I've always considered myself a bit of an old soul when it comes to baseball cards, but I'm admittedly flat-out dinosaur when it comes to cataloging my collection.
My only serious flirtation with cataloging was years ago with Zistle (remember that place?). But ever since they went under I've been satisfied with keeping a Google doc for my larger player collections and mini-collections. But even those are a small drop in the bucket compared to the sum total of my cards. The big fad, I know, has been TCDB, and I one day hope to get my cards over there - I like that you can compare your collections to others, which beats cataloging in the void with my Google doc. But I admit the couple times I've tried to import my cards there I've found the site kinda clunky.
Still, I'm thinking of giving TCDB another shot at some point soon - mostly because my collection is just getting too darn big to be contained in the vague flashes and memories in my brain.
Take this Hank Aaron reprint I received from reader Dave, a friend of the blog who's doing his best to bury me in a rubble of baseball cards with the boxes he keeps sending me.
Dave specifically offered this Aaron to me, and I gleefully said yes please! - I love any and all card show giveaways (still a pipe dream to get free cards for going to a card show). But when Hank arrived in the mail, and I went to proudly slip it into my Braves binder, guess what? I already had it. Though I guess you can't fault me for confusing the '54 Aaron reprints I seem to own, this could've all been so easily avoided.
And THAT is why I need a catalog.
Thankfully, pretty much everything else Dave sent was new to us here at Dime Box HQ (and Hank has since been rerouted to a new home).
Nomo is a former Dime Box Dozen need - that's a player collection I'm really curious to catalog because I bet there's someone out there who owns something like 2,472 different Nomos.
Always a good bet to send me random '90s cards, because I'll almost always find something in there I need.
Topps Fire has been around for four years now (I think?) and I still can't decide whether I even like it.
Either way, I'm happy to get these since I've seen almost no Fire on the retail shelves since about 2018.
Like I said, these cards are a compendium of at least two or three different random boxes Dave sent me, and he's proven adept and finding stuff for my big dudes and mini-collections.
(Wonder how much a Kevin Maas autograph goes for these days?)
If/when my cataloging dream becomes a reality, I'd say it's a good bet that I own more Cubs than any other team out there.
I also might be the last person who actively collects Hee Seop Choi.
Other randoms from Dave - pretty sure that's my first "Super Veteran" OPC!
Thought I needed all four of these cards, but the Reuschel turned out to be a double - O catalog, where are you?
A couple bizarro cards here - Kent Hrbek ordering Domino's, and a Ripken CD (yes, that counts as a card & goes in the binder).
Dave does find specific cards I want - that Stewart was another Dime Box Dozen suspect I couldn't believe I still needed - but the vast majority of his boxes dip heavily into the world of Random I so much love and cherish.
And more Cubs - I don't own nearly as many Pete LaCock cards as I probably should.
Mo & Kenny, perennial Dime Boxedonia favorites.
Yet another painfully obvious Dime Box Dozen need with the Andujar - also a sunset card! - and a Rod Beck that just makes me unequivocally happy.
And here's another reason I should really kick the cataloging into high gear - the only thing worse than an overproduction-era card I need is an overproduction-era card I don't know I need.
I'd never seen this '88 Fleer Buckner before Dave included it in one of his boxes. I have darn near every major-brand Buckner card from his career, but an '88 Fleer had eluded me all this time?! Maybe cataloging won't help close every gap in my collection, but at least with all my cards in one place it might help stop some of the more obvious ones.
Until then, I can only hope there aren't too many more '88 Fleers or '89 UDs I need floating out there, waiting for the catalog to reveal their ghosts in my binders.
12 comments:
OPC Staub for the win!! Good card. I also want to get my stuff in TCDB, but after doing just my McGwire collection, I can't seem to get myself to go back and spend the time. I agree with the 'clunky' description, but how to make it better? Need a better mind than mine.
Wow, a CD?? I've seen flexi-discs but not cds!
I was content with my old-fashioned spreadsheet as well. But then my computer died and I lost it.
I don't really find TCDB clunky. In fact, I've found it addicting updating my collection there (as long as they aren't cards from those sets with the stupid pointless back variations). I don't know if I'll ever trade through it, but I've found plenty to like. Here's another thing: TCDB counts those CDs as cards too!
I couldn't get into TCDB. Tried it and bailed. Do kep my stuff in a spreadsheet though. Google docs so can access from my phone as well.
I actually found a few of those OPC Super Veterans at a show a few years ago. Ryan, Carew, Carlton, Bench, Reggie Jackson, maybe one or two others. They're very nice cards.
What's on the CD? Announcers calling his best plays? Or him talking in interviews?
Time to hop on the TCDB bandwagon… it does get easier the more you use it. I know a lot of bloggers are just dipping their toes in and not trading yet, but once you add want list and trade list items and push those match buttons - THAT is addicting. I love finding good homes for nicer cards that don’t fit my collection.
Like any big project, getting started on TCDB is the biggest hurdle. Once I got all my cards on there, it became much easier and I've enjoyed it immensely.
I'm the opposite of many of you - right now I'm working on putting my tradelist into TCDB. Given my huge volume of cards it's going to take a very long time, especially as the site is clunky. (But hey, it's a free service!) I'm finding more and more errors in the simple tradelist I have now, plus it will be easier for things like finding which cards of a certain player I have available.
TCDB is the best, but at a quarter million cards, it would take me months to enter it all, even though a lot of it is complete sets. I keep my want lists on my blog site, so my catalog is basically everything from that set or player that isn't still on my list. I've counted my stuff, but don't really feel the need to catalog it.
The alternative to a catalog is keeping your stuff organized enough so you can snag the proper box or binder and find out if you have that card or not. Even my wantlists get gremlins both ways - already have it or still need it. The only guarantee of accuracy is putting eyes on the actual card.
I recently pulled a huge stack of baseball Cardinals for a guy on that site right from his want lists, but he refused to trade for them because I didn't enter them in my collection and transfer them via TCDB. I assured him they were all wants, but I guess he would rather do without a cheap trade than have to enter stuff himself.
I wish I could snap my fingers and have all of my team and player collections uploaded into TCDB. I hope to see it happen one day, but I know it'll take time... one collection at a time.
That Aaron is very cool. I love 90's card show promos.
I got a couple of player collections entered onto the site, which is great, but I find the process to be very time consuming, and will probably not get too many more added.
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