2015 Mountain to Climb - Insert Sets Want List

2015 Insert Goals


pending arrival = red


1998 Upper Deck Blue Chip Prospects 
1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 25, 26, 27, 29 

2003 Topps/Heritage Chrome
1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 16, 17, 23, 26, 27, 29, 35, 36, 38, 43, 44, 51, 55, 56, 65, 67, 72, 74, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 82, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 94, 95, 97, 99

2004 Topps Presidential Pastime 
1, 4, 10, 16, 33, 36, 38, 39, 41

2009 Upper Deck/O Pee Chee Face of the Franchise
5, 6, 7, 17, 19, 27, 30

2014 Topps/Archives 1986 Design
101, 208, 213, 217, 220, 224, 227, 231, 232, 234, 243, 245, 246

2011 Topps/Allen & Ginter Ascent of Man - COMPLETE

2013 Topps/Allen & Ginter Civilizations of Ages Past - COMPLETE

2015 Mountain to Climb - Parallel Sets Want List

2015 Parallel Goals


5 Set Total - 150/335 = 44.8% COMPLETE

pending arrival = red

2000 Pacific - 23/102 = 22.5% COMPLETE

2000 Pacific Ruby

146, 154a

2000 Pacific Gold

141, 142, 143a, 144, 145, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154a, 154b

2000 Pacific Copper

140, 142, 143a, 143b, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154a, 154b

2000 Pacific Emerald Green

140, 141, 142, 143a, 143b, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 154a

2000 Pacific Platinum Blue

140, 141, 142, 143a, 143b, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154a, 154b

2000 Pacific Premiere Date

140, 141, 142, 143a, 143b, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 153, 154a, 154b

2005 Upper Deck/Reflections - 13/45 = 28.9% COMPLETE 

2005 Upper Deck/Reflections Purple

3, 112, 129, 240, 279

2005 Upper Deck/Reflections Red

3, 129, 240, 250, 267, 284

2005 Upper Deck/Reflections Blue

3, 112, 240, 250, 267, 279

2005 Upper Deck/Reflections Turquoise

112, 118, 129, 240, 250, 267, 279, 284

2005 Upper Deck/Reflections Emerald

3, 118, 129, 250, 267, 279, 284

2005/2006 Topps/Turkey Red - 36/68 = 52.9% COMPLETE 

2005/2006 Topps/Turkey Red Red - COMPLETE

2005/2006 Topps/Turkey Red White

39, 270b

2005/2006 Topps/Turkey Red Black

19, 39, 47, 61, 72, 261, 270a, 270b, 365, 388, 492, 527, 554, 596

2005/2006 Topps/Turkey Red Gold

19, 39, 47, 61, 72, 245, 261, 270a, 270b, 365, 388, 432, 492, 527, 554, 596

2008 Finest - 25/48 = 52.1% COMPLETE 

2008 Finest Refractors - COMPLETE

2008 Finest Blue Refractors 

147

2008 Finest Green Refractors 

122

2008 Finest Black Refractors 

13, 69, 85, 122, 139

2008 Finest Gold Refractors 

9, 13, 69, 79, 85, 122, 139, 147

2008 Finest Red Refractors 

9, 13, 69, 79, 85, 122, 139, 147

2012 Bowman/Chrome - 53/72 = 73.6% COMPLETE 

2012 Bowman/Chrome Refractors - COMPLETE

2012 Bowman/Chrome X Fractors - COMPLETE

2012 Bowman/Chrome Green Refractors - COMPLETE

2012 Bowman/Chrome Blue Refractors - COMPLETE 

2012 Bowman/Chrome Purple Refractors - COMPLETE

2012 Bowman/Chrome Gold Refractors

56, 118, 150

2012 Bowman/Chrome Orange Refractors

56, 69, 118, 119, 150, 156, 168

2012 Bowman/Chrome Red Refractors

56, 69, 118, 119, 150, 156, 168, 207, 216

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.

