Spending Time in the Virtual Card Aisle

Over the last couple of months, my trips out into the world have been limited for obvious reasons. I leave my apartment maybe once every two weeks or so to make a trip to the grocery store, but I spend the rest of my time locked away in my cozy apartment. My circumstances probably aren't all that different from what you're likely facing, so it's no surprise I haven't picked up any cards in the Target aisle recently. 

But with all this time indoors, I have more time than ever to focus on my collection and I've turned to Sportslots to scratch my itch for cards over the last several weeks. In fact, I made a pretty big order a few weeks ago, but mindlessly got the cards organized and in binders before I remembered to scan them or write any blog posts. Oh well. 

To make up for that, I made another Sportlots order a couple weeks ago and was able to pick up about 70 new cards, all needs for my Dodgers flagship team sets. 

I tried to minimize shipping costs, so I confined all of my selections to a single seller who listed most of his cards at 18 cents a pop. I selected an arbitrary cutoff--2005--and worked my way through 2019 to fill the some of the gaps in my flagship binders. 

Despite having a decently sized Shawn Green collection, I was somehow missing his final flagship card for the Dodgers. I added the Dodgers big free-agent signing from the 2004 offseason while I was at it. 

Nostalgia has been a topic brought up on several blogs over the last few weeks--and maybe a topic I'll touch on in a future post--and these 2005 cards certainly bring back some memories. My baseball fandom and card collecting began in the early-to-mid-2000s, so this set has always been one of my favorites. 

2007, on the other hand, has always been a set I've wanted to like more than I do. I dig the fact that the cards are primarily black--hello, 1971--but they've just never had much of a personality to me. There's just not a ton of color built into the set, and I've never really understood the "four-square corners." Still, I do enjoy the fascimile autographs, especially Kuo's. I'm still 10 cards away from completing the set, but I'm inching closer.

The 2008 set is another one that sits pretty close to my heart. While I started collecting several years before this release, my earliest memory of ripping open a pack was with this set. I don't recall what I found in that pack, but most of my cards from that era of collecting days are gone now.I do remember pulling a Magglio Ordóñez bat relic around this time, though I think it was out of a pack of Topps Bazooka. 

 Is it just me, or do catachers get the best cards? 

Seriously. 

This is just a tremendous shot. Catcher's gear is coming off. Barnes and McCutchen look toward the sky, but we don't get to see the ball or the play. The blue and orange jerseys contrast perfeectly. What's not to love about a photo like this?

Besides the Barnes, I was also able to knock off several more 2019 needs. I only bought S1 last year, and I have a TON of it (anybody trying to complete their set?), so I needed to catch up on S2 and US. I'm still six cards away from being able to say I've completed the set, but I'm getting there. 

I've made considerable progress over the last several weeks, and I now have 47% of all Dodgers flagship cards produced since 1951. Not bad. That said, I've been wondering about the accuracy of my checklists/want lists for sets pre-1990s. I've stitched the checklists together from a variety of sites, but most checklists I've been able to locate don't typically list the team. Anybody have suggestsions for confirming my set needs?