Part of my blogging/collecting woes from the past year have been due to my lack of dedicated card space. I’m jammed into a tiny apartment with two roommates, so my room doesn’t accomodate a desk or any other furniture besides a bed and our common area doesn’t allow for much either. Because of this, all of my cards (the few small boxes I have with me in NYC) have been stored at the top of my closet, requiring me to pull out a stool to access them. This also means I dont have a dedicated space (i.e a desk) to actually do much writing. I often write while sitting in my bed, which I don’t find comfortable or constructive.
Thus, one of my early goals for 2019 was to figure out a better way to store my cards, maybe adjusting my collecting goals along the way.
Since moving to this my new place, I’ve used the window sill in my room as a makeshift bookshelf, with my books stacked from wall to wall. It worked out perfectly, actually, as I had exactly the right number of books to coincide with the space between the walls. But with a need for card space, I decided to dissemble my row of books to create some additional room.
The books have been moved over and stacked in two columns, leaving me just enough space to keep my cards. And, unfortunately, there isn’t much. I have two small stacks of top loaded cards, two blaster boxes filled with singles, another small box filled with some vintage cardboard, and a bubble mailer of cards for a fellow blogger. I also have five binders of my various PCs and Dodgers flagship sets in my closet, but I’ll leave them there for now.
Reorganzing, of course, is the perfect time to look through a collection, and that’s what I was doing when I ran across this beauty.
A sweet on-card auto from 2006 Topps ’52. I bought this card a few years back, just before I stepping away from blogging., so I never had the opportunity to properly blog about it.
At that point in time, I was fully committed to building a super collection of Matt Kemp cards. Kemp was my favorite player at the time (and still a Dodger), and his cards were priced fairly reasonably. As a Kemp collector, this autograph, one of his first, was a definite must have for my collection.
Of course, Kemp was traded (along with Yasiel Puig, Alex Wood, and Kyle Farmer) to the Reds a few weeks ago, closing a Dodger career that saw him hit over 200 homers for the Dodgers in his ten years with the club. And while I still have an affinity for Matty, I also think it’s about time I close the door on my Kemp PC.
I’ve already sold off, gifted, and traded many of my Kemp cards, including most of my high-end Kemp stuff. And now that he is with the Reds in what is most likely his final year in the big leagues, I don’t see a reason to contiune to building that PC.
I suppose it’s the end of a chapter for me and this blog, and perhaps a timely one. I started blogging back in 2013, largely as a way to share my collection with all of my fellow collectors, and my Matt Kemp PC was the driving force of the blog. In fact, my first blog post featured a Matt Kemp relic that I was super excited to share. I eventually built my Kemp PC to well over 200 cards, and while I’ll never quite match the impressive collection of Greg over at Plaschke, Thy Sweater Is Argyle (seriosuly, 505 Kemp cards!), I can say with certainty that I had a blast trying.
My colection will continue to grow and shift as we move into 2019, and I am looking forward to sharing those collecting goals with you soon. Until then, enjoy some of my favorite Kemp cards from throughout the years.
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