Wait, What?

I'm not sure how many of you have heard but there's this movie series called Star Wars. It's quite popular and has spawned countless movies, TV shows, video games, books, comic books, toys, novelty items, and (especially in recent times) collectible cards.

My favorite part of Star Wars (as many of you know) are the CGI cartoons Star Wars The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels. Both feature some of the better characters the whole franchise has to offer and they were both more entertaining (to ME) than any of the six films.

So it does my heart good when Topps (or whoever) releases cards featuring my favorite characters from The Clone Wars and Rebels. I usually tend to stay away from their movie-based products because I don't care about the six (soon to be nine) movies. I just want my wonderful CGI cartoons.

Which is why I was absolutely floored when I saw that the 2015 Topps Star Wars High Tek set not only had my favorite Clone Wars character, but also my favorites from Rebels. So much so that I bought a certain autograph card in the waning days of 2015. This was my second-to-last card purchase of 2015 so this doesn't compromise my goal of not buying any cards for a week/month/six months.

Of course it's Captain Rex. Who is tied for my favorite Star Wars character of all time/EVER.

As some of you may notice this card is autographed. Well that signature is of Bradley Dee Baker, the wonderful voice actor who voices all of the clones in the Clone Wars (and some in the Rebels cartoon), and has done voices for various other cartoon characters as well including American Dad and Codename Kids Next Door. Once I saw a Japanese collector in Japan pull that in a group break I knew that I just HAD to have one for myself. A few desperate clicks on eBay later, the card above was mine.

One nitpick though (bear with me as I go into geek-mode for a second) is that Captain Rex is not a clone army commander. He's a clone captain. His name isn't Commander Rex, it's Captain Rex.

I'm not quite sure what the parallel is and no I'm not going to bother trying to track down the rest of the parallels.

However if there was something I'd try to chase from the Tek set, it's at least one card of the characters from Star Wars Rebels. Especially Kanan Jarrus, who is tied with Rex for my most favorite Star Wars character EVER. For those of you who've been struggling to pay me back for a T206 I gave you, there's a big chance (nah just kidding, mostly ;)).

But working on assembling all of the Rebels will be a longterm goal for me. Plus as far as I can tell Kanan Jarrus is the only one where his voice actor doesn't have an autograph card in Tek. And that makes sense since Kanan Jarrus' voice actor is none other than Freddie Prinze Jr.

This video is over an hour long but it's pretty cool

Yes, that Freddie Prinze Jr., the one that married Sarah Michelle Gellar (aka Buffy). So unsigned cards will be enough for now. Fun fact, Sarah Michelle Gellar also voices another character in Rebels known as the Seventh Sister.

If you happen to come into possession of the Topps Tek cards (autographed or otherwise) of Kanan Jarrus, Ezra Bridger, Sabine Wren, Hera Syndulla, Zeb Orrelios and/or Chopper, let me know.

That said if my willpower breaks and I just buy a Kanan Jarrus Topps Tek card, it'll compromise my no cards for a week/month goal, but not my no baseball cards for six months goal since they're Star Wars cards, plus I never said those six months had to be consecutive (you've got to love loopholes!).

Ack, it's barely been a week into 2016 and I'm already thinking of giving up on my New Years Resolutions.

As always thanks for stopping by and remember, Captain Rex forever <3.

Take care.

Unmet Goals (& New Ones)

Well another year has come and gone. Happy New Year every body. We're all one year closer to death!

Now, as per tradition, I thought I'd revisit my 2015 collecting goals and see if I managed to even come close at accomplishing them.

5. Less Purchases

My original definition of "less purchases" was pretty vague and nonspecific. In my original post I just went on a tangent about retail. Well this year I did purchase a handful of retail stuff. Two blasters, a Update megabox, 2 hanger boxes, 4 rack packs and a couple of loose packs. Which roughly comes out to anywhere between $100-$150. Not bad, but not great.
I guess it's a positive that I didn't buy any hobby or jumbo boxes this year (though I wanted to). Scratch that, I bought two hobby boxes this year. One for a Clone Break, another for something even more special. Ultimately I picked up way too much stuff on eBay and COMC, so yeah, consider this an F.

