ELI!!!

Last Tuesday Eli Nelson Manning IV retired after a storied 16 year career in the National Football League. In a lot of ways it is sad to see him go, but in other aspects this was likely inevitable.

What wasn't inevitable though was getting an actual TTM autograph from Mr. Eli Manning.

I took a long-shot attempt on Manning during the middle of the 2019-20 season and it paid off!

Manning's career and resume is pretty well known, even if you're not a New York Giants fan.
He had a pretty decorated tenure with the Ole Miss Rebels and then was drafted first overall in the 2004 NFL Player Draft by the San Diego Chargers. Manning didn't want to play for San Diego however and was subsequently traded to the Giants in exchange for Phillip Rivers (who the Giants had taken with their fourth overall pick) and a gaggle of draft picks, the rest has been history for both franchises.

Now that he's retired much of the discourse will now turn towards Eli's Hall of Fame candidacy.

This appears to be a polarizing issue for many. There are some that claim he's not a HoFer, other claim that he is. Please note that this is not an invitation for you to put your two cents in. I don't care about any hall of fame and neither should you.

What I do kinda care about is how Eli managed to win two Superbowl rings. Both of which were against the New England Patriots during the peak years of the Belichick and Brady era. For that he'll always get my unironic respect, and he'll forever also get my ironic respect for the Manning-face memes that will live on well after rings are in the rearview mirror and Giants fans endure decades upon decades of never being able to build the right team around the right player in the right amount of time (refer to how they'll completely mess up during Saquon Barkley's prime).

Plus in the end there is that life long Nu Yohka (never mind that the Giants play in New Jersey) premium attached to him so yeah, he did New York proud in a decade that had the luxury of having him and also Derek Jeter and Henrik Lundqvist as life long NYers.

So yeah, Eli made it in New York. That's as good as making it anywhere.

So best wishes to Manning in retirement and thanks for the memories.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).

Enako

Showing off one of the better cards of 2019, a First Pitch BBM card of Enako.

To a lot of people this might just seem like any ordinary First Pitch BBM card. A first pitch of a cute girl who might be from an idol group or something.

Well close but not really.

Enako san is a cosplay model from Nagoya, Japan (NAGOYA REPRESENT!) aka the home of the Chunichi Dragons. As such her throwing the first pitch for the Dragons made a ton of sense. So much sense that I'm not sure why they didn't do it sooner, BUT this was the year where miss Enako started appearing on magazine covers after years of toiling in the otaku cosplay scene.

For the uninformed, her being a cosplay models means that she dresses up as anime characters for a living. Getting paid to dress up. Respect.
Also for people not sure how to feel, don't worry she's the same age as me.

Anyway yes, miss Enako threw out the first pitch at Nagoya Dome on August 23rd. Since then she's done a few interviews with various sports outlets asking her for soundbites on her sports fandom, asking her which player she'd want to be her personal photographer, that kind of thing.

The first pitch itself was pretty good. She used every last ounce of power she could generate from her 5' (154 cm) frame and to her credit the pitch did travel far before inevitably bouncing on the ground.

This card came to be thanks to the 2019 BBM Fusion set, a set that tries to infuse a ton of different sports and people. Enako was chief among them because her autograph was (and still is) a huge draw for this product. Never mind that the odds of pulling one are close to zero, it's all about the chase.

Honestly the only two Dragons cards worth a damn in 2019 were the Akira Neo autographs and the Enako autographs. At least if you're like me and you think way too much about money.

Also just aesthetically speaking, you know I'm fucking right.

Anyway if you want to see miss Enako's impressive cosplays, she posts a lot of them on her official Instagram account and Twitter account.

So in retrospect this definitely would've made it onto the best of 2019 list but I didn't get a copy until a Japanese contact of mine sent it (more on the other contents later) this year. Oh well.

Anyway I've since found that Mint Yokohama (my old stomping grounds lol) has an autographed version available for a mere 45,000 yen (aprox $450 USD). What's scary is that if I was still living in Yokohama I'd pay for that in an instant and not even blink. But paying for that in US dollars (even after the exchange rate'll probably reduce that price down to like $432) is a no-go for me right now because I've already made stupid card purchases, so I've started saving for it.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).