2014 Mountains to Climb - A Review

I have once again fallen off schedule for the 2014 Quarry Unlimited set.  I have decided to take the week off to refresh my mind and perhaps refresh my readers as well.  I realize that looking at almost 1500 cards can get a bit tiresome and repetitive, so maybe a week off will make the final 11 teams look that much better.  Plus in case you miss any, you can use the link below to catch up with any team you may have missed or may want to look at again.  I also tagged each team with the full team name so a simple search will bring up your favorite team as well.

2014 Quarry Unlimited

In the meantime, I figured since I had a week to kill on the blog and 2014 was closing out it might be a fine time to check out how I did with my Mountains to Climb in 2014.  This was fourth year of doing goals on the blog.  Wow I can't believe I have been doing this stuff for that long.  Sorry for the aside, but time really does fly, doesn't it?  Anyway as a quick recap of the success of my goals.  

2011 was a very successful year in which I started my now completed One of Every Rockie goal.  I got my final missing Rockie, a 2003 Fleer Tradition Update Matt Miller SP this August. 

2012 was a middling year that featured me attempting to collect every single Rockies Topps and Topps Traded team set.  That goal was completed in 2013 after I finally tracked down a 2002 Topps Traded Todd Zeile.  Or more accurately Night Owl tracked it down and set it to me.  Thanks Greg.

2013 was a bit better than 2012 and featured me trying to complete every single Pacific brand Rockies team set.  I got close, but fell short.  I am happy to announce that this goal was also completed this year around May.  I don't remember the exact card that finished this one off, but I think it was a 1998 Revolution Ellis Burks that I picked up on Sportlots. 

Without looking at the actual data, I think I did very good in 2014, but let's check out the numbers and see how I really did.

ROCKIES GOALS

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

This was a carryover goal from 2013 that fell a bit short.  I started the year with a total of 8,254 Rockies and 694 Heltons.  I am happy to say that both parts of this goal were completed.  I got Rockie #10,000 back in June, but I didn't get Todd Helton #1,000 until earlier this month.  In fact, I hadn't even mentioned it yet on blog.  I finished the year with exactly 11,089 Rockies and 1,013 Todd Heltons.  I call that a 100% victory.

Score - 10/10

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

The main brand that I worked in 2014 was what I labeled "A Topps By Any Other Name" which consisted of Bazooka, Bowman, Finest, and Stadium Club, brand made by Topps but not called Topps.  I started the year needing 26 out of 60 team sets of which I completed 23 of them.  2014 added 3 new team sets that I also completed.  So I ended the year with 60 out of 63 team sets needing just 5 cards for completion.

Score - 9/10

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

I have strived to make my Rockies checklists as accurate as possible.  They are not 100% correct yet and might never be, but they are pretty close right now.  I have calculated the number of team sets available for each year and will be working on the 5 and 0 anniversary years in particular each year.  I started 2014 with the following completion percentages: 1994 = 47.8%, 1999 = 10.4%, 2004 = 4.0%, 2009 = 16.4%.  I am once again happy to announce that I completed another one.  I finished the year with these final percentages: 1994 = 62.8%, 1999 = 22.1%, 2004 = 10.7%, 2009 = 26.2%

Score - 10/10

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

This is one of those interesting goals with 4 different parts.  There is the total number of relics and autos coupled with the number of different players for both relics and autos.  I did complete 2 of the 4 and I gained on the other two but just fell a bit short.  I started the year with 27 different, 138 total relics and 34 different, 63 total autos.  I finished with 36 different, 181 total relics and 72 different, 109 total autos.  All in all, I am pretty happy with my results.

Score - 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.

 

This was my parallelorama goal and if I didn't fully realize how hard it was to track down short-printed cards from a decade ago before...I do now.  Trying to find these cards at anywhere close to a decent price was difficult.  People are still trying to ask $10 for a low-numbered Derrick Gibson or Josh Fogg.  With that in mind, I still made a nice dent in these sets and I did get over 50% with 4 of the 5.  Here are the final numbers.

