Let's See How I Did

So this is it. Happy New Year (and decade) everyone, and greetings from 2020.

In just over a month, we'll have our first Baseball card release of the decade and, to say the least, there's a lot to look forward to in regards to 2020 Topps Series 1.

Cardboard Connection has detailed the release which includes a retail-exclusive Turkey Red revival, inserts that pay tribute to the past decades of Baseball history, the reprinting of the 1985 Topps design, and, above all, 25 Celebration of the Decades tickets randomly inserted into packs, promising an unprecedented experience.

It's almost as if Topps knew that the 2020 design is the worst we've seen since 2016, so they have to compensate with a whole bunch of other stuff.

I still have a few posts to get to acknowledging the end of the year/beginning of a new year. I have to set card collecting goals for 2020, get to the 2nd part of Sunday's card show recap, and, possibly, get to that year/decade recap that I've hinted at creating.

However, before I can select some new card collecting goals to go after in 2020, I have to check in with the 7 that I created and, somewhat, accomplished for 2019.

If nothing else, analyzing how I fared with last year's goals will teach me what I need to change this time around. I'll do my best to build off what worked and changed what didn't so that, 1 year from now, I can say that I accomplished virtually all of what I set out to do.

#1 Make significant progress with 1976 and 1979 Topps
Accomplished? Yes

Though my progress kind of plateaued following my trip to the 2019 National, I definitely made progress when it came to 1976 and 1979 Topps, a duo of sets that I've been trying to complete for a couple of years.

Set building, however, isn't my #1 priority in card collecting, so I'm glad I didn't tell myself to "complete '76 and '79 Topps" when I created these goals last year. A lucky day at the card show followed by a COMC purchase is all I really need to complete both of these sets in 2020.

I have 38 cards left on my want list from the '76 set whereas I'm 48 away from completing '79. Those 86 total cards can be found in several places, though I'll likely stick solely to online due to how scarce they can be at the show.

#2 Complete any year of Topps Heritage (2016-2019)
Accomplished? No

I definitely spread myself a little too thin when it came to goal #2. Not only did my interest in Topps Heritage die down slightly in 2019, but it's not like past Heritage SPs and inserts are on my radar every time I purchase Baseball cards.

If I had instructed myself to complete a non-Flagship set from the 2010s, that would've been much more feasible as 2018 Archives and Chrome are both worthy options. But the price point of Heritage SPs is too high, and the product simply doesn't interest me as much as it used to.

#3 Continue to focus on player collections
Accomplished? Yes

I should stop listing this as a card collecting goal because I focus on player collections in almost every single Baseball card purchase that I make. They're the foundation of my entire card collection, and I've taken huge steps not only to add to them but better organize them as well.

The filtering of duplicate cards out of my player collections was a massive undertaking that I just completed yesterday. Now, I have 2 2-row boxes of PC dupes plus another stack that didn't fit in the box. Throughout 2019, moreover, I also boosted every player collection, from Glenn Beckert to Nolan Ryan.

Speaking of Nolan Ryan...

#4 Obtain 500 Nolan Ryan cards
Accomplished? No

Yikes, I'm 2/4 for accomplishing my goals thus far, but in my defense, the Ryan PC lost roughly 70 cards thanks to the removal of all duplicate cards which, back in January of 2019, I counted as part of the player collection.

If not for this transformation, I'd be at around 490 cards right now instead of 415, so it's not that the objective wasn't possible, I just didn't envision removing 15% of the entire player collection.

Ryan still reigns supreme as my largest player collection, and I see no way that this will change in 2020. Perhaps this will be the year that I bring the total to 500 cards, but we'll have to wait a few days to see if I challenge myself with that goal.

#5 Sell and trade more cards than I did in 2018
Accomplished? Kind of

I sold a lot on eBay during the first few months of 2019, but then the sales gradually decreased. That, combined with the new online sales tax, has made selling a lot more challenging, though I do make some sort of sale every so often.

I didn't trade as much as I wanted to in 2019, but it wasn't nonexistent. I did Secret Santa and sent out a few cards/packages here and there. Goal #5 wasn't a definite "yes," but I also can't ignore the parts of it that I actually did well at.

#6 Collect more oddballs
Accomplished? Yes

The National definitely played a key role in my accomplishing the #6 card collecting goal for 2019.

Whether we're talking about Fleer Ted Williams cards, Fleer World Series cartoons, or even the Milwaukee Brewers combining with the city police department in the early 1980s (yes that actually happened), collect more oddballs receives a resounding yes.

#7 Collect only what I'm interested in and have fun doing it
Accomplished? Mostly yes

I don't think I'll ever be able to master collecting only a small range of products as I like to explore and sample sets as long as the price point is reasonable. At times, I went a little overboard in my purchases, but I never picked more of the product off the shelf unless I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Topps Allen & Ginter, Panini Chronicles, Bowman's Best, and Topps Archives all fit the bill for this one. These were some of my favorite releases of the year, so I purchased more than just a sample rack pack or blaster.

On the other hand, sets like Series 2, Bowman, and Donruss didn't receive quite as much love.

Overall, I'd say I did pretty well with my card collecting goals for 2019. There were only 2 that I flat out did not accomplish, but that's due, in large part, to my making one of them completely unreasonable

I'm excited about all the new releases that'll come our way in 2020 as well as the more feasible goals that I'll create for myself and, ideally, see through to the end.