Card Show Pickups: Raw Dog Review

So last week a card show happened. The main draw for the show was the large autograph guest list that featured a ton of former New York Mets, wrestlers, New York Jets and New York Giants.

So of course I went and didn't get any autographs.

They're all too expensive and they're all names that scream "nice to have, but wouldn't go out of my way for". Especially not at the prices being asked.

No the real purpose of this trip was so I could finally do this.

Yes, I finally got the 2011 Topps Update Mike Trout RC graded.

Granted it's a Raw Card Review so there's no fancy slab, nor does this grade guarantee that a slabbed grade would be the same. But this at least gives me some piece of mind as this has been reviewed by someone and got the card grade equivalent of a B.

The back of the "slab" sticker notes as such (even though it scanned like shit), and that if I wanted it permanently protected I can send it in for a full BGS/BVG grading.

Needless to say that I will not be doing that. The whole reason I went down this RCR route is so I wouldn't have to deal with shipping costs and insurance. Which, BTW, is dependent on the BV of the card. I might not know what a Trout RC's BV is but I at least know that it's gonna make the insurance fee go through the roof. No thanks.

It cost me $25 to have Beckett give me back a grade of 9. Even if it's not what the final slabbed grade could be, I'll still take it as this thing can easily make back that money.

Speaking of which this also makes it a little bit more easier to sell. Granted this card is worth a lot so it would always be a fast mover, but the thing about this card is that if it's ungraded buyers only see it as an opportunity to get a card that might get a BGS 9.5 or BGS 10 that they can sell for even more money than when they bought it raw.

Of course that's why some buyers use that as a selling point and price the RC at bigger amounts saying that it "could" be a BGS 10, but most people know that nothing's guaranteed until that plastic slab from BGS arrives at your door.

Yeah at this point I know full well that whoever wants this is going to want a grade. As such they want to look at the surface, the corners, the centering, everything. When I thought about listing the Trout RC on eBay before I shuddered at having to take different shots at different angles of the corners, as well as trying to get the right amount of sheen on the surface, because that's a lot more convincing than a scan. RCR grades are kinda iffy but at the very least no one can deny that someone employed by Beckett did look at this. That's assurance in it's own right.

Anyway the raw card review took 90 minutes to complete, so during that time I took a walk around the show looking to see if the sellers had any Jasson Dominguez. Spoilers, they did not.

Dominguez has the "problem" where he's only been in unlicensed stuff put out by Panini. As of the time this post is being written he only has an autograph in 2019 Panini Prizm Draft and a non-auto and auto in 2019 Panini Donruss Elite Extra Edition. Both are products that prospectors are staying away from because while prices on Dominguez's cards are through the roof right now, they'll plummet once Topps and Bowman have their way with him.

But of course I was looking for non-auto'd Dominguez (which is just as hard), because he might be Staten Island bound next year. Who knows?

Anyway there weren't any Dominguezes so I opted to instead sell some cards to at least offset the grading costs and whatnot.

I decided to sell off my 2015 Bowman Chrome Walker Buehler refractor autograph. I sold it for less than market value because I just wanted fast cash. Plus in the end I still bought the card back when Buehler was a no-name who was still recovering from TJS, the amount I did sell it for was still a 300% return on investment.

As far as actual card pickups go I only made two of them.

One was a Vitali Kravtsov card from my go-to hockey dealer. As far as hockey stuff I want goes the only cards I was after this time were a Kravtsov base card for TTM purposes and a Filip Chytil printing plate. The show didn't produce a place, but it did produce the Kravtsov and that's good enough for me.

Note, this is also my plea to not send me too much hockey stuff. My wants are niche. So niche that it's just a non-autographed Filip Chytil printing plate now.

The other card was a Victor Oladipo base I got for 10 cents. The Malcolm Brogdon return I got had me wondering if I could maybe get something from Oladipo too via TTM. Worth a shot?

