Friday, September 13, 2013

Playing with my cards and maintaining upkeep



My ongoing collecting mind runs a mile a minute every time I go through my loose cards - while I may or may not have real life issues going on, collecting autographs / baseball cards are the default hobbies that animate me like some others may think about fantasy sports.

While I really only have a finite number of opportunities to actually get myself out somewhere to get stuff signed - the consumption of baseball cards [to try and get autographed] and building up a decent number for as many different subjects as possible maybe a year round thing now.

I'm looking to 'game plan' for spring training, the regular MLB / MiLB season and whatever else may come up of interest - maybe at times I feel overwhelmed and aimless when I spend money on more unsigned cards i.e. maybe singles, a set or a lot of cards.

But I've got to keep up or else I feel I'm behind - not as much when I'm trying to get established player's autograph at MLB games, but more when I take a detour to hunt for prospects and other non-MLB players.

Maybe the most important aspect of my collecting endeavors is maintaining upkeep, so it's not just one big mess of loose cards I have to swim through - easier said than done when at times I'm focusing on the next thing.

I have to know where cards are so I can go and prep for an outing to get my cards signed - maybe arrange for a way to have cards of upcoming teams in a way where I can get to them instead of having to dig for cards at the last minute.

How do I maintain upkeep of random things like my transactions box - keeping track of various moves so I can a little mini set of loose cards and so my team boxes for autograph hunting are updated?

A.) Changes/expansion/realignment due to overflow of cards - a space crunch may have me leaning on making a temporary A-Z box as a semi-permanent place to store random cards from my A-Z archive stored in three 3,500 count boxes.

I don't want overstuffed team boxes and A-Z archives - I want to keep the cards together as much as possible and don't want to deviate from how I've arranged things, but maybe some tweaks are in order.

B.) How do I pack my A-Z archives with cards from recent years [so it feels more relevant as opposed to being strictly a cardboard morgue] and how do I keep track of the most random cards [maybe one or two cards] from those boxes - so I can hit on the right cue to find ones, 'on demand?'

Maybe purchase a new 3,500 count box for my A-Z archives - rearrange A-F, G-M, N-Z arrangement if cards are packed too tight.

Maybe pull 'extraneous' cards to give away and discard otherwise - maybe about 200 per box to give away somewhere; I need a good, diverse archive of cards from many years, but the foundation of my A-Z archives have been built on cards I won't bother to try and get autographed.

C.) Have something to do with cards each day - sounds simple enough where I work on something just to chip away, so I don't feel like I'm getting away from what is supposedly leisurely activities for myself.

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