No new resolutions for me this year.
I know it’s the middle of March, but I never went on the record when most of you were talking about such things. You can all exhale now.
There are two key reasons as to why I’m not setting collecting goals for 2012. One is a lack of discretionary funds, which currently looks to be a recurring them all year long. The other is my performance on last year’s goals. The worst part is that I purposefully tried to set realistic goals and set benchmarks below my expectations.
For those that are interested, here’s the original goal-setting post as well as the mid-year recap.
For the rest of you, prepare for a recap.
BOX BREAKS/REVIEWS
What I said:
I want to do a bunch of this. I’m a critic at heart and by nature, and one of the things that appealed to me most about starting up this blog was having another forum where people could read my bias. We’ve been at this for about a year now (as of January 11th), and we’ve had a whopping 18 reviews! I want to get a couple group breaks going, which will allow more box breaks/videos/reviews on here, and we’ll be opening plenty of new stuff (mostly to flip) as we’ve been doing. It’s going to be a very exciting time for us. We have big things planned for this blog and January should show the beginnings of it. Hopefully you’ll be there to share it all with us.
What has happened:
Okay, I didn’t really outline specifics on this and for good reason, but I was hoping to beat our previous record. Over the course of this year, we were able to manage 25 video box breaks. Most of that came courtesy of group breaks, but I’m still happy with that number. We’ve already posted 2 this year, and there are a couple others we’re saving for a rainy day.
The reviews didn’t go so well. In 12 months, we only cranked out 8 reviews. We have 3 so far this year, so there’s a good chance we’ll beat that total.
CONTESTS
What I said:
I want to hold more of these as well. The Pack Lottery Contest (your chance to enter is ending tomorrow night!) is going to be intense and a hell of a lot of fun. We want more contests, more giveaways, more interactivity, more fun, more free cards for everyone! It’s about time we bring the Community to Community Gum.
What has happened:
Well, we have one going on now. Other than that, we didn’t get anything going in the second half of the year. Maybe we’ll get a couple more together this year besides this.
POSTING
What I said:
I want to at least to maintain my current output of blog posting on here. I know as the wedding gets closer, it will be tougher to find the time, but I stay up late and get little sleep as it is, so we’ll see. No set numbers on this, just keep the blog moving along.
I wish I could say I’ll be commenting more. I simply don’t think that’s realistically going to change for the time being. As I’ve mentioned before, I typically only have time to either read people’s blogs to catch up, or write my own post. I can read during lunch at work, but can’t login anywhere to comment. Also, I’ll blame the wedding here too to cover my bases. Maybe the second half of the year, I’ll be a more active presence and chime in along with what you guys are talking about.
I also want to post 25 packs on A Pack To Be Named Later in 2011. This averages out to about one every other week, which seems manageable. I have plenty of older packs that haven’t been featured, especially non-sports and I’m sick of seeing –David beat me to the punch on them! Even though he does a great job with his write-ups! U.S. of ALF should have been mine!
What has happened:
Well, as I said last time I’m content with my posting level. Life and business tends to get in the way a little too frequently, but what can you do? Some nights I have to spend all the free-time I would have had to blog or to read blogs by filling and packing up orders from Sportlots and/or Ebay or loading new cards up for sale. It’s not a bad problem to have by any means, but I like to tell myself that I should be able to still do both. All things considered, the status quo has been maintained in my eyes, although I’ll still strive for improvement.
In terms of A Pack to Be Named Later, I came close. 19 of the 25. FAILURE! I posted virtually every variation of retail Topps Series 1 and series 2 packs you can imagine. I would have met the goal if I found the time to post my Topps Group break boxes. The scans are still saved, so it’ll be a nice way to start off this year. I’m still hoping to get around to the non-sport stuff as well.
PLAYER COLLECTIONS
What I said:
Number: Currently, I’m at 3 players. I’d actually like to increase this to somewhere between 5-10, leaning more towards 5. Part of the reason is I feel my collection is a little unbalanced. I’m only collecting pitchers so far. Two of the three are current Cubs. I want to branch out. I want a slugger. I want another older player, so I have more to look for in the old boxes I rip besides Greg Maddux. I have thoughts on this, but I’ll go more in depth on another post.
Current collection size: I’m going to use my Progress report post from a little more than a month ago as my guide here. I was at 6 months, so by 1 yr, 6 mo I hope to have my collections reach somewhere around…
Marmol – Currently 26 (30.59%), Goal 50. I feel most of these newer cards will come in the form of 2011 products/parallels
Dempster – Currently 30 (17.34%), Goal 75. Again, a lot of 2011 will help. I wouldn’t be too surprised if I’m able to break 100.
Maddux – Currently 236 (3.97%), Goal 275. I’m keeping this number more conservative in anticipation of adding other players.
I also want to complete 2 years worth of cards for each player. Maddux may be the easiest as I only need 2 more Sterling cards to finish 2010, and early junk wax years may not be too tough.
What has happened:
Number: I doubled the amount of players I collect by adding Kerry Wood, Frank Thomas and Tony Gwynn. I did add another pitcher, so it’s not an even split, but it is 3 active and 3 retired. I’m not going to add anyone else in the near future, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about it.
I mentioned that I wanted to complete 2 years worth for each player. That didn’t work out. Then I revamped and said I was going to complete 2 years of Greg Maddux cards. No luck there, either. See: FAILURE! already.
Current collection size:
Marmol – Currently 52 of 120(43.33%), Goal 50. ACCOMPLISHED! I’m shocked at how close I am to the halfway mark. Wouldn’t it be great if I could get there, even with all the 2012 issues that will be coming out?
Dempster – Currently 69 of 222 (31.08%), Goal 75. FAILURE! This could have been possible. I ended the year with no cards from A&G and only 1 from Gypsy Queen. We’ll see where another year takes me, but I’d be surprised if I broke 100.
Maddux – Currently 498 of 6231 (7.99%), Goal 275. ACCOMPLISHED! I never thought I’d be this far ahead of my goal! This is almost entirely from trades with you guys out there (as well as a couple batches of freebies from Andy), so thank you all very much! Doubling my collection in a year, and 2 away from 500 unique cards. No other word but “amazing!”
None of my numbers include 2012 cards, which wouldn’t add a whole lot. So, how am I doing with the new players I just started?
Kerry Wood – Currently 138 of 2861 (4.82%), End of year goal, how about I keep it light and say 110. ACCOMPLISHED! I had 98 when I made that mid-year goal. Some lucky breaks and a couple decent trades boosted that quite well.
Frank Thomas – Currently 302 of 6342 (4.76%), End of year goal will be 130. ACCOMPLISHED! I jumped up 3 full percentage points and demolished the goal. There were two or three monster trades that brought me from 109 cards to 200 more in the binder.
Tony Gwynn – Currently 169 of 4779 (3.54%), End of year goal will be 75. ACCOMPLISHED! I was at 55. I was apprehensive about putting the goal at 100, but evidently had no trouble surpassing it. Trades are a wonderful, wonderful thing.
I guess I did alright, after all. It’s funny how a couple little things can throw off your perception. Thank you all out there for the great trades that made these goals possible. Here’s to another great year of card collecting for all of us!
I see more “accomplished” than “failure” so that’s good. Good luck with your non-goals in 2012!
I have been trying to set some goals for my player and set collections and accomplished only a couple last year but this year has been a bit better, best of luck to you! Glad to see those accomplishes at the bottom.