Note, this doesn't mean I've wavered from wanting basketball cards beyond Anthony Davis printing plates.

So in all I spent:
$10 on the entry fee
$25 on the RCR
$10.10 on the Kravtsov + Oladipo
$6 on supplies

While I got:
$60 for the Buehler BoChro ref auto

At least my costs were covered. This is a definite cop out to justify me spending more than $50 at a card show but if I do earn money thanks to the sale of a card, I'm willing to deduct whatever I got from my spending limit. I'm going to still track all of it but being able to hit the proverbial "reset" button at times thanks to this hobby does still help and I'm taking it. This does put me in a good position to land a Dominguez card even at inflated prices now. Whether I'd want to is another question though.

So yeah, as usual a useless card show where the only draw for me was an IP autograph Beckett because I don't care for vintage or BoChro. *Fart noise*

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).

Favourite Card of 2019

Even though P-Town Tom has decided not to host a card of the year contest, it'd just feel a bit weird without a post dedicated to what I felt was the best that 2019 had to offer in card form. In years prior he'd cut off the contest on the 7th or 8th, we'll assume that he would've ended it around then again this year and that this entry would've been a late one again.

2019 featured the return of Luis Torrens to the MiLB team issued genre, his first MiLB card since 2014 as a member of the Staten Island Yankees. This Amarillo Sod Poodles card actually has a lot going for it. In addition to it being the first Torrens MiLB card in five years, it's also got him featured as a member of the inaugural Sod Poodles team. The team that won the league championship in its first year existence at that. There's a bunch of unique points to be awarded for that.

There was also this wonderful custom Storm piece made by Gavin which filled a massive hole in my collection as Lake Elsinore never released a card set for Torrens in 2018. Gavin did a wonderful job here because this pairs pretty well with the Sod Poodles card above.

In addition, there was this custom that Gavin made that honored Torrens' time as a Cincinnati Red, all two seconds of that time. After I created my "thoughts on all 30 MLB teams" post, I've really dug deep and thought, "wow, the San Diego Padres are a lot more likable and interesting than the Reds and I'm glad that's where Torrens landed". The Reds still have nazi-owner stink on them while the Padres have a ton of fun guys like (insert Padres players here). That team will be a lot of fun to watch going forward. Meanwhile with the Reds I feel like their hopes and dreams will live and more likely die with Nick Senzel's health.

Anyway any one of these could've easily been favorites to win my card of the year contest. But, did they pull it off?

Let's do a countdown from my top 5 and see which card took the number 1 spot.

5). 2019-20 Upper Deck Henrick Lundqvist

Nothing like seeing the King in action.

4). Gavin's custom showing Torrens as a Red

3). 2019 Grandstand Luis Torrens

2). Gavin's custom showing Torrens as a Storm

Yes, Gavin's card got as high as the silver medal and even a fourth place entry, but it was one again usurped by a running gag another card.

1). 2019-20 Upper Deck Jesper Fast

Yes, a hockey card has once again thwarted the hopes and dreams of every baseball card ever made in 2019. One of the best things about hockey cards is that you can take a lot of unique shots because it's in a more condensed/enclosed area than a baseball diamond is. You can have shots like this where you can see parts of the arena from a low angle view.
This is clearly a shot of Fast that captures parts of Little Caesers Arena in Detroit. I really liked this card from the minute I saw it in mid-November. It captures an entire section while also showing alternative captain Fast looking bewildered, almost astonished that a card of his could win the best of 2019. The photograph was originally taken by Dave Reginek on March 8th, 2019 and can be found on Getty Images.

It might seem like an cop-out made for the sake of keeping a running gag going, but I do believe that this was one of the best cards 2019 had to offer and at least the best it had to offer to me. Only a card like this could take down multiple special Torrens cards.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).

Playing Catch Up

Despite the fact that I try to listen to a bit of everything, there is just so much stuff that I can't get to. Now that's fine because a lot of music is obscure, and likely stuff I wouldn't stumble upon except by pure chance. But there's a lot of stuff I have to catch up on where I know of them but I've never actually listened to them. Acts where I know the names, but none of the material.

