As part of my baseball card collection overhaul, I am going through pretty much each and every card I own in an effort to simplify (and totally organize) my collection. At the moment, I'm still in the midst of doing a year-by-year review of my cards. From there, it will be a task of finding binders (and creating want lists) for sets that I wish to keep and finding homes for the cards that I no longer wish to collect.
For today, I'm taking a look at year that I must admit I'm not looking forward to: 1988. I have a fairly large stack of '88 cards...and I have a funny feeling that there aren't a lot of people out there clamoring to collect 1988 cards anymore.
No matter, once this stack is done I'll be one year closer to completing my entire collection reorganization (I'm not going chronologically however this will mark the halfway point of the 1980s for my collection overhaul (and by far the largest remaining unsorted stack of cards from the 80s). With no further delay, let's delve into some unloved "junk wax," shall we?
By my count, I have at least one card from 25 different 1988 sets. That seems overly excessive...and you can bet that I will not be attempting to collect all 25 sets (nor will I scan all 25 sets)! Instead, I'll take a look at some of the sets that have a legitimate chance for my to collect them beginning with Score.
The 1988 Score set is colorful, with wonderful card backs (and contrary to public belief, Score did color backs...with a secondary photograph...before Upper Deck was even around). In fact, the true strength of the 1988 Score set is the back of the card...a great bio, lots of statistics, there's so much to love.
Unfortunately, while I do own a stack of 150 or so of the cards, I'm not really close enough to having the entire 660 card set to consider collecting it (nor do I feel like buying any 1988 Score...or trading for them). So, long story short: I will not be collecting 1988 Score.
Next, 1988 Topps.
Quite frankly, I don't really care for the 1988 Topps set at all. It's probably one of my Top 10 worst Topps' base designs of all time. However, I actually already own the full Topps set from 1988...and I think I'll continue to hold onto that set, at least for now. Therefore, grudgingly, I'll collect this one.
Moving on to Fleer, or as I think of it, the barbershop pole set.
Until the late 90s, I never seemed to think very highly of Fleer - which is too bad because the 1988 edition isn't awful. To be sure, it isn't great either but I do think the quality of Fleer's 1988 set is better than Topps'. All that said, I own too few 1988 Fleer cards to even remotely consider going after this set...and frankly, even if I owned another 300 cards from the set I still don't think I'd try to complete the set. The cards from this set are destined to become trade package packing material!
Finally, we get to the last big* stack of 1988 cards that I own.
*pun intended.
1988 Topps Big.
These cards are indeed big - in fact, they are jussstttt a bit bigger than a regular card which makes them super annoying to store (and to sort when they are all mixed up in a pile). If for no other reason than how annoying they are, I'll be sure to not bother collecting this set as well!
And that does it for 1988. The only other set that I had a bunch of that I didn't really consider at all was 1988 Donruss. I collected the 1991 Donruss set (which is similar in design to the '88 version) and that's enough drab blue for me.
Now it's your turn to tell me how you go about organizing your collection. How do you decide what to keep and what to not bother collecting? And finally, I would love it if someone would tell me what to do with all of my duplicate Reds' cards (of which I have a LOT)!
For today, I'm taking a look at year that I must admit I'm not looking forward to: 1988. I have a fairly large stack of '88 cards...and I have a funny feeling that there aren't a lot of people out there clamoring to collect 1988 cards anymore.
No matter, once this stack is done I'll be one year closer to completing my entire collection reorganization (I'm not going chronologically however this will mark the halfway point of the 1980s for my collection overhaul (and by far the largest remaining unsorted stack of cards from the 80s). With no further delay, let's delve into some unloved "junk wax," shall we?
By my count, I have at least one card from 25 different 1988 sets. That seems overly excessive...and you can bet that I will not be attempting to collect all 25 sets (nor will I scan all 25 sets)! Instead, I'll take a look at some of the sets that have a legitimate chance for my to collect them beginning with Score.
The 1988 Score set is colorful, with wonderful card backs (and contrary to public belief, Score did color backs...with a secondary photograph...before Upper Deck was even around). In fact, the true strength of the 1988 Score set is the back of the card...a great bio, lots of statistics, there's so much to love.
Unfortunately, while I do own a stack of 150 or so of the cards, I'm not really close enough to having the entire 660 card set to consider collecting it (nor do I feel like buying any 1988 Score...or trading for them). So, long story short: I will not be collecting 1988 Score.
Next, 1988 Topps.
Quite frankly, I don't really care for the 1988 Topps set at all. It's probably one of my Top 10 worst Topps' base designs of all time. However, I actually already own the full Topps set from 1988...and I think I'll continue to hold onto that set, at least for now. Therefore, grudgingly, I'll collect this one.
Moving on to Fleer, or as I think of it, the barbershop pole set.
Until the late 90s, I never seemed to think very highly of Fleer - which is too bad because the 1988 edition isn't awful. To be sure, it isn't great either but I do think the quality of Fleer's 1988 set is better than Topps'. All that said, I own too few 1988 Fleer cards to even remotely consider going after this set...and frankly, even if I owned another 300 cards from the set I still don't think I'd try to complete the set. The cards from this set are destined to become trade package packing material!
Finally, we get to the last big* stack of 1988 cards that I own.
*pun intended.
1988 Topps Big.
These cards are indeed big - in fact, they are jussstttt a bit bigger than a regular card which makes them super annoying to store (and to sort when they are all mixed up in a pile). If for no other reason than how annoying they are, I'll be sure to not bother collecting this set as well!
And that does it for 1988. The only other set that I had a bunch of that I didn't really consider at all was 1988 Donruss. I collected the 1991 Donruss set (which is similar in design to the '88 version) and that's enough drab blue for me.
Now it's your turn to tell me how you go about organizing your collection. How do you decide what to keep and what to not bother collecting? And finally, I would love it if someone would tell me what to do with all of my duplicate Reds' cards (of which I have a LOT)!
Great post. I have so few cards now that they are organized by player for the guys I have more than 5 of. Otherwise, but team and within that by year, and then by make. Good luck deciding what might work best for you.
ReplyDeleteReds: could you make custom art? Frame them and sell it on eBay? Or, ship them to the Reds Hall of Fame and Museum and say "these are your problem now"?