1998 Pacific/Paramount - 22/40 = 55.0% complete

2000 Pacific/Paramount - 33/63 = 52.4% complete

2006 Upper Deck/ Special FX - 42/136 = 30.9% complete

2008 Upper Deck/Heroes - 31/60 = 51.7% complete

2009 Topps/Chrome - 22/35 = 62.9% complete

Total - 150/334 = 44.9% complete

I was a little short, but if you exclude the blue parallels from Special FX of which I acquired 0, I got over 50% total.  I am very happy that I got 8 different parallels complete including 3 from the 2000 Paramount set.

Score - 9/10

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

This one I didn't work on as hard as the others, but I did work on it a little.  One thing that really hurt was an order from Just Commons that contained around 40 Don Baylor cards that was lost in the mail.  I was reimbursed the money, but the cards were gone and most were out of stock on the site.  That disappointment kind of let the air out for me on this goal.  I started the year with 143 out of a possible 682.  I needed 182 for a completed goal, but I only added 21.  In short, I didn't do very well with this one.  But the good news is that the total number of cards will not increase until the next manager takes over, so I still have plenty of time.

Score - 2/10

OTHER COLLECTION GOALS

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

My Rookie Cup Collection is my largest non-Rockie baseball collection.  I didn't add a whole lot in quantity to this collection in 2014, but I did add a few quality cards.  I finally picked up a 1976 Jim Rice, a 1978 Eddie Murray, and a 1982 Cal Ripken along with several smaller names from the 60s.  I fell a bit short of the overall goal though.  I am still missing two cards from the 1972-2014 run.  One is the 1979 Ozzie Smith and the other is the 1972 high number Willie Montanez.  I couldn't find either one for less than my $10 target, but hopefully I can knock them out next year.  I didn't get any pre-1971 sets finished, nor did I expect to, but I did make progress on almost all of them.  In a couple of cases the progress was significant.  

Score - 5/10

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.

Ah insert sets.  The scourge of both set collectors and team collectors and possibly even player collectors.  That being said there have been some that I liked and these 5 were among the best in my opinion.  This was another one of those mixed goals and another one of those instances of overpriced older cards.  I finished off the two political inserts relatively easy and the Rookie All Star Team was almost as easy.  The problems came with the other two large insert sets.  The 2005 reprints are crazy overpriced on the bigger names, so I fell short by six cards.  Still not bad for a 150 card set.  The 87 minis were hard simply because of the Mike Trout and Bryce Harper rookies from the Update portion of that set.  Along with my inexplicable inability to track down a Justin Morneau, I fell just 3 short of a full 150 card set.

Score - 8/10

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

A lot of people are really quick to "poo-poo" the Opening Day set as superfluous at best and completely useless at worst.  However, I have always appreciated the set.  Of course it could be better, but what couldn't.  The best thing about the set is that it eliminated the unnecessary foil.  The 2011 set started about the same time as my blog and I have been working on a master set.  I have the base set complete every insert set (including the autograph set) complete.  All I am still working on is the blue parallel set.  At the beginning of the year I needed 56 cards for a complete parallel set and 36 for a complete goal.  I finished just a hair shy.  I added 32 to my collection which left me 4 shy of the 200 threshold and 24 shy of a complete master set.  

Score - 9/10

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

This is one of those strange goals.  I actually did start it and worked on it a little bit, but I only mentioned it once and never fully explained what the goal is.  I will do that this weekend, because it will be necessary for next year's goals.  I did figure out which 5 teams I am working on: Orioles, Royals, Mariners, Braves, and Brewers.  I got nowhere near 50%, probably not even near 10%, but I do have a handle on how this is going to work...FINALLY...and that is worth at least a few points.

Score - 3/10

Final Score - 72/100

That's a passing grade at any school.

Final thoughts

I got two fully complete goals and several others in various states of completion.  I lay out these Mountains to Climb as a challenging guide for the collecting year.  If I don't make them challenging enough, I'll spend way too much money AND still not make as much progress on my collections.  The one thing I do not expect is to ever fully complete all 10 of my goals.  I actually don't want to because then I will be kicking myself for making it too easy.  This was definitely not too easy and proved to be a lot of fun to work on.  The 72 was my second highest score ever and it could have been even higher without a lost order.  I am very proud of myself for this year and I hope 2015 will be even more successful.  Hopefully we will all be here this time next year to see.