Today I'm going to share a few of my adventures with such acts. I'm giving you my first impressions and whatever opinions formed inside of me as I delved deeper into each act's discography.

Act 1: Tame Impala

Photo Credit: Neil Krug, Photo from Twitter

A psychedelic musical project that comes to us from Kevin Parker and an army of rotating live/studio musicians. Tame Impala's music has always been a lot easier for me to digest because much of it is very chill. I feel relaxed and in somewhat of a trance. That said it's not just stoner shit because there are a ton of times where Parker just absolutely pours his soul and goes into precise details about where his head is at. Tame Impala is one of the few acts where the first song I heard by them/him is the one that immediately clicked and made me go "YES!".

First Song: The Less I Know The Better

An absolute delight. The groove on this is tight, the locals are full of reverb but still present us with a great story about a dude in a bad situation regarding his relationship.
This is probably one of Tame Impala's best known songs and is probably a cliche pick, but I don't care this is absolutely wonderful and I think it's great that it's getting the attention it deserves. Even if some of that might be due to the meme where it's mashed up with SexyBack. The internet strikes again.

The Other Stuff:

Exploring Tame Impala's other works shows that there's a ton of it. In the early years he used a lot more guitar and instruments and though he still does, he's added more tricks to his arsenal since then and I think that's definitely made his stuff better with time.

But yes, delving into Tame Impala's work was a long time coming and absolutely worth it. I really do regret not diving in sooner.

Act 2: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

An absolute must in the modern day indie rock scene. A genre that is super polarizing to me because for as much as I love acts like Modest Mouse or Now, Now, I cannot stand indie darlings like Arctic Monkeys or Animal Collective. I know it's not fair to immediately assume every indie rock band is going to be similar to each other, but I can't help that my preconceived notions present an uphill battle for a lot of bands to deal with.

Photo from Twitter

Anyway King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard is a seven person rock band from Australia. They've been making buzz with music snob circles (read: white people) for a few years now. With that much buzz this band has to have a lot going for it.

First Song: Cellophane

The hipster in me despises how I'm going with one of the most popular songs first, but I know that there's always a starting point and rather than starting with some obscure album filler, I might as well go with what's appealed to the public the most. That all said, this is a bonafide bop.

In fact this whole album I'm in Your Mind Fuzz is a gem. Lots of nice concepts lyrically going on and I'm just really digging how this whole thing sounds. It's very good and I can't recommend it highly enough.

The Other Stuff:

I'm still trying to swift through the band's other music right now. As far as I can tell a lot of it sounds similar, but there are enough twists and changes with each project to make sure that they're not just remaking the same song a bunch of times.

So far everything I've heard by them has been great. The best thing about them is that they're not boring. Their subject matter on any given song isn't boring, and they don't sound boring even on songs titled "Slow Jam 1". That's fucking quality to me.

Act 3: Lizzo

Photo from Twitter

One of the breakout stars of 2019, Lizzo is a rapper and songwriter who made waves with her massive hit Truth Hurts. Which brings me to...

First Song: Truth Hurts

This song rules. If there's a word to describe it for me it's confidence. This oozes confidence from a person who knows who they are and they are proud of it. And a part of that is making sure they don't have to deal with BS.

Of course being such a big recent hit the discourse around this song was prevalent and I'll never forgot how someone once said that the lyrics in this song are a neverending stream of Instagram captions. Be that as it may this still bangs. I'm glad it got as big as it did in 2019.

Other Stuff:

The thing about Lizzo is that she didn't just start performing in 2019, she's been at it for a long time. Truth Hurts is from 2017. Her debut album Lizzobangers is definitely worth listening to in my book, hooks for days in that album.

Also when she decides to switch it up a notch she can spit pure fire. I can't wait to listen to her second album and third album in full too.

And those were three big names I FINALLY sat down and listened to. I was not disappointed.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).

