Mountains to Climb in 2015

Technically, I am a few days late with my Mountains to Climb in 2015, but I didn't get last's year's posted until the 12th.  Woohoo, I am improving.  I did very well maintaining my focus last year and completed two goals fully and made significant progress on the rest.  But with the New Year, comes brand new challenges.  I can only aspire to climb as high in 2015 as I did in 2014.  With some luck, I will be able to make some progress on these goals as well.

ROCKIES GOALS

1. Get to a total of 14,000 unique Rockies cards AND 600 Troy Tulowitzki cards.

Last year I accumulated a little over 2,800 new Rockies for my collection to bring my total to 11,098.  This year I want to acquire about the same number of cards to bring me to a total of 14,000.  15,000 would have looked better as a goal, but I don't think I would have made that extra thousand.  The way I store my Rockies cards is in albums sorted by player not set.  I have also set thresholds of when I move a player to a new album, they are 4, 100, 300, and 600.  4 gets a page in the collected Rockies, 100 gets a page in the veteran Rockies albums, 300 gets a solo album (currently 4 players), and 600 gets a pair of solo albums (currently only 2, Helton and Walker).  I hope to make Troy Tulowitzki my 3rd double album Rockie this year.  I am currently at 391 so it should be tough, but not impossible, to get.

Perceived toughness 4/10  Perceived cost 4/10

2. Complete every Upper Deck related base Rockies team set.

2012 was Topps sets, 2013 was Pacific sets, 2014 was Topps-related sets, 2015 will be the year of Upper Deck sets.  In this goal, I am including all flagship Upper Deck sets, all offshoot sets like MVP and Artifacts, and affiliated sets like SP Authentic and SPx.  I haven't got a checklist made, but a rough guess says I am about halfway there so far.  There will probably be a few short prints that will be almost impossible to find, but this should be a relative simple goal.

Perceived toughness 2/10  Perceived cost 3/10

3. Pass the following team set thresholds for the following years.

1995 = 55%, 2000 = 33.3%, 2005 =15%, 2010 = 35%

Last year I started working on the 5 year anniversary team set checklists and it was pretty fun and a lot less overwhelming when searching for cards.  I successfully completed all 4 goals last year, so why not up the ante this year.  Each goal will require getting at least 20 team sets completed, but what is life without challenge.  I am starting the year at the following levels: 1995 = 40%, 2000 = 23.6%, 2005 = 8.7%, 2010 = 22.1%.  This one should be doable, but it won't be easy.

Perceived toughness 3/10  Perceived cost 4/10

4. Get to a total of 250 "full page" Rockies.

I mentioned earlier that I have several thresholds for my Rockies, but I didn't include the number 9.  As you are all obviously aware, a page consists of 9 cards.  I put a Rockies player on a page as soon as they reach 4 cards, but I don't consider them a real part of the binder until I get 9 cards of them, or a full page.  My goal here is to get a total of 250 different Rockies players to at least 9 regular size cards (ie not including minis, thick cards, or relics/autos).  At the moment I have 178 different "full page" guys which means I get 72 guys up to 9.  This one should prove tough because we aren't talking about Todd Helton or Carlos Gonzalez where I can easily find cards.  We are talking guys here for a short time like Jeremy Guthrie and Ron Gant or guys that just didn't get acknowledged much by card companies while with the Rockies like Matt Belisle or Ron Belliard.  This one should be fun.

Perceived toughness 7/10  Perceived cost 5/10

5. Acquire 50% of the Rockies parallels from the following sets: 2000 Pacific, 2005 Upper Deck/Reflections, 2005 and 2006 Topps Turkey Red, 2008 Finest, 2012 Bowman Chrome.

Here is another goal that is repeated with the sets replaced, but again I had fun tracking down parallels for the five sets in 2014 that I figured it would be worth trying again with 5 new sets.  Actually there are 6 new sets, but 2005 and 2006 Turkey Red were continuously numbered, so even though they were two different sets, they seem the same.  There are a total of 343 parallels in these 6 sets.  I currently have only 49 of them, so I will need to track down 120 more.  This one will probably be impossible to complete, but it'll be fun to attempt.