Thanx for reading.

#10,000

I have been a bit neglectful of this blog since I returned from my sabbatical of working on the 2014 Quarry Unlimited set.  Well, it's probably been worse than "a bit neglectful," but I will try and do better from here on out.  I'll start today.


The number 10,000 has a somewhat interesting balance between being a cool milestone and being greatly underused by most people.  In fact there are only two uses in popular culture of 10,000 that spring to my mind and only one of them is worth a damn.

For just about anyone that grew up in the 1980's, the first thing that comes to mind with the number 10,000 is the fantastic alternative rock band 10,000 Maniacs.  In the back of my mind, I still have my early teenage crush on Natalie Merchant.  Even though the name hung around, in my mind this band ceased to exist when she left the group in the mid 90's.

The only other instance of the number 10,000 coming up in popular culture is the 2008 movie 10,000 BC.  This was one of those special effects movies that people tend to forget 5 minutes after it is over.  For me, it had more of a lasting impact.  It came out during my senior year in college where I was an anthropology major.  Needless to say, this movie and some of its more historically inaccurate moments were discussed ad naseum.  In case you are curious, the Pyramids of Egypt were not actually built by teams of wooly mammoths.


The reason I am discussing the number 10,000 is because as part of my Mountains to Climb in 2014, I have been working toward that number in my collection.  Before the mail arrived yesterday, I had exactly 9,999 Rockies in my collection.  Yes it did drive me crazy to finish on that number the day before, but I knew I had another package or two coming so it wasn't TOO horrible.  It turns out that I received four packages yesterday, a total of 15 Rockies from two small Sportlots purchases and two small eBay purchases.  I randomly selected one of the packages and the first card that I saw in that package would be #10,000 in my collection.

But first, let's look at some of the other 14 that could have been #10,000.

It could have been this 1993 Stadium Club First Day Issue Calvin Jones.  It would have been a little weird if my 10,000th Rockie ended up being from their first year of cards.  Not to mention the fact that he never even played a single game for the Rockies (or any other major league team) after being picked in the expansion draft.

It could have been this 1998 Topps/Opening Day Todd Helton.  It probably would have been fitting if my 10,000 Rockie was a Todd Helton, but alas it was not.  This particular Helton is from his "pre-rookie year" which showcased his 1997 September call up to the majors.  The odd thing is that this silver Opening Day parallel looks a LOT better than the gold flagship 1998 Topps set.

It could have been this 2008 Topps/Heritage Willy Taveras short print.  Many of you have probably never seen this card because it is one of those extremely hard to track down short prints from 2008 Heritage.  Counting the green/black back SPs and the High Numbers series, that set was about 50% short-printed and I congratulate anyone that has even come close to finishing it.  I am still three cards away from the Rockies TEAM set.  I am glad this was not #10,000 mainly due to the frustration factor.

It could have been this 2013 Topps/Allen and Ginter Wilin Rosario framed mini relic.  There were three Rockies (Dexter Fowler and Jhoulys Chacin were the others) that got a framed mini relic in 2013 A&G and coincidentally I received all 3 of them on the same day in three separate packages.  While I do collect them, relics are not a huge part of my collection so it would have felt strange for #10,000 to be a relic.



Now that we have seen some of the "runners-up," let's take a look at my 10,000th Rockie.

This is a 2000 Finest Ballpark Bounties Larry Walker insert.  It may not show up well in the scan, but this card is absolutely beautiful.  The large baseball in the background has a mirror finish while the rest of the card is chrome-plated.  I recommend that you track one or more of these cards down because they really add something to a collection.  It added a fifth digit to mine.


Thanx for reading.

My newest side collections

Before we begin, let me state that I am still first and foremost a Rockies collector.  That will more than likely never change.  However, I do occasionally like to dip my toe in the water of other things.  During my hiatus I felt comfortable enough to embark on a new player collection and a (partial) set collection.  Let me now introduce the new things you can send me if you are out of Rockies.