Small, Concise, Fast

So a major focus this year is going to be keeping my projects and collections small. I think I made this super clear with my AD collection post and my New Years Resolutions.

This can be either easy or hard depending on how the card companies decide to go about things. Topps and Bowman keep adding more and more parallels to their products every month and probably have like 25 parallels now so I'm probably never going to want to actively build one of their rainbows ever again.

Luckily other companies like Panini and Leaf seem to be going with the less-is-more approach, or at least keeping it where it's always been. Case in point, 2019 Donruss Optic.

Nevermind, Johnny's Trading Spot has notified me that Panini and Leaf also do parallels too much.

Donruss Optic is Panini's answer to Topps' Topps Chrome offering, the two are very much alike in that they're both garbage products. Four cards per pack that's north of $5 each? That is straight trash.

BUT credit where credit is due, Optic in 2019 offered me something I could actually use.

Yes, an Everson Pereira Rated Prospect card.
A combination of Pereira's injury shortened 2019 season and Jasson "The Martian" Dominguez taking up the prospect spotlight have put Pereira on the backburner for a lot of folks, but this meant that I had a clear path to, you guessed it, a project. The card above is the base and I think you all know where this is headed.

This is the refractor (I think it's called a Prizm because Panini feels the need to lend some credence to their lesser offering from their better brands).

This is the gold refractor. I'm not sure if these have a name but I don't respect Optic enough to care.

I do respect that this is numbered to 10 copies though. This is the type of obscure shit I used to pick up if the price was low enough back in 2014-16 because these made for some fun stuff to have in the years following a product's release.

And this is the superfractor or something-vinyl or whatever the fuck.

Point is that it's the 1/1.

According to the checklist there were only four parallels in this Rated Prospect subset, and zero printing plates were ever distributed. You know what that means.

RAINBOW! MASTER RAINBOW!

Truth be told this is a project that had been on my mind since November when I saw that ALL FOUR of these pieces were available on eBay. On one hand I really didn't want to spend too much money on this. On the other hand I had the mental gymnastics to talk myself into this by justifying it as a New Years present (as a Japanese American, New Years matters more to me than any other holiday around) AND a delayed college graduation present from me to me. Also, it's just one of those things where if you see every last piece you need out in the open for the taking, you kinda just have to do it. Or spend the rest of your life wondering "what if".
Note, all of these were purchased in 2019 so they're not recognized in the 2020 budget.

Especially if it's only four fucking cards. Except for what I paid for the 1/1, this was as close to perfect as I could get. Only four cards, all available at the same time.

Now to wait and see if Pereira returns to Staten Island in 2020. I didn't ask Torrens to sign my rainbow in full because asking a guy to sign like 15 cards in one sitting for free is a dick move. Four is a lot more doable. *rubs hands*

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).

First TTM Autos of 2020

Normally I don't make rushed in-between posts like this, but today's mail featured something very cool. As the title suggests, it's indeed my first TTM "return" of 2020. But not just any TTM return.

Yes indeed, the 2019 edition of the Detroit Lions cheerleaders card poster.

It's only been 2020 for two days and I can already say I have 30 TTM autographs this year.

This time the lovely women who signed for me are...
Top row (left to right): Samantha "Sammi", Christy, Shelby, Lexi, Kendall C., Kendall D.
Second row (l to r): Jazzmine "Jazz", Briana, Mackenzie "Kenzie" M., Karoline, Kayla
Third Row (l to r): Patricia "Patty", Carly D, Tianna, Dianne, Alison, Valerie
Fourth Row (l to r): Mackenzie "Mack" N., Veronica, Alissa, Mackenzie "Mack" T., Zarah, Kathryn, Carly T.
Bottom Row (l to r): Autumn, Brittany (Captain), Alexandria (Captain), Holly (Captain), Jenna (Captain), Micah

The back features close up headshots of all 30 members of the cheerleading squad as well as their Director Rebecca Smoker and Coordinator Jordan Haag. Neither of their autographs are on this but that's fine, beggars can't be choosers.

