What's Been the Best Thing for Your Collection Lately?

With baseball cards sold out (or banned) in many big box stores and online prices skyrocketing to crazy, stupid levels, it's been a tough go lately to be a baseball card collector.  It seems that there are more people "collecting" than ever (the line between "collecting" and "prospecting" and "making a quick buck" is quite blurry and I'm not going to quibble over details right now).  Thus, I am curious as to how each of you reading this blog has adapted your cardboard habits.

For me, I haven't bought any new 2021 product for myself yet.  I do hope to get some 2021 Allen & Ginter boxes but otherwise my 2021 purchases have only been for the various group breaks that I've hosted.  Instead, I've spent most of the year thus far working on collecting older sets - and trying to finish off as many of my older sets as I possibly can.  I've ordered from online sites (COMC - which still hasn't shipped and Sportlots - in which 13 of the 14 orders have arrived a month later).  I've also made time to try and do as much trading (and sometimes buying) over on TCDB...and for me, it's been TCDB which has had the greatest positive impact on my collection this year!

Case in point, I've got another small batch of trades from the past week to show off here beginning with a simple trade with user Chickengood.

I recently added the 2005 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites to my TCDB want list (I'll eventually get it listed on my blog want list as well).  For now though, I'm working on acquiring as many needed cards from that set as I can via trading on TCDB.

Next, from user dheim1220 comes a Barry Larkin variation card from the 1990 Donruss set.

This variation is the factory set version of the 1990 card.  The difference is subtle here but it's actually a different "paint splat" pattern on the side of the card as compared to the pack version of the same card.  I'll (eventually) have a more detailed write-up of this particular card in my ongoing Barry Larkin Collection series.

My last trade of the week was with user engine614.  This particular swap was a much larger trade than the previous two...

...and now you can see why!  I ended up landing 6 of the 7 remaining short prints on my 2014 Topps Heritage want list.  I'm now one card away (plus my COMC order showing up) of completing this full set!  That missing card, you ask?  It's #449:  James Shields.  

That does it for this week on TCDB for me...but as you can see, that particular website continues to be a boon for my collection!  I've got a few more trades that should be arriving at my house soon, so hopefully I'll be able to show off that haul at this time next week!