Through 2026 - my mini collections

I've been bringing home card show piles over the past decade, after the world was opening up and card shows were up in full swing - I may have discovered a seller whose bulk boxes I might feed on about once a month to the tune 200-300 cards for a nickel each.

In my own little world I wanted to look high and low for mini-collection cards - where I wanted them to be the focus of my day-to-day collecting.

As it happened however, maybe my filing system in a Google Sheets file got corrupted [columns and headers, as well as the cards I had dutifully entered the past 15 years were in wrong places] or bloated - where even as I was took in more cards, there wasn't the familiar files to list and tally up my new finds as part of an archive.

Maybe I got so ingrained to typing into the same files over and over - that it was going to take time to start over with all the old data.

Maybe even the backup file [on a program called Calc] I may have started listing cards into was lost - due to a memory card crash.

For the past four or five years, actual cards in-hand may or may not have been added towards piles that have just sat around loose in what I may call my morgue - where it was a sad state where I had all these cards that were supposed to be part of certain themes, but I wasn't ever doing anything to enjoy them further.

I really needed to do something about my mini-collection cards where I wanted to have some peace of mind again - maybe the work to get things together hasn't been perfect, but maybe I have finally tried to correct things through the early part of the year, where I want to tend to my cards as much as much possible, especially when the weather is a little more forgiving.

Maybe related to my Google Sheets file wonking out on me is having what I called my 'awesome action' collection as a mini-collection themes - I had to get cards in order and classify how I wanted them sorted.

Awesome action – Actual on field action - simplified outline

Batting / Baserunning / Celebrations / Good job / Confrontations / Curtain Calls / Fielding

Batting
Baserunning
Celebrations
Good job
Confrontations
Curtain calls
Fielding 1B
Fielding 2B
Fielding 3B
Fielding SS

Making the throws – Mirrors my fielding cards; 2B and SS have double play subsets

Awesome action – Actual on field action – Pitching

Dirt fetish

Fun cards

Game face cards

Personality shots

I have what I call my archived collections that I may leave as is - this was when most, if not all cards were listed out.

I have what I have I call my main feeder collections - these are the themed collections from the past four or five years that may not have been formally listed, but I might be looking to change things up, where I might rather have 100 or so cards at a time as part of a personal themed curated set, rather then cards as part of a monolithic archive in a 3,200 count box or some other storage arrangement.

If I have the cards part of a personal themed curated set - maybe I can get back to listing a number of cards in a file where I have something to look at as far as a collection goes and also to check if I already have cards in-hand as opposed to buying more that end up dupes.

As the case maybe I want to work closer with thumbing through and playing with my cards - part of what I do is trying to herd cards from purchases online and maybe in-person, through finds and pulls.

This means smaller piles respawn into what I call satellite piles, where they have to be sorted in bigger update piles - when things get impacted within my temporary satellite / update files, I feel like I am freeing things up by updating my main feeder piles.

I have tried to keep my main feeder piles as the last [nearly semi-permanent] outpost to add cards into - without pulling cards outright, I might need to occasionally move things around and explore new storage options.

COMC order #9 - Another variety pack [FIN]

To stretch things out, one final post for the COMC cards I had gotten in-hand last December - where I've conscripted odds and ends to my collections.

2025 Topps Finest Drake Baldwin RC #21 - my interest in keeping up with aspects of Major League Baseball has probably waned through the past decade, where I might plead ignorance as far as knowing the top prospects coming up.

Entering the 2025 season, maybe Baldwin was a bit of an unknown commodity anyway - I wasn't paying any particular attention as he played well enough to displace Sean Murphy as the Atlanta Braves' starting catcher and won the 2025 National League Rookie of the Year.

As it goes, I probably needed any Baldwin card to fill a spot in my award winners collection - which ends up kind of being in mothballs, where the only time I might worry about the project is when I can add more cards of the year-to-year award winners [MVP, Cy Young and Rookie of the Year].

2002 Donruss Originals On the Record /800 Jimmie Foxx #OR-2 - I thought up a random insert set to search for back in 2023 and this one came up in my memory banks, where it's something that came out 25 years ago and counting.

The card is jazzed up with a serial number on the back and looks almost inspired of a USA Today newspaper like design - Babe Ruth makes a cameo, so it ends up being a star on star card.

1975 NST Mr. Baseball Stamps Shigeo Nagashima #204 and 2001 BBM Shigeo Nagashima #530 - to broaden my collecting interests, I might have been looking to build up a micro-mini collection of his cards a couple of years ago.

It might not actually be a traditional card, but I like the candid street clothes moment captured - where Nagashima is signing autographs for a couple of boys.

2022 BBM Fusion Roki Sasaki #16 - maybe I wished I would have grabbed some Japanese era Sasaki cards while in Japan last November, but was worried I was overpaying for single cards that were not rookies anyway.

2022 BBM Roki Sasaki Perfect Game Roki Sasaki #11 - I think I made up for a little bit of regret, picking out a couple of Sasaki cards, where they at least showed some unique, cutesy images, even if they were no better than the other Japanese era Sasaki cards.

2022 Bowman NPB Nippon Professional Baseball Yoshinobu Yamamoto #9 - maybe I wanted to squirrel away a Japan era card of the Japanese import after his rookie year back in 2024, even if the card I ended up with here was a pretty basic card.

2023 Topps Now Off-Season Yoshinobu Yamamoto #/34,496 #OS-25 - this wasn't worth much at all, but maybe his earliest MLB era card, even if it's a oddball Topps Now thing as opposed to a card that would be inserted in packs.

1974-75 Calbee Bobby Marcano #836 - to fill out my purchase before having things shipped, I grabbed this old-school Japanese card of a Gaijin player who was from Venezuela and flourished in Japan as a second baseman.