Much like last time these are always fun to receive in the mail and I'm super thankful to the cheerleaders for taking the time to sign this thing for me.

Detroit sports teams are going through a really rough time right now but it is worth noting that they do tend to do a lot of cool things involving autographs. There's this, and the autographs for a cause programs that the Detroit Tigers and Detroit RedWings do where you can get autographs from players in exchange for a donation to various charities that go towards improving Detroit (and Michigan as a whole). I appreciate that.

Also, this time a pocket schedule for the 2019 season was included. Cool, I know the Lions had a season that tumbled out of control after some BS ref calls that went towards the Packers, but hopefully they'll be right back in the thick of things next season.

I'm allowed to be optimistic for the Lions because the New York Giants don't play in the same division, and because the Giants are very bad anyway.

It's also tough to diss a team when their cheerleaders sign for you too. That's also a factor.

Anyway big thanks to the cheerleaders for signing for me, and for just trying to keep Detroit's spirits up as the world around them (both in sports and out of sports) kept trying to grind it into dust.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).

Goals for 2020, Grades for 2019

新年明けましておめでとうございます！今年もよろしくお願いします！

Happy New Year everybody. Thank you all for coming on this trip that I call a blog with me for what's been six whole years now. Woof, time flies. Anyway, here's my annual review of how I messed up in 2019 and how I hope I can mess up less in 2020.

2019 Goals

6. Get to 20 Bowman Chrome Luis Torrens base autographs

A

Got to 20 BoChro autos around late June/early July.

5. Go a whole month without buying any baseball cards

A

In February I managed to go an entire month without buying baseball cards. I bought other cards but they weren't baseball. #loopholes

4. $50 budget cap per month (Except August)

F-

Ugh.

3. Keep it to two blaster boxes (at most) for the year

A

On March 31st, I bought a blaster box of 2019 Stripes & Stars. I was very tempted to buy another blaster of something at various points of the year but I never went through with it. Something about spending $20 on a single box just made me very uneasy. I came close to buying an Elite Extra Edition blaster at Target the other day before I saw that it was 5 cards for $20. FIVE CARDS FOR TWENTY DOLLARS. I don't care how many autographs are guaranteed in those five cards because unless I'm getting Jasson Dominguez that shit can fuck right off.

2. Reach 100+ TTMs

A

Took a while but I managed to reach 100 TTMs in October.

1. Keep Blogging

A

Not to toot my own horn but I think I managed to maintain a consistent blogging pace by posting double-digit entries every month and I usually blogged every Monday-Wednesday-Friday with some occasional mini/joke posts sandwiched in on random Tuesdays or Thursdays. The infusion of my new 3 Cards series really helped and now that I've expanded the interests I have that I want to share on this blog to include other sports, porn and music now, the sky's the limit.

Unrelated Scan 1

In terms of goal completion rate,  5/6 isn't terrible. However that budget issue looms large in my head and if I were to weigh these in importance it feels like I really accomplished 0.26/6 of my goals. Which brings me to the...

2020 Goals

6. One Card In, 15 Cards Out

The 6th extra goal has become a fixture now.

I managed to purge a ton of cards in 2019 either by trades or by throwing them into the trash, and going forward the idea is to make sure I never accumulate close to a 1,000 cards I send out to Gavin in a Priority Box. As such I'm going with a new strategy where for every new card I get I have to get rid of 15 that I already possess. Whether it's via trade or more stuff headed for the trash. Don't care, just get it out of my house.

5. A limit of 15 TTM requests per month

Coinciding with me going very cheap with my spending is how I think the days of me just chucking TTM requests out willy nilly are kind of over. Five years ago I would get every pre-rookie card of a not quite notable name in a stack and send them out as TTM returns during the course of a season. I could be wrong of course but even I have to admit that I'm feeling like I'm getting diminished returns every year.

Since the totals are going down anyway, the plan in 2020 is to be more selective. Focus more on people who I'd want an autograph of because I'd really want their autograph. Not "just because". Who knows I might even track who I send requests out to this year?