Grade: F

4. 20 IP Autos

To my own surprise I got a whopping 136 autographs in person this year. That may not seem much to autograph hounds to ask for a dozen signatures at a time but I got that many by asking players for autographs one signature at a time (for the most part). There were a ton of notables that are important pieces of my collection, but the most notable was probably my signed Thairo Estrada superfractor. Which is a superfractor autograph now by default :). My Mashi Murakami auto comes close!

Grade: A

3. 250 TTMs

For a brief moment in time I thought I had a real legitimate chance to reach this goal. I sent out roughly 399 requests in 2015. Of which I got back 240. Which isn't bad I guess, I mean it's more than half :).
Ultimately I came close (only needed 10 more), but no cigar.

Grade: F

2. Pick Up A New "Oldest Card In My Collection"

I toyed with the idea of adding an even older Highlanders card than my 1909-11 T206es but the price tags scarred me away real quick.

Grade: F

1. Focus & Stay On A Budget

Basically I wanted to see if I could spend less than $500 for the entire year on cards, stamps, letters, entrance fees for card shows, tickets to MiLB games and transportation to get to MiLB games. Basically everything. Well by mid-May I knew that this goal was thrown out the window. I spent nearly half that amount on stamps alone. And my purchases in Staten Island basically obliterated my "cap" and then some.

Grade: F-

In addition to these I had a few "maybe projects" mini goals that would've filled out the rest of the unofficial 10 goals.
"*Go for the 1909-11 T206 Highlanders Team Set"
NOPE

"*Go for the 1909-11 T206 Wee Willie Keeler"
NOPE

"*Complete the Luis Torrens 2013 Bowman Chrome rainbow"
YESSSSSS!

"*Go see Luis Torrens in Charleston or Tampa"
NOPE (Torrens' injury put a halt to this)

"*Start a cult religion dedicated to Luis Torrens"
NOPE (maybe next year)

"*Make custom #Torrenator or #Torrenatrix or #TorrenNation T-shirts"
NOPE

Ugh, I suck at keeping new years resolutions :(.

With that and a newfound sense of who I am as a collector, here are 5 new collecting goals for me in 2016.

5. Go for an entire week without buying any cards

Between mid-2011 to sometime in 2014, not a week went by where I didn't purchase a card (either online or in person). It happened quite a bit in 2015. But it's about time that I try and make sure that this happens more often.

4. Go for an entire month without buying any cards

This is more difficult than it sounds for an addict like me. A lot can happen in a span of 28-31 days. As a guy who's trying to build an extensive Luis Torrens collection, I can never be sure when a card I need will pop up. And now that I have a whole host of new side PC guys, this task might be even tougher than before.

3. Go for SIX months without buying any baseball cards

With a few exceptions, the first six months of the year does not offer me much in the way of baseball cards. If I were smart I should be waiting until the winter so that the hype and prices on the Bowman & Bowman Chrome offerings die down.
This is probably extreme and not going to happen, but might as well put it on the list. After all, my "$500 hobby cap" was obliterated before we reached the halfway point of 2015.

2. ONE TTM Return

I know that this is absolutely insane and that this Herculean task will be quite difficult, but I'll do my best to get at least ONE TTM return in 2016.

1. ONE IP Autograph

I'm not sure what'll happen in 2016 so I'll keep the perimeter low for now and set my goal at one IP autograph. Fingers crossed I can accomplish it.

And those are my new collecting goals for 2016. I suppose one more suggestion to myself would be to maybe try a $750 cap for the entire year on every expense this hobby needs (cards, shipping, stamps, etc...)? Consider that an unofficial number 6 goal I guess. If I managed to go through with that no cards for six months goal I may actually have a shot at that.

And those are my new goals for 2016. Some will be met. Others will not be met. Here's to better outcomes than 2015.

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