Temptation

 
I told myself I was done collecting at the end of 2026. Everything lined up perfectly: 40 years of collecting sports cards, 10 years of blogging and plugging away at the 1956 Topps set (which is 70 years old this year), 75 years of Topps. 

But that wasn't why I was looking toward 2027 as a time when I no longer collect cards. For one, I'm so much busier now. I'm raising two teenage daughters by myself, and I want to spend as much time(and money) as I can on them. Lamenting the countless hours spent on my collection that would have been better spent with D has led me to value time more than money, and sports in general has taken up too much of both. 

Sidebar: I'm spending over $200 a month on cable when my oldest daughter stares at her phone or tablet and my youngest only watches YouTube. Honestly, so do I. I'm keeping cable for what? Live sports. 

And yet - I have no interest in this year's NBA or NHL championship, I haven't watched a baseball game in 3 years, and half the decent NFL games are on streaming now. Plus the Packers are going to suck because Micah Parsons is still injured and our running back just Ray Rice-d his wife allegedly. 

Pro athletes are assholes. 

Something that's been a part of my life since I was six years old should be difficult to give up, right?

There are very few players left to cheer for; the only active MLB player I PC has been on the IL for the past two years. We're headed for a long labor dispute because the players union will never accept a salary cap - not even one with a $170 million floor. And I could not care less. Not just because the Red Sox are in last place, or the Yankees are in firs----what's that? Tampa is in first? Pfft. That wont last. Are they still playing at Steinbrenner field? 

You see. I dont even look at the standings anymore. Apparently Cal Raleigh is ass now? And... he probably jinxed himself in the WBC. Front toward enemy huh? Look in the mirror, dipshit. 

If I did PC an actual current player it might be Randy Arozarena. He seems like a cool guy(do not tell me if he isn't.) 

This spring I've been hard at work trading my 2,000+ duplicate cards for set fillers. Before Christmas I went on a bit of a card buying spree and started four different 2025 baseball sets - the most I've built in a single year since 2018. But.. why? I don't even know who most of these guys are:

2023 Topps is complete. 2025 Topps is complete (I'm 65% done with Update). 2025 Topps Heritage is nearly done - except for the SPs and high numbers. 2024 Topps is very close; I'm less than 20 cards away.

I might try to complete 2010 and 2022 Topps Update, but that's all I have room for on my shelf. 

The last Topps flagship I'm going to work on will be 1986 Topps, after I buy myself a box for my birthday/40th year card collecting anniversary. End with the same set I started with. 

So why am I even thinking about buying any 2026 baseball products?

For a while I was planning to restrict myself from acquiring any card printed after 2025. Because if I keep adding new cards I'll never stop. I've got to stop sometime.

Even when Fanatics released the initial photos of the flagship design, I resisted. It looked better than any Topps set in years. But I knew that if I started it, I'd want to finish it. 

In my TCDB trades I added a few 2026 Topps singles to my wantlist. I couldn't resist that rookie class. But a baker's dozen of series 1 singles won't tempt me to start yet another set build. 

No, but you know what will? My nearby Barnes & Noble carrying these special Megabox things:

Oh, and they have 2026 Bowman blasters and Megaboxes, too. Those aren't hot items or anything, are they? Even if I don't open them I could hoard them and flip in a couple years. But then .. what if there's a huge prospect to chase and by the time he makes his debut the singles are so expensive that...

You're right Joe. It's not worth it. I'll refrain from purchasing either of these. No more 2026 cards. No new set projects. No chasing prospect cards of players I don't know or care about, just to make a buck. 

But... how much were those megaboxes again?!?

I think I have a $5 credit at Barnes and Noble... and maybe even a gift card...

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Barnes & Noble >>> Target

Christmas is just over a month away and my daughter's 16th birthday is even sooner, so I've been doing a lot of shopping for girly things I know nothing about. We're visiting my family in Connecticut for Thanksgiving, so I had to order what I could last week to ensure it would arrive before this coming Wednesday.

A Barnes & Noble opened nearby just as the school year was starting, and both my girls wanted books, so I stopped in on my lunch break. There was a woman practically harassing the cashiers and manager, over something that was going to be released the next day. The lady claimed that Wal-Mart and Target had already released them, so she couldn't understand why B&N wouldn't sell to her. She tried all the excuses -- you're losing out on sales, flippers are going to buy them all up. Can you hide one for me? Can you limit them to one per customer?

The staff stood firm - we're going to follow store guidelines, ma'am. Good on them. But now I was curious... what the heck was coming out the next day that this woman was going psycho for?!?!