BEN REVERE

Up until mid-April, the only two things I knew Ben Revere for were his membership on the 2012 Topps Rookie Cup team and having, in my opinion, the best card in my 2013 Quarry Unlimited set.  However around mid-April, Jim from The Phillies Room had a post that showed Ben Revere as hailing from Richmond, KY.  Those of you that have traded with me might know that that is where I live.  There are very few pro athletes from Richmond and I can't believe that I missed this one.  He went to high school in another town, so I'll cut myself some slack on that one.  Either way, I am happy to add Mr. Revere to my card collection.  I am not going to be a "super-collector" tracking down 1/1 cards or small printing cards.  I am going to be a "mega-collector" of his by gathering any card with a print run of 25 or higher.  I will be collecting him as a Phillie (like the first card) and as a Twin (like the middle card) and as a rec league softball player (like the last card).  I hope to have a want list up in the near future, but as of now I only have 30/301 of his cards so I need quite a bit.  

2014 TOPPS ARCHIVES (1986s only)

2014 Topps Archives was pretty much met with a collective yawn about the card blog community.  Allow me to join in that yawn.  If it wasn't for the inclusion of my favorite set of all time, I would have not given this set a second glance after getting my Rockies.  However, the 1986 Topps set was included so I feel honor-bound to collect it.  I am not 100% happy with the set, but I will get into that more later when I have the set complete and do a review and comparison.  I really think my blog is the perfect place for that to happen, because I can not only compare and contrast with the original 1986 set, but I can also compare and contrast with my 2012 Quarry Unlimited set which used the same design.  I am going to have a lot of fun with that and I hope I will be able to give my readers some fun as well.  As with Revere, I hope to have a want list for this set up shortly, but as of this moment I have 0 cards. 

MY ONE OF COLLECTION

In my Mountains to Climb for both 2013 and 2014 I mentioned this new collection, but I haven't gone any further.  I'm still not going to here either because it will probably take too long, but I am going to say that a full explanation of this collection will take place before the end of this month.  I am going to try and make it well worth the wait, but after nearly two years I think my write up would have to be like a new Charles Dickens novel to achieve that goal.  That isn't going to happen, but I'll still try to entertain you a bit.

Thanx for reading.

2014 Mountain to Climb - Rockies Manager Collection

My final new checklist is of my Rockies Manager Collection.  Unlike my other checklists this is a list of cards I HAVE.  I am collecting cards of these men as PLAYERS ONLY.  I do not want cards of them as a manager or cards that were released after their playing career (in the case of Baylor and Bell).  Although I am not including Walt Weiss's stint with the Rockies in this collection, his Rockies cards are part of my team collection.  My collection is thus far quite small, so check your overproduction era commons, someone might actually need a few of them.

