Help Wanted: Spring Cleaning Continues

Yikes!  I am buried in cardboard!  It's not the most terrible way to go but I'm just not ready!  I pulled two more boxes from the closet.  One was mostly for trading and the other contains cards purchased just before moving in June of 2015.

1500 or so cards

Topps, Upper Deck, SP, Chrome, Pinnacle - this box held a bit of everything and needed sorting, of course.  I hired some help about a year ago too but having no thumbs, Jingles is paid to do very little.

Taking a union break

Adding cards to the Salvation Army box.

She is the sweetest kitty.  A year old this month, she and her two siblings were abandoned in a box by the vet's back door at three days of age.  One was adopted, the other sadly did not live.  Jingles was bottle fed by the vet until she was old enough for me to bring home.  She has only known love. Jingles likes kisses and will pull your face to hers when she wants one. Still...what a freeloader!  

With her help, over half of the cards made it to the trade stacks.  Others will be donated and some added to the discard box to be given away later.  The trade cards must be moved into their team spots. There is one small problem...SPACE!  When I began this project a few weeks back, I had one big box for trade cards which has morphed into three.  I have at the very least, another 500 cards to squeeze into these which doesn't take into account those yet undiscovered. 

Original trade box on the left.

In the midst of the sorting, I took some time to edit trade photos.  There is a fellow out there, a non-blogger who puts a great trade package together.  I don't know how many of you have swapped with him but he comments as Xavier Higgins and trades as Rocky Quinn.  He sent two packages months ago and one just recently,  probably 100 cards total.  I can't possibly share all of these but here are some highlights:

1992 Topps with Micros!!  Love these tiny cards!

FOOD ISSUES: 92 Mother's Cookies Pudge and 96 Pizza Hut Piazza

VINTAGE TIGERS AND A BUCKY DENT

PLAYER COLLECTIONS

2017 HERITAGE

ALTUVE AND MIGGY

SWELL!!!!

NICE KINSLER RELIC  AND A GORGEOUS TICKET REFRACTOR

I don't collect hockey at all but do love that Hawks Jersey!  Xavier remembered my player collections too.  I so appreciate this!  Thank you for the diverse selection of cards.  It was great fun!  Sorry it's taken so long to share these.  I want bloggers to know how generous you are!

Spring cleaning continues.  If you've made it this far then my reader friends, you deserve a chance to claim another Cracked Bat disCARD box!  I did mention there'd be another giveaway later.  There are cards to move. To be eligible for  a random chance, you must live in the USA - any one of our 50 great states will do.  The other little detail - you aren't a past recipient of a discard box.  I want to spread good will around the blogs.   We'll keep the opportunity open through Sunday evening.  I'll run the Randomizer around three times.  The box will go to spot number two.  Now all that's left for you to do is comment.  

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!