Saturday, March 24, 2012

A new old hobby

So a few weeks ago, I walked into a Walgreens, and randomly situated up on the impulse item rack between the candy bars and the gift cards sat a box of 2012 Topps Baseball cards, opened up with about half its packs already off to good homes. For the first time in, I dunno, 5 years, I picked up a brand new pack of baseball cards.

Fast forward, and 10 packs later, I have a nice start to my 2012 Topps collection.

It's been a LONG while since I collected a new series of baseball cards when they came out. I think the years started with a straight number back then. Anyways, I noticed how much the hobby had changed when, with 10 cards in the pack, two were for insert subsets, and 8 were for the normal base set.

These subsets are beautiful, and they have a gold theme going this year, which looks pretty good, but I have one thing bothering me here.

I now have cards from 8 different insert sets, most with Gold in the name, and cards from 2 of the 3 parallel base sets with a different coloring on the outside.

I can handle a couple of insert sets. I can handle not getting an insert in each card. What bothers me is that I have no chance whatsoever of completing an insert set with all the different kinds out there, simply by buying packs. It's just mindboggling how many cards I'd need to collect to collect ALL that Topps is putting out there, and that's not even before considering the LONG odds of getting the REALLY good stuff, the autographs and the like.

The Series 1 base set is 330 cards. I have to believe that there are just as many if you took all the cards from the various insert sets and put them together.

I sometimes feel like I'm old before my time. I like dice games, I prefer to stay in rather than go out the majority of the time, and I like my baseball card sets simple. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go sit in my rocking chair and fall asleep with baseball on TV.

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