Don Baylor  21/182 
1976 Topps  -  125
1983 Topps - 105

1983 Drake's  -  1

1984 Topps  -  335

1984 Topps  -  486

1985 Topps  -  70

1986 Topps  -  765

1986 Fleer  -  631
1986 Donruss - 347

1987 Topps  -  230

1988 Fleer  -  2

1988 Score  -  250
1988 Topps - 545

1989 Topps  -  673

1989 Fleer  -  1

1989 Score  -  205

Jim Leyland  0/3

Buddy Bell  31/216 
1976 Topps  -  358

1977 Topps  -  590
1978 Topps - 280

1979 Topps  -  690

1979 Topps/O-Pee-Chee  -  367

1981 Fleer/Star Stickers  -  11

1981 Topps/O-Pee-Chee  -  66

1982 Topps/O-Pee-Chee  -  50

1983 Topps/O-Pee-Chee  -  330

1984 Fleer  -  413

1984 Topps/O-Pee-Chee  -  347

1985 Donruss/Leaf  -  174

1985 Topps/O-Pee-Chee  -  176

1986 Fleer  -  172

1986 Fleer/Mini  -  37

1986 Topps  -  285

1987 Donruss/Opening Day  -  196

1987 Fleer  -  193

1987 Topps  -  545

1987 Topps/Tiffany  -  545

1988 Donruss  -  206

1988 Fleer  -  227

1988 Score  -  99
1988 Topps - 130

1989 Topps  -  461

1989 Topps/O-Pee-Chee  -  92

1989 Upper Deck  -  112

Clint Hurdle  12/42 
1980 Topps - 525
1981 Fleer  -  45

1981 Topps - 98
1982 Donruss - 516
1982 Fleer  -  411

 1982 Topps - 297
1986 Donruss  -  434

1986 Topps  -  438
1987 Fleer/Glossy - 298

1987 Topps  -  317
1987 Topps/Tiffany - 317
1987 Topps/O-Pee-Chee - 317

Jim Tracy  2/7 
1982 Fleer  -  605

1982 Topps  -  403

Walt Weiss  98/230 
1988 Donruss/Rookies  -  18

1988 Fleer/Mini  -  49
1988 Fleer/Update Glossy - U56

1988 Score/Rookie Traded  -  102T

1988 Topps/Traded  -  126T

1989 Donruss  -  446

1989 Donruss/Baseball's Best  -  155
1989 Donruss/Grand Slammers - 3

1989 Fleer  -  24
1989 Fleer/Glossy - 24
1989 Fleer/World Series Glossy - 10

1989 Score  -  165

1989 Score/Hottest 100 Rookies  -  95

1989 Score/Young Superstars I  -  20

1989 Topps  -  316
1989 Topps/Tiffany - 316

1989 Topps/O-Pee-Chee  -  316

1989 Topps  -  639

1989 Topps/UK Minis  -  82

1989 Upper Deck  -  374

1989 Upper Deck  -  660

1990 Bowman  -  461

1990 Classic/Blue  -  46

1990 Leaf  -  239

1990 Score  -  110

1990 Topps  -  165

1990 Topps/O-Pee-Chee  -  165

1990 Upper Deck  -  542
1991 Donruss  -  214

1991 Fleer  -  26

1991 Leaf  -  50

1991 Score  -  171
1991 Stadium Club - 49

1991 Topps  -  455

1991 Topps Micro  -  455

1991 Topps/O-Pee-Chee  -  455 

1991 Ultra  -  255  
1991 Upper Deck  -  192 

1992 Bowman  -  651

1992 Donruss  -  71

1992 Fleer  -  270

1992 Leaf  -  380

1992 Leaf Black Gold  -  380

1992 Pinnacle  -  56

1992 Score  -  51

1992 Stadium Club  -  248

1992 Topps  -  691
1992 Topps Gold - 691

1992 Topps Gold Winners  -  691

1992 Topps/O-Pee-Chee  -  691 
1992 Upper Deck  -  151 

1993 Bowman  -  290

1993 Fleer  -  300

1993 Fleer/Final Edition  -  73

1993 Fleer/Flair  -  55

1993 Pinnacle  -  231

1993 Pinnacle/Select  -  192

1993 Score  -  659

1993 SP  -  143
1993 Stadium Club - 370

1993 Studio  -  69

1993 Topps  -  580

1993 Topps/Traded  -  18T
1993 Topps/O-Pee-Chee - 319

1993 Topps/O-Pee-Chee Premier  -  101

1993 Ultra  -  387

1993 Upper Deck  -  533
1993 Upper Deck/Fun Pack - 122

1994 Donruss  -  428

1994 Fleer  -  480

1994 Pacific  -  253

1994 Score  -  98

1994 Topps  -  256
1994 Topps Gold - 256

1998 Collector's Choice  -  304

1998 Finest  -  183

1998 Fleer/Circa Thunder  -  112

1998 Fleer/Tradition  -  459

1998 Pacific/Online  -  75

1998 Score/Rookie Traded  -  98

1998 Topps  -  456

1998 Ultra  -  329

1998 Upper Deck  -  649
1999 Fleer/Skybox Thunder - 180

1999 Fleer/Tradition  -  266

1999 Stadium Club  -  117

1999 Topps  -  138

1999 Topps/Chrome  -  138

1999 Ultra  -  17

1999 Upper Deck  -  40

2001 Topps  -  177
2001 Topps Home Team Advantage - 177
2001 Topps Limited Edition - 177

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.