A Sorted Affair

Last week, I shared a dirty little secret.  I'm a card hoarder.  Ok, maybe it's not hoarding and perhaps not so dirty but to deal with my little fort of cardboard boxes,  I needed to put it out in the open for all to see.  

I had a couple days off work this week and used them accordingly.  Last week I shared this photo:

Not very pretty.  I chose to attack this stack of boxes first because [a] these are in my study which must be reclaimed and [b] it's the smallest stack.   With so many cards to organize, resorting is unavoidable.  And the sleeving!  I've gone through a thousand soft sleeves already!!  Fortunately the Tigers are already sorted out and mostly organized.  

I began stacking cards in player lots.  There isn't room for all the PCs so I gave table space to the fellas showing the most often: Ty Cobb, Altuve,  Grace, Sandberg, Biggio, Molitor, Bagwell, Piazza, Abbott, Kinsler, Vizquel, Jeter, Pudge Rodriguez, Ripken and Nolan Ryan - Astro.   The tall stack top row,  third from the left with the fat patch on top is a trade pile.  To the right of the patch is a discard pile.

Short stacks to the left of the patch are cards for misc sets I'm working to build.  I have two stacks for HOFers and retired players.   The pile for my fun binders features a Cecil Fielder McDonalds card.   As the stacks grow, the cards are moved into now empty boxes.  These will be staged here until they join the PCs already created and stored in the closet.

HOFers and retired players are resting in this lid until I have a monster box empty for them.  I expect there will be 4000-5000 of these fellas by the time the initial sorting is complete.  Guys like Banks, Ruth, Gehrig, Cochrane, Campy, Bench, Yount - the list is long - all will be moved into their PCs.  The left side of the photo shows staging for RCs and active players such as Posey and Trout. Next to them is a spot for sets.  

I'm also using a lid to gather cards for future trades!  Yes, there is a no-trade clause in effect.  It's more of a mercy rule to allow time to organize and regroup.  I sent many packages out over a week ago.  Now that the sorting's begun, all the nice cards I'd collected to share are turning up. These will make for some fun packages later: patches, autos, lesser seen cards of the 90s like Topps Laser.

I've missed out on the fun part of our hobby for some time.  I had no trouble accumulating the cards. It's always a thrill to find the hold-out, a card you've been looking for over the many years.  Then the question becomes, what did I do with it???  

2010 Topps Tribute Gary Carter

1958 Topps

1950 Bowman Bob Feller

I am excited to share my progress - and some nice cards - along the way.  I plan to trim my PCs down.  Hunter Pence didn't take the news well.  He's found a good home though,  such a sensitive fellow.  

There will be unavoidable player dupes which may find their way into a contest.  I'm already considering a giveaway box full of discards.  Who doesn't like to go through another collector's junk?

New releases are on the way with Topps out any moment. I'm not sure how many of us like the new design.  It doesn't appeal to me really but Topps knows we need a pack fix.  It will sell anyway. I purchased two hobby jumbo boxes [ten 50 card packs] which come with silver packs exclusive to hobby box purchases. These packs contain chrome cards in the style of 87 Topps, probably one of my least favorite sets. There's a chance to pull Altuve in base/parallel/auto which means someone else will likely find my Jose in their packs.  2017 Topps - another thousand cards to sort!