Mountains to Climbs in 2014

Well since we are halfway into January it might look like I am late at posting my Mountains to Climb for 2014.  However, I have had these finished for a while now.  With my Quarry Unlimited set taking up 6 days a week, I really only have Sunday for posting unrelated stuff.  I am really going to be challenging myself in 2014 and hopefully I can make some serious dents in these goals.  Take a look at what I am challenging myself to accomplish in 2014.

ROCKIES GOALS

1. Get to a total of 10,000 unique Rockies cards AND 1,000 unique Todd Helton cards.

I didn't get to 10,000 Rockies last year so I am continuing it this year.  Since that goal will not be enough of a challenge on its own, I am going to put an addendum on this one, 1,000 Todd Helton cards.  As of January 1st, I had a total of 8,254 Rockies and 694 Heltons.  It won't be a cake walk, but it shouldn't be too hard either.

Perceived toughness 4/10  Perceived cost 4/10

2. Complete every "A Topps By Any Other Name" base Rockies team set.

In 2012 I worked on Topps and Topps Traded base sets and in 2013 I worked on Pacific base sets.  In 2014, I am going to work "A Topps By Any Other Name" base sets.  What that moniker refers to is all main sets produced by Topps that are not named Topps.  This includes Bazooka, Bowman (just main Bowman not the offshoots), Finest, and Stadium Club.  There are 60 team sets to shoot for and I already have 34 complete, so this one could be relatively easy although I still need the Bowman Holliday rookie and several rare Finest cards

Perceived toughness 2/10  Perceived cost 3/10

3. Pass the following team set thresholds for the following years.  1994 = 60%, 1999 = 20%, 2004 = 10%, 2009 = 25%.

If you have looked my Rockies want lists, you will notice that I have a team set counter at the top of each page.  I have decided that every year, I will work on team sets from the multiple of 5 anniversaries.  Currently I am sitting at the following levels, 1994 = 47.8%, 1999 = 10.4%, 2004 = 4.0%, 2009 = 16.4%.  Hopefully I can make or even exceed my goals, but this one will be kind of tough.

Perceived toughness 6/10  Perceived cost 4/10

4. Accumulate both 200 Rockies relics (50 different players) and 100 Rockies certified autographs (50 different players). 

Like many current collectors, I have kind of lost my love for relic cards and I have never been that big of a fan of autographs.  However, they are still out there and I am still collecting all things Rockie so I am going to add them to the list.  I currently own 138 relics of 27 different players and 63 autos of 34 different players, so it will be somewhat difficult but not impossible.

Perceived toughness 5/10  Perceived cost 7/10

5. Acquire 50% of the Rockies parallels from the following sets: 1998 Pacific Paramount, 2000 Pacific Paramount, 2006 Upper Deck Special FX, 2008 Upper Deck Heroes, 2009 Topps Chrome.

One of the basic tenets of modern card collecting is that there must be parallels of every single card because we are apparently too dumb to get the point with just one card.  However, there have been some really nice looking parallels throughout the past several years and I want to track down team sets for each of them.  This should prove to be a nigh impossible goal to complete especially the older ones, but I am still going to make an attempt because these will look so good in a page.  There are a total of 328 Rockies parallels in these 5 sets.  I currently own 62 of them and the goal is to get to 164 by the end of the year.

Perceived toughness 9/10  Perceived cost 8/10

6. Get to 50% completion of my Rockies manager collection.

I started my Rockies managerial collection last year and got a good start with 143 cards out of a possible 682 cards of former and current Rockies managers as players.  The goal here, which should be fairly easy to attain, is to add nearly 200 to get to a total of 341. 

Perceived toughness 3/10  Perceived cost 3/10

OTHER COLLECTION GOALS

7. Complete Rookie Cup collection from 1972-2014 fully.  Complete 5 Rookie Cup sets from 1960-1971.

This one is still going to be fairly tough because I still need the 1982 Ripken, 1979 Ozzie and 1978 Murray from the 72-14 collection, but I am going to have to track them down eventually and 2014 seems like a good year to find them at a reasonable price.  I have nothing even close to complete in the 60-71 time frame, so 5 may be pushing it, but I might as well try.

Perceived toughness 8/10  Perceived cost 8/10

8. Complete the following 5 insert sets: 2005 Topps Rookie Cup Reprints, 2008 Topps 50th Anniversary Rookie All Star Team, 2008 Topps Historical Campaign Matchups, 2008 Topps Update First Couples, 2012 Topps 1987 Minis.

Insert sets are one thing that I usually avoid with modern sets.  For the most part they are too focused on certain teams and are too difficult and/or expensive to track down or they are just too generic to actually be interesting.  There have been some that really do seem to fit into my collection though.  There are two insert sets that focus on Rookie Cups, two that focus on Presidential politics, and one that reminds me of my card collecting youth.  Hopefully I can knock these out this year.

Perceived toughness 7/10  Perceived cost 5/10

9. Get to within 20 cards of my complete 2011 Topps Opening Day master set.

One set I have been working on basically since this blog began is the 2011 Topps Opening Day master set.  I have completed the base set and all of the insert sets including the autograph set.  All that remains is the full blue parallel set.  I currently have 164 of the 220 blue parallels.  I am just going to set a goal of 200, but I would really love to finish this one off this year so I can focus on a different master set next year. 

Perceived toughness 8/10  Perceived cost 5/10

10. Start a "One of" collection and get to 50% complete with 5 different teams.

This another repeat goal from 2013.  I did not even get this one explained last year, but I will this year after I finish with the Quarry Unlimited set.  I still haven't narrow down which 5 teams I am going to focus on, but I know it will be one team from each division that is not the NL West.  In a couple of weeks I will explain what I am doing here along with which teams I am doing it with.

Perceived toughness 4/10  Perceived cost 2/10

FINAL THOUGHTS

I have no illusions of being able to fully climb all of these mountains, but as I have stated before these goals give me a guideline on what I want to focus on in 2014.  There is a whole lot of stuff to collect, even for a person that is focused on collecting a single team.  Without these goals, I would be all over the map and would never have any clue how well I was doing versus my expectations.  I would also have hundreds of incomplete sets rather than several complete sets.  The biggest reason is that it is really fun when you actually complete a challenging goal for yourself.  Even if it is not done in the time frame, I will still feel really good now when I complete one of these goals.  If you haven't already, set yourself some goals for the new year.  It will really put a smile on your face when they get finished.

Thanx for reading.