Perceived toughness 10/10  Perceived cost 8/10

6. Sort, organize, and log into my spreadsheet all of my minis AND acquire an additional 20%. 

I have successfully jumped into the year 2008 and have finally started appreciating tobacco-sized mini cards.  I have actually always liked them, but was never able to store them properly so I developed a hatred for them.  Well I finally popped on a box of 100 mini pages and you know what, I discovered thy are really cool.  I do have a little bit of logistical work to do because I don't my current minis logged in my spreadsheet.  Therefore I don't know exactly how many I have.  My goal is, after I get them counted and logged, to add 20% of the total number of Rockies minis.  At the moment I have no idea how many that is, but I should figure that out shortly.  

Perceived toughness 3/10  Perceived cost 5/10

OTHER COLLECTION GOALS

7. Fully complete my 2011 Topps/Opening Day master set.

I have been working on this set almost since day one of this blog.  The blog started in January 2011 and I started this set in March.  I have finally gotten to within 24 cards of fully completing this set.  I still need a few of the more expensive blue parallels such as Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Mickey Mantle, and the two Buster Posey rookies (why two in a 220 card set? because Topps is stupid that's why!), but I want this one finished so I can dive into another passive master set.

Perceived toughness 6/10  Perceived cost 9/10

8. Fully complete the 2013 Panini/Hometown Heroes set and all of the base insert sets.

One of my main purchases for myself on Black Friday 2014 was three boxes of Hometown Heroes from Dave and Adam's for like $11 each.  It really is a great set mixing modern players with lesser known team-based icons as opposed to the usual same old retired Hall of Famers that most of us are sick of by now.  I have completed the 260 card short set, but I still need quite a few of the 40 SPs at the end of the 300 card set.  The insert sets actually have two parallels of their own, but I am only going to put together the base insert sets...for now.

Perceived toughness 7/10  Perceived cost 6/10

9. Complete the following 5 insert sets: 1998 Upper Deck Blue Chip Prospects, 2003 Topps Heritage Chrome, 2004 Topps Presidential Pastime, 2011 Allen & Ginter Ascent of Man, 2013 Allen & Ginter Civilizations of the Past.

Here we go again with another repeat goal with just the sets changed, but let's hope it is just as successful as last year as well.  Technically the 2003 Topps Heritage Chrome set is a partial parallel set, but for the purposes of this goal I am considering it an insert.  These sets once again really hit home for me.  The two Allen & Ginter sets hit each of my majors in college, anthropology and history.  I can't believe I hadn't already put them together by now.  The Presidential inserts also goes with my history degree and I have always liked them anyway.  The Upper Deck set is one of the cooler inserts of all time using a film like card.  Check them out if you have never seen one.  Finally we come to the big one, the Heritage Chrome set.  1954 Topps is one of my favorites of all time and I would honestly be thrilled just to get half of this set completed.  This will be my most difficult goal to complete and probably the most expensive one as well.

Perceived toughness 10/10  Perceived cost 10/10

10. Finally explain my "One Of" Collection and get to 85% completion for each of the following teams: Orioles, Royals, Mariners, Braves, Brewers.

I have been saying I will explain the idea behind my "One of" collection for three years now and have yet to do it.  I really do plan on letting people know what in the hell I am talking about after the Quarry Unlimited set is completed later this month.  I have decided on the five teams I am starting with though.  I chose the highest ranking team from my Quarry Unlimited countdown in each division (excluding the Rockies in the NL West) to begin this challenge.  I hope to have everything 100% laid out by the end of this month.  

Perceived toughness 3/10  Perceived cost 3/10

FINAL THOUGHTS

I am really excited to get started on my 2015 Mountains to Climb.  I think this is the most difficult set of goals that I have set for myself out of the five time I have done this project.  My "One of" collection is starting to feel like I am Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown every time I say I will explain it, but this time I mean it.  If I do not explain it this year. I will toss the whole idea on the scrap heap, but I really do think it can be a great collection.  Once again, I do not expect to fully complete all of these goals.  Basically they are just guidelines to keep me from getting overwhelmed with the sheer amount of cards that are available for purchase or trade.  I hope that all of my readers (the remaining 4 or 5 anyway) will follow my example and give yourself a guideline of sorts to ease the potential burnout from this hobby.  It really is great and right now we are the torchbearers.  I don't know about you, but I don't want it to extinguish on my watch.

Thanx for reading.