COMC order #9 - Sportscasters

1977-79 Sportscasters Series 03 Lausanne Printed in Japan Hank Aaron #03-16 - I picked up this old-school Hank Aaron oddball item for around $6 three years ago and was part of what I had delivered from my COMC account late in December.

The larger format card ends up sort of a misfit, but a case where I didn't mind a more substantial card in-hand - rather than some ratty regular sized card.

1977-79 Sportscasters Series 27 Geneva A Dave Kingman #27-21 - I decided to pick this up for around $3, because it's been sitting somewhere in my memory banks as a scratch the itch card to take ownership of.

Rather than another regular size card I can file away like the others in my inking it up theme - this ends ends up being a bigger, oddball item, where the image of Kingman signing autographs pops a little bit more.

COMC order #8 - Minor league cards

Maybe going down the COMC rabbit hole has just not been a thing for me - but maybe a few times I have done so with store credit added, I've end up with some odd cards I didn't realize I needed, but impulsively had to make keepers of.

1987 ProCards Minor League Jim Morris #261 - maybe it was the same night in 1999 [nearly 30 years ago] where I got Morris to sign an index card [?] after a Tampa Bay [Devil] Rays @ Anaheim Angels game and then also a bigger deal, was getting Jose Canseco to literally scribble on some things [for the first time ever] when he left the stadium.

That 1999 Tampa Bay team also had Julio Franco towards the end of the season, so that was at least three cult favorites types - though I didn't see Franco then and would not quite realize his 'greatness' until he popped back up in the major leagues in his mid 40s.

A couple of minor league cards of a Tom Nicholson - who went to my high school and played professionally, before ending up in the college coaching ranks.

Maybe the lingering sentiment of keeping up with a local guy has faded - but years ago, it was cool to find a college card of Nicholson posted [on another card blog], when he played college baseball at Texas, so it was nice to find two more cards.

Finally, a couple of early minor league cards picked up of Erik Kratz, a journeyman catcher who played in parts of 11 seasons in the big leagues - I occasionally see clips of Foul Territory Podcasts posted on social media, where Kratz gives his takes on current baseball happenings, along with fellow former big league catcher A.J. Pierzynski and sports broadcaster Scott Braun.

New Hall of Famers for 2026

I have a loose card project for Hall of Famers and each year as a chance to add new cards to the mix - where I end up picking one random card per player / subject to induct into my collection.

With Jeff Kent being elected through a committee at the end of 2025, maybe it was a validation for a player who may not have been a well loved guy - but the slugging numbers as a second baseman couldn't be denied.

Kent has had a bunch of cards from the tail end of the junk wax era onward - I grabbed his 1999 Topps #330 as the card to add to my Hall of Fame collection, but the 1997 Bowman #65 sort of ends up a color match with the black borders.

Maybe Carlos Beltran was on shaky ground for a little bit as he got exposed as the supposed ringleader in the Houston Astros cheating scandal - but despite any sort of resistance from the peanut gallery now, his playing career has him a Hall of Fame legend.

Maybe I had the 1999 Upper Deck SP Top Prospects #15 in-hand as the card for my HOF project - but the 2006 Bazooka Blue Fortune #150 parallel kind of pops [even for a more basic, non-glossy, non-foil card] and has a one-time teammate [and Hall of Famer] Jeff Bagwell as a star-on-star bonus.

I did not think Andruw Jones would ever get enough support to be a Hall of Famer, where I was still looking at how his career fell off after leaving the Atlanta Braves - in my mind, he was destined to languish in the hall of very good at best

Maybe I still feel like he could have finished the last portion of his career better - but the momentum really built up where the numbers guys really did their work to shift the narrative, where Jones may have been one of the best all-around centerfielders of all time, rather just another guy who played the position and has some good years.

Maybe the Jones card on the left ends up my pick to click as far as being added to my HOF collection - though I wanted to show off a Japanese era card I dug up from a card shop bulk bin while I was in Japan last November, where he was someone I recognized as a foreign player and a one-time MLB star.

COMC order #7 - 1957 Topps Don Zimmer #284

Originally a card I read about in passing through a Dime Boxes post - I regret not making a keeper out of a copy I found thumbing through a vintage portion of a seller's binned single cards at a card show back in 2023.

I ended up with my own copy from COMC - where perhaps I was searching for random cards that I might be able to add to my account on a whim.

This was added to my COMC account in the middle of November 2023 and it took about two years to get it in-hand with the other cards I got - maybe the passage of time from then until now is a little peculiar to me, where I let all that time pass, but it's almost like I was good letting the card sit at COMC.

COMC order #6 - A variety pack

2007 Upper Deck 1989 Reprints Casey Stengel #89UD-CS - I saw this card somewhere and had to have it, with the image of the legendary manager looking at a baseball that is supposed to a crystal ball of sorts.

I am not sure how many times the image has been reprinted on a card - I saw it on one of the base cards from an early 2000s Upper Deck retro themed set, but that did not deter me from keeping this card on a wantlist somewhere.

I wasn't sure if a copy of the card was worth paying a premium for - but finally grabbed one I saw on the COMC Web site for about $4.

2020 Topps Legend Variation SP Legend Variation Reggie Jackson #206 - I have never gotten a beat on the Topps legends variations and kind of feel like I'm missed out on a thing, but I've gotten a few over the past 5-10 years I guess.

This can end up as either a binder material centerpiece as a highlight for my inking it up collection - having had the pleasure of attempting to get Jackson's autograph after he was a player, I am sure he is telling these late 1970s era fans to keep their distance and to calm down, as he grabs a ball to sign.

2021 SkyBox Metal Universe Champions Fresh Foundation Paige Spiranac #FF36 - between the time I added a copy to my account, to when I had it shipped with my COMC order, it looks as if I picked up another copy.