Scattered 2023 thoughts in collecting

I hope to squeeze something in that kind of vents about the past year - before that time to do a recap has really sailed.

It was a long year when I think about it and what animates me at the start of one year ends up being neglected - different things take shape in what I do, where I dwell on other interests and other things get in the way.

I was rounding up goal items for 2022 at some point, but maybe I ended up dropping that, when there were too many items to consider - I don't know how complete my achievements goes and maybe it doesn't matter as long as I have a tease.

After a certain point of the past year, I haven't kept up listing achievements for 2023 when I've been perpetually backed up - trying to catch up with inventory recaps from all purchases I’ve made, where I am obligated to list out every card I got.

Off at least one or two 'card guys' on Twitter, I feel like I was really into the chaos pages idea but couldn't get around to putting things together - I was sorting loose cards at the start of last year, but after a certain time, I just left the loose piles of cards I intended to sort further on the floor in little 'play room,' where I would not even go back in there until the new year.

Tried to get my TCDB account going, where I was trying to create personal galleries for my stadium project, adding some trade bait and listing some wantlist items - despite being a thing for bloggers to trade on there, I couldn't remember what my user name was, didn't want to reach out and have not done a single transaction.

I stopped TTM when I couldn’t find a particular card to send to Steve Garvey - that crashed my operation for the year, along with not getting a response from hit or miss Rick Reuschel or getting an RTS from hit or miss Bob Boone.

I think my last success was from Scott Hemond and to be honest - maybe some of the successes that have come in from mailings end up being clutter of sorts.

I think the card show dates once or twice a month added up - I don't know if I ever have anything to show for it, but I would be bringing back bricks of cards I'd let sit and pile up without getting to doing inventory recaps.

Besides my card show bricks and piles, maybe the biggest thing that affected what I was doing collecting wise was buying into Twitter / X stack sales where since last April, it has been a thing - maybe I never really did Twitter except lurk and see what other 'card guys' did.

The idea of claiming cards on the social media site intrigued me, where to me it was like a free-for-all party - where it was a way for me to get engaged, even if that meant claiming cards I may or may not really need from all these random sellers peddling their miscellaneous inventory, which swung towards the bulk material to some odd singles.

With all the cards coming in, it's been a struggle to keep up with trying to list them all - there are scattered purchases that have not been listed anywhere, though I might have tried to do a better job of catching up with the bigger purchases that need my attention in case there are some mess-ups I need to be aware of.

I can't imagine being a rookie but there were times where I had rookie moments buying cards on social media - because I was impatient with a pending purchase from a seller I'd bought from the first time, I sent funds to a wrong PayPal address that had a similar handle.

I never got a response or that money back from the other PayPal account - I ended up sending funds to the correct PayPal account, but felt really dumb paying twice as much for some odds and ends type claims.

There are the occasional hiccups about missing cards or totals not matching up for whatever reason - I also got held up a bit by a dumb seller [who took a while to ship my first order, shorted me some cards and then ghosted me for at least a few months, before issuing a refund minus the PayPal fees I was charged].