Happy Birthday to Me and other thoughts

Look at this, another post in less than a week.  Stop the presses or the keystrokes or whatever.  Turned 48 today, I think that puts me in the "older" demographic when it comes to collecting.  Like my wife said this morning, it's only a number.  Yea, but a pretty big honkin number.  Anyway for my birthday, I got to help her mulch the flower beds. Whoopie!

I apologize in advance if this becomes stream of consciousness writing, I'm just having some difficulty putting some thoughts together.

I've been kind of indifferent lately when it comes to collecting.  For me, there is nothing current out there to collect right now.  I purchased as much series 1 and series 2 2012 Topps flagship as I intend to purchase.  Nothing else is peaking my interest.  Some of it is just out of my league price wise, and some of it has freakin short prints in it.  It's bad enough the flagship has sp's, I don't need or want to try to put together any more sets that have short prints.

So while I was being indifferent, I realized that I really like the way the new Topps Rookie Cup looks on the more recent issues.  In the past I had considered putting this subset together, but there were always several other sets to work on and this kind of fell by the wayside.  It should be noted that I have been putting together other subsets, League Leaders, World Series, Highlights, since I started collecting. (Shame on Topps, this year's Highlight cards just have a sentence on the front of the card stating what the Highlight was, and a checklist on the back.  I want a full write up, like years past).

I needed a checklist to start this project, but couldn't find one.  I'm sure there is one out there, if there isn't, I will post one ASAP.  I started my quest on the Wikipedia page, it needs some work, but I didn't realize that Topps had omitted the cups from 1979-1986.  There are also problems with the Roster list, some of the players listed, don't have the cup on their card, even though they should. Additionally, the list doesn't provide the card number, I hope to help with that.

The interesting thing about this set is looking back at previous winners.  I had to scratch my head at some of these players, I'd never even heard of a few of them.  Which is good because they won't cost more than a common.  The problem is with the NAME players. At least these cards aren't rookie cards, but some second year cards are pretty steep in price.   The 1971 Thurman Munson card books at $120, finding one in NrMt shape will probably be next to impossible, as well as expensive.  There are also second year cards of Willie McCovey, Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, and I think Tom Seaver.

I actually had a good time looking for these while I was at the ECN.  I'm planning on expanding my searches to shows slightly out of my immediate area.  I keep seeing the same people with the same cards.  Need to expand the search radius.

If you have any of these, please check my wantlists, I've got plenty of stuff to trade.