JD's Wild Cardz is going to the 9's!

Post # 399 is a perfect time to announce some upcoming changes for JD's Wild Cardz.

Over the last several months, I have become increasing disenchanted with my collection. While my core mission to fill up a nice shoe box "Jacoby's" treasure chest with some nice autograph cards, collecting for myself has been somewhat of a mystery. The results have been scattered hobby boxes, random base card piles, mysterious cardboard boxes with content titles that have been crossed out and crossed out again (what the heck IS in those boxes anyways), and various piles of contents of received packages that have never made their way...anywhere yet except on the china cabinet.

Here are some of the things that have bothered me most...

• Cardboard boxes - Yes, these are ideal for storing complete sets that you just want to put away and either appreciate or depreciate over a many year span. Good for safe keeping...bad for viewing. I have several boxes of random cards that I could not even begin to tell you what is in them, nor do I have the patience to actually go through a box to sort the contents.

• Relics - It starts to suck when you get a relic card and you are so completely dissapointed and feel ripped off. Same goes for inserts, or other various cards that are not a 1/1 or low-serial numbered hit...even those have started to feel stale.

• Random Hobby boxes are EVERYWHERE. I got caught up with the allure of the hits and the result is a ton of base and inserts that I have no need or desire to collect.

• Binders - I have a bunch of non-descript binders that have a bunch of half-filled pages of incomplete insert sets. While I had the best intentions to complete all of these sets, it rarely works out, and when it actually does, Topps goes out and releases an updates set that ruins it all again. I am FUMING that I now have an incomplete 2009 Heritage set again, and also an incomplete Turkey Red Set thanks to the updates.

So basically, I have a bunch of cards laying around I don't want or know what to do with, I have a bunch of binders half-filled and incomplete, and I have a bunch of cardboard boxes that I have no idea what is in them. Complete chaos!

So I had a bit of an epiphany last week and it kind of gained some traction the more that I thought about it. I think, for me, this might actually help motivate me to go through all my stuff and sort it, AND also have a plan for the future.

Wanna here it, here go!

Occasionally I notice that bloggers post a "completed page" on their site. These tend to look really nice. Part of the point of collecting cards is to 1) be able to view them and 2) be able to find them if you need them for a post/trade. I started to think about completed pages, and then started to think "you know, if I just had a bunch of completed pages that I could leaf through, then I would be one happy guy"! There are WAY TOO MANY subsets out there that are interesting, and ultimately what ends up happening is you gets well on your way and then the trail goes dead.

SO, my new goal....(drumroll)....is to collect one binder page of each type of card I like.

9 cards (12 in the case of minis).

So how I view my collection forming, is that I would like to have one page of Topps Finest Chromes, one page of Topps Turkey Reds, one page of 2010 Topps Target Red Exclusives, one page of Topps Peak Performance...so on, so forth.

Sounds easy? No challenge? Try gathering up nine hat patches, nine silk cards, nine SP's from flagship, nine printing plates....not everything is going to be a cakewalk.

The benefits of doing this are very important to me...

1) Needing nine of each card I choose to collect reinvigorate my joy of pulling a relic, or an insert, or cards that I would otherwise be disappointed with. For example....I bought 6 rack-pack Topps 2010 at Target and was happy to have pulled two Target Red exclusives, Albert Pujols, and Chipper Jones...2 down and 7 to go.

2) I won't worry so much as to who I pull...if I like the looks of a particular card better, or can upgrade players later down the road, more power!

3) It will make trading easier. I am about to have a ton of inserts available to you, and you will have a more specific idea of what I am looking for in return.

4) I can go through those mysterious boxes and find 9 of a card type, and file it in a binder where I can actually GASP view the card!

And yes, there will still be times when I will be so enamored with a particular subset that I will want them all, but most likely that will be a rarity.

So that's all I have more now, until I actually start getting these pages put together in a binder, the goals are going to be a little unclear, but it is a start. In my next post I will start out with some of the projects that I currently working on. I would be glad to make some trades if you can help me out!