A limit of 15 requests per month would entail 30 stamps total per month. Assuming that the prices on forever stamps stay at $0.55, that's $198 (30*0.55*12) for the entire year. That seems like a large number, but it's a lot less than what I spent in 2019 on stamps and the idea is that I don't even reach that cap. The hope is that I stay far far below it.

4. $60 cap on sealed boxes/packs for the entire year

A variation of my yearly two blaster limit rule. This idea is to keep myself from buying more than $60 worth of loose retail (or hobby?) boxes/packs for the entirety of 2020. I get the itch/urge to rip packs just as much as anyone and I need tighter measures in place to hunker down and control myself. Also this criteria includes stickers.

3. $150 cap on IP autograph related costs

So thanks to events like my semi-local card show, team-organized meet and greets, spontaneous Modell's meet and greets, and book signings, I realized the need to pay more attention to how much I'm spending on opportunities for IP autographs. I'm giving myself a $150 cap for costs related to how I usually get IP autographs at these sanctioned events. Outside of the time I met Mariano Rivera, I've never actually spent that much, but I do know that this is a game where the signings are sudden and can be very pricey, especially for people I like and would want autographs of. So I want to give myself some leeway. Anyway those costs explicitly include: autograph fee's, entry fee's to events/shows where the purpose is to get an IP auto, and any money spent on goods to get signed (like if I need to buy a ball at Modell's to get an autograph).

2. Three cards per month on eBay/Amazon/COMC/insert-online-retailer-here combined*

What ultimately doomed me whenever I "caught the bug" was that I went pretty hard with various purchases I made on eBay especially. So I'm going to try to limit myself to three cards per month from all of these online stores combined. That might not seem like a lot, but when I catch the bug even five cards can add up to a decent chunk of change. The fact that my address is probably going to change at some point in 2020 isn't going to make deliveries any easier so that's more incentive to cut down on purchases for a while.

As for the asterisk?
*This excludes Luis Torrens cards that would be new to my collection
My Torrens collection takes top priority in most facets of my life. If a Torrens card I need for my collection that's not already in my Torrenterion collection ends up being the fourth purchase I make online that month, it doesn't count towards this limit. But if it's a dupe it counts.

1. $600 cap on hobby related purchases for the year with a $20 exemption for one SIY team set and one NYPL top prospect set in August

I'm hoping that the measures I took in goals 2-5 will make this budget a whole lot more tenable.

In years past I gave myself a $50 limit per month adding up to a total of $600, but I've come to realize that that's not really working for a myriad of reasons. So instead is this variation of it where I'm thinking of going into the year with a lump sum budget of $620 for the whole year with $20 of it designated for a predetermined purpose, and the remaining $600 is for whatever I feel like as the year goes on. Ideally the $198> in TTM stamps, $60> in sealed boxes/packs/stickers and $150> in IP auto fees ($408> total) is meant to come out of this, leaving me with about $192 (possibly more if I decide not to bother with TTMs or paid IPs or wax that much) to play with for whatever hobby expense I decide to spend on. Although I'm sure a big portion of that will just end up going to shipping fees.

The bit about the $20 for a Staten Island Yankees team set and a New York-Penn League top prospects set in August is just so I have a little more wiggle room for IP stuff around that time.

To be clear, shipping fees to have cards I bought sent to me will be included in what constitutes as a hobby related purchase.

And to be even clearer with myself, I will track how much I spend on shipping costs related to the Zaps I send out to other collectors, but I won't count it against the budget as I'm more curious about how much I'm going to spend on Zaps now that most of the "just get it out of my house" stuff is gone. I'm hoping I can keep it under $100 now that all of the large volumes of stuff I needed to send through priority boxes are gone and all I'm going to be left with are a few piles of cards I gradually stop holding on to.

Unrelated Scan 2

So there we go, a new set of goals with one common purpose. So I stop spending money that I might need for an emergency because all of the money I spent in 2019 on this hobby equals one ambulance ride in the US (maybe even less). Wish me luck.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).