Just in time for the holiday season, the highly anticipated Pokémon TCG: Mega Evolution—Phantasmal Flames drops Nov. 14 

Part of me wanted to come back that morning and buy up all the Pokemon I could, but the collector in me sympathized with the kid who asked for them. My mom used to go to toy stores at the crack of dawn and ask the stock workers if they were unloading a fresh supply of Starting Lineup figures so she could get first look at the selection. 

And so, as a way to support the store for standing firm while also appeasing the collecting gods, I bought some cards.

Apparently this has been a thing for a while; we used to have a much bigger B&N that closed about three years ago. Never saw any cards in there. 

I was pleasantly surprised by the selection -- four or five different brands of football, a small amount of baseball, and Topps Holiday Basketball. 

Yes, Topps is back in the basketball business. I've seen some interesting breaks of Flagship, but didn't know there was a Holiday release until I saw two mega boxes sitting on the shelf.

I don't care if there's a towel relic of some first-round bust in here, I'm just happy to have my purchase in hand..

The closest big box retailer to me is Target, and they almost always have a good selection of sports cards. I stopped in to shop for my girls and naturally checked the card aisle for Topps Update baseball and Upper Deck hockey. They had neither. I'm used to Target not having any hockey (they had a couple blasters of last year's Skybox Metal. Ugh) But ... no baseball?!?! Very little football, too.

Target had gone all in on Topps basketball; 80% of the card aisle was NBA product. I had to order the cards I wanted on Target's website because they are not available in stores. 

And so, I went home and ordered everything I was going to buy. Delivery was scheduled for Thursday. 

My soon-to-be 16 yr old had her first detention that afternoon (three tardies) and would have been home at 2:45 p.m. on any other day. My 13 year old comes home around 3:10 p.m. I texted her this:

NOT GOOD!!!! We didn't get the f**cking box!!!

Someone must have swiped it off our porch in the 15-20 minute gap between delivery and my daughter's arrival. Son. Of. A. Bitch. $150 in merch - more than half of which was cards - gone. 

There were more deliveries on the way, Friday and Saturday. I ran home as soon as I saw the delivery photo on Friday, then ran back when I saw a FedEx truck on my lunch break. Picked those up without incident. Saturday though... that was the big one. 

First year without my wife/their mom + sweet 16 b-day + Christmas = $800 laptop. This was me all day Saturday:

Needless to say the laptop arrived safely. One more delivery tomorrow and gift giving is just about done.

But I needed to fill that megabox-sized hole from losing my merch. I've been pulling double parent duty for 2+ months, working and cleaning and shopping for the girls. I deserve a little retail therapy, no? 

I wasn't going be too greedy and buy hobby boxes from my LCS for triple digits. And I wasn't going to order online again, especially since the delivery date would be the day we leave for CT. That meant more retail hoops:

It's not what I wanted, but I can treat myself to baseball and hockey after my next commission check from 4 Sharp Corners comes in (or my Christmas bonus from work 😉)

Not that anyone reading this is a big basketball collector (where have you gone, Jon and Billy?) but here's the highlights of the basketball haul from Target, starting with Prizm:

The Topps hanger was pretty standard. But it was interesting to see a (licensed) Topps set in a sport other than baseball:

Team cards and a Grizzlies throwback. I don't mind these, I just wish Topps would 86 the captions. The words "stars", "shine(s)", "young", "duo", and "lead the way" appear multiple times in these six cards. The editor in me is fuming at the lack of creativity. 

Legends are definitely not short-print variations in NBA sets. I pulled four, including a Schrempf Sonics card:

What is that wordmark though? I do not remember that at all. 

Here's a side-by-side comparison with the Holiday set:

Sochan paying tribute to Dennis Rodman here

One thing I was curious about was the cutoff date for off-season acquisitions. 

These weirdos both changed teams over the summer, but KD is pictured with his new squad on the Holiday card, while MPJ - now with the Nets - is still a Nugget in Flagship. Durant's latest trade demand was granted on July 6th while the Nuggets offloaded Porter on July 8th.

Holiday was released one week after flagship. Durant is a Rocket in both; MPJ is a Nugget in both. 

The hits had some more Nuggets, including the Jokic ornament and blue glitter parallel. The Dylan Harper relic is a nice pull as well. 8-Bit Ballers and 1980-81 Chrome are Flagship inserts. 

More Dylan Harper here. Collation was a bit odd - not that I was expecting a Cooper Flagg. Of the 85 base cards in the box, 18 were duplicates. Cam Thomas - who is still pictured in his Nets jersey despite being traded to Denver in the Porter deal - appears three times. Guess I'll have to return to TCDB soon..

One more thing... after I put my books and basketball card box on the counter, the girl at Barnes & Noble asked me if I would like to buy an Advent Calendar -- from Topps:

Yes. Yes I would.

Looks like I'll be doing daily posts in December :)



Thanks for reading!



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