...And Then There Was One

 

I’m doing this thing.

            Maybe others of you out there do it too.

            But I’ve decided to build my sets by hand. I know what you’re saying, anyone who chooses to build a set builds it by hand. Maybe I should say this: I’m building my sets by analog. What I’m doing is building sets solely by buying packs/blasters/etc., and then trying to find any remaining cards on my checklist via card shows, local LCS, or via trade with another human being.

            Does that count as analog?

            In the past, when I reached a certain number on my checklist, say, a final ten cards that I needed to complete a set; I’d go online somewhere like SportsLots and just buy the rest. I’ve decided to cut out that internet conduit. I’m telling myself that I’m doing this for fun, and not because I’m a technophobe who doesn’t like to make online purchases. I will admit that putting sets together, albeit a much longer process, has brought the thrill of the chase back into The Hobby for me in way it was there as a kid, but not so much as an adult when I got back into collecting with the entire world wide web at my fingertips.

            It also helps to have an LCS with kickass 25-cent boxes.

            I’ve been trying to put together the entire 400-card Topps flagship football set. I got myself down to needing three cards. The other day, after striking out in my LCS’s 25-cent bin, I decided to take a chance and I bought a $7 fat pack of Football cards.

            I kid you not…but all three of the cards that I needed to complete the set we’re in that box.

            It was hard not to squeal and stamp my feet like a child collector when I came across them.

            With that, the set that I’ve been working on the longest using this process is the 2025 Topps Update Baseball set. For at least six months down my checklist had been sitting at needing three cards to complete the set.

            U268 Ty France

            U312 Hyeseong Kim (rookie debut)

            U335 Colin Rea

            That same day at the LCS I found these.

            So…yeah…

            …and then there was one.

            I’m looking at you Ty France.

            This is where the process is going to get interesting for me. I’ve utterly exhausted my LCS 25-cent box. Unless the do another dump of 2025 Topps Update (unlikely at this point) I have to consider that source finished. There are card shows. But, in truth, I haven’t seen much in the way of 25-cent boxes at shows…or even $1 boxes. Most of the shows I’ve gone to in the City or in Brooklyn; the dealers there are really into bringing and selling their insert cards. I could go back to the packs/blasters route. The CVS in my neighborhood has a ton of 2025 Update in their little card nook.

            But for one card?

            There is the idea of a person-to-person trade.

            My local LCS does trade nights. But that would require a collector bringing along a 2025 Topps Update Ty France. And what in the hell would I even trade for it? My one caveat to this experience is that I won’t rule out trading with a collecting friend on social media. But since Elon took over X, my card community has really become splintered. So I’m not really sure what to even try and do there.

            The Ty France card is out there.

            That’s all I know.

            In some pack.

            At some show.

            In a 25-cent box that I have yet to comb over.

            …and the search continues.

            …or it doesn’t.

            I wrote the above earlier this week. This morning I finally had some time to devote to the good ol’ Hobby, and I was able to add the Kim and Rea cards to my 2025 Update Set.  When low and behold I came upon this page.

            There…right there…in the middle of the page…Ty France.

            I had the damned card all along. Sitting there in utter disbelief (although I shouldn’t have been as this has happened before…only in reverse…with me NEEDING a card I thought I had already), I flipped through the binder a good three or four times to see if maybe it was another card from the set that I needed. But there wasn’t. They were all there. All 350 cards.

            I guess the next blog post I write should be about senility in aging collectors such as myself.

            Anyway…

 

Thanks for Reading! Happy Collecting!