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いたします！
This blog still lives! I guess.
In what's becoming a predictable cycle I've strayed again from sports cards and by extension this blog this year.
But we'll get back to that later, right now as the title would suggest this is my annual New Years Resolution post for this hobby, along with seeing how I fared in 2022.
2022 Grades
3. At least get everything organized into one box
B. I actually did manage to transfer the last of the cards I wanted into bigger 500-count storage boxes and gave away the redundant storage boxes to Nick. The grade is ultimately a B because I wasn't able to whittle down to just one box, as it stands I have two 500-count boxes and three boxes of other varying count sizes. Not terrible but if this is the limit of my downsizing I'm gonna have to begin to think about making some hard choices. I won't act on them of course, but it probably wouldn't hurt to have a tier of things I can tolerate putting on the chopping block.
2. One Autograph
A. Accomplished this with one of my favorite cosplayers Chimu this past July. I've since gotten an autograph of Anthony Seigler and a few other autographs of other cosplayers I really like in the months since. Also I did somehow get 11 TTMs this year so yeah, I passed this one at least.
1. $600 Limit
F. My NPB related splurges in June, July and August and my weird Rockies splurge in September wrecked whatever sliver of hope I had of actually keeping to this budget. Also holy cow did I buy a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh! this year.
Overall mixed bag but about what I expected.
Now for the 2023 Collection Goals.
3. A limit of 30 Sports Cards and 30 Non-Sports Cards for the year
This limit is regarding cards I intend to buy and keep for myself. I think limiting the actual number of cards in these two categories would go a long way in helping me finally accomplish the goal of staying within a budget. The obvious loophole is that stuff I end up flipping elsewhere doesn't count, but that would require me to obtain them in the first place which... honestly considering how I actually stayed away from retail in 2022 pretty successfully (I only spent $21.66 on a single blaster of 2022 Topps) it might not happen all that often.
2. One Non-Certified Autograph Intended for Me
Same as last year, only this time I'm going specify that the autograph is non-certified and specifically for me. I want this autograph to either be a TTM or IP or something like the Chimu autograph where I purchase it directly from the person I want an autograph of. The intention needs to be that it was always meant for me specifically.
1. $600 Limit
To quote myself from last year, "I trot this goal out there every year and I will continue to do so until I finally do it".
So those were my grades and goals, and with those out of the way let me just say a little something about where my head is at right now regarding this hobby and this blog.
Earlier I said this is becoming a cycle, a predictable annual cycle where my interest in sports cards picks up in the summer before plummeting the rest of the year.
The fall-off after the summer got to a point where I stopped adding to my Luis Torrens collection. A couple of months ago Torrens had cards in 2022 Topps Update and I picked up a few parallels I thought looked neat (the gold foil above is really shiny and nice) before two 1/1's popped up. The flagship parallel that's actually worthwhile and the eBay exclusive blank back. I forgot to put in a bid for either and let them slip into the ether, and after that happened I pretty much just shrugged my shoulders and said that was that and didn't really pick up anything sports afterwards.
Not to say that I'm done collecting Torrens cards or sports cards, like I said my interests are cyclical, chances are I'll end up having a 2-3 month period where I pick up a bunch of sports cards again.
But this is the first time where my interest is at its lowest point since 2010 when I wasn't even in this hobby at all.
Maybe that's just what happens now that work takes up most of my time and whatever other time I do have is spent on other things I'd rather be doing than spending money on baseball cards which from what I understand are still going for inflated prices.
It also probably doesn't shock anyone if I also mentioned that I don't really follow sports as much as I used to. I still get information every now and then since I live in the New York media market, but I don't actively seek to consume it or engage in sports fandom anymore. Call it burnout, call it shifting interests, call it the same shit happening every year, call it being in the dead part of the MLB offseason, my mood has been "been there, done that" for months now.
So yeah I don't know how active I'll really be as a blogger in 2023, but I also don't have any plans to end this blog or stop collecting. I can't commit to anything and I'll probably have infrequent blogposts to reflect that.
Plus I can at least say that even if I'm not collecting sports stuff I am probably still collecting something, that gene is a part of me. I didn't blog about them but I picked up a lot of non-sport intellectual properties I liked, and outside the realm of cards themselves I found myself having fun starting a signed polaroid collection near the end of the year. Maybe the time for them to get featured a bit more here may come. Maybe not. We'll see.
For now let us put an end to 2022 and look forward to 2023. I don't really have any expectations at all coming into this year but I just hope everyone has a healthy and safe year. Also that I can finally achieve that budget goal.
Oh also one last personal note, I caught COVID at the end of the year, it's an awful experience that basically ruined my entire December. It's very bad and I rate it a 0/10.
My recommendation is that people take as many precautions (see the CDC's recommendations for preventing getting COVID) as they can to avoid getting it. Stay safe folks.
As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).