 232,037 cards to complete
• Have 5.1544 % of cards in sets represented
• Cataloged 11960 Total
• Cataloged 9489 Baseball
• Cataloged 1089 Football

Happy collecting
Jerry Yeager

Some Links That Could Be Useful

Trading Card Database  Very Nice site for creating online collection as well as resources for researching your collection and images for over half million cards so far
SportLots  Sports Card Auction Site

The Card Collector High end Software for cataloging cards

Sports Card Collector Software better for budget with fewer features.