The past month or so has been a significant departure from my traditional means of collecting Baseball cards. As you've seen from my Baseball card show recap posts and 2019 Panini Prizm hobby box break, I've deviated away from how I typically collect cards.
As a result, my want list and the various sets that I'm collecting have been put on the back burner as of late. I still want, obviously, to build and eventually complete these sets, but my primary focus isn't always going to be the products on my want list.
I absolutely see myself as an all over the place Baseball card collector; I don't just stick to 1 player, team, or set at a time. At any given time, I'm focused on a few different aspects of my collection, and they usually change after a few weeks to a month.
I try not to leave any projects unfinished, and I enjoy how and what I collect. Although my, at times, disorganized methods of collecting Baseball cards can have repercussions, I wouldn't change it for anything.
Plus, being a part of the card blogging community has allowed me to continuously take cards off my want list, even if I'm not necessarily focusing on those sets at a particular time.
I hadn't completed a trade with a fellow blogger in a bit, but that changed when Swing and a Pop Up reached out to me a little while back. A little over a week ago, he sent me a reasonable number of 1979 Topps needs which brought the total number of cards needed to complete that set down to just 42.
However, before I could even write my post about our trade, he graciously sent another package my way, filled to the brink with a huge pile of cards for my 1983 Topps set.
When I first began collecting the 726-card set that is 1979 Topps, I barely had 125 cards from this product. Nonetheless, my appreciation for the set design and 70s cards as a whole motivated me to continue building this set.
Now, a couple of years and a surplus of trades later, I'm only 42 cards away from completing this wonderful set. Most of the '79 cards in my possession are thanks to bloggers, viewers, and Twitter users with whom I have traded with.
Due to how rarely I spot '79 Topps base cards at the show, I've relied heavily on the people listed above in order to complete this set. Without them, I'd still be hovering around the 125 card mark, and that's not much of an exaggeration.
Another reason why I've been able to make such rapid progress in terms of completing this set is that there aren't many highly sought after cards in the checklist. If I remember correctly, Topps stopped producing their Flagship sets in multiple series starting 1974.
While a set like 1975 Topps still has some very valuable cards, the Flagship sets towards the end of the 1970s don't have many expensive cards within the checklists. Unlike other vintage sets that I've completed, like 1972 Topps, '79 has been a rather inexpensive project.
A large portion of the cards in the checklist resemble the 4 showcased above; virtually every one of them is extremely colorful, and there are a ton of semi-stars in the checklist, like Juan Beniquez and Rich Reuschel.
I have a few different Topps Flagship sets in mind to start collecting as soon as I finish the '79 set. '67, '70, and '74 are all distinct possibilities, but I'm leaning more towards the 1974 Topps Flagship set due primarily to the fact that I already have a reasonable number of cards from that year.
I'd like to complete this set before I head to The National at the end of July so that, upon arriving in Chicago, I can devote my attention solely to '61 and '76 along with the next potential Topps set that I choose to collect.
As I mentioned earlier, I was shocked when a package of 1983 Topps cards arrived on my doorstep yesterday. I wasn't expecting to receive such a humongous stack of cards in the mail, for we never negotiated the 2nd trade for this surplus of set needs.
I'm not complaining though; in fact, I'm beyond grateful for this surprise package. I haven't yet adjusted the want list, but I estimate that I'm around 150 cards closer to completing the set.
There are a few big name rookies (Boggs and Sandberg) whose cards I need in order to complete this set. However, besides the RCs for those 2 Hall of Famers, 1983 Topps is similar to 1979 with respect to how there aren't many highly desired cards in the checklist.
Before I officially started collecting the 1983 Topps set, I bought a generous lot of cards from this product at the card show, not knowing that this purchase would turn into a project of mine. The lot didn't contain a ton of HOF players, so I've been forced to track these cards down myself.
Thankfully, the trade package that came in yesterday's mail contained a wide variety of HOF players, including Bruce Sutter on the Cardinals and Dennis Eckersley on the Red Sox.
As I mentioned earlier, I haven't adjusted the want list following the surplus of 1983 Topps cards that I received. However, I figure that I've made significant progress with this stellar product. I haven't been collecting this set for that long either, but I foresee myself completing it by the end of the year if everything goes as planned.
The main issue when it comes to completing 1983 Topps is not the price of the cards. Instead, it's how uncommon they are at shows, for dealers don't typically sell individual cards from this set at their tables.
Thus, I'm going to need to rely on trades to finish up this set, so if anyone has any cards from this set that appear on my want list, no matter how many cards you have, don't hesitate to reach out.
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