Embarking on a New Collecting Journey

Hello to anyone who might still be out there! It sure has been a long time since I've posted here. I'm not really sure how it got to be so long. I feel like I blinked and seven+ months of blogging inactivity have passed by. I've written several different 'return post' drafts along the way and subsequently deleted them all. Each seemed like a good way to re-engage, but inevitably something would come up and I'd have to leave the post unfinished. By he time I was ready to begin work on it again, he subject material just didn't seem that exciting anymore. That is probably a function of my inactivity being strictly blog related, not hobby related. In fact, the past several months have seen quite a large explosion within my collection. In some ways this is good, but in many ways things are admittedly getting a bit out of control. For a little while, I thought I had done a good job setting and maintaining limits on my various collecting interests. However, the flood gates started to open about eight months ago and I am just now starting to close them a bit once again.

I'd like to say that I have no idea how hints spiraled so quickly, but in truth I know exactly how. I was working on a trade and happened to start digging through a box that hadn't seen the light of day in a few years. Immediately I was reminded of players, insert sets, and parallels I hadn't thought about in just as long. It's this idea that brings me to the focus of my first post in what feels like forever.

World Series/Playoff highlight cards have long been a fixture in baseball card sets, but they were significantly more difficult to come by in football products over the years. Imagine my surprise when 1998 Skybox Premium football dropped and there was a 15 card Super Bowl subset called One For the Ages that happened to feature my beloved Denver Broncos' victory over the Green Bay Packers in SBXXXII. I was thrilled when I was able to complete the 15 card base set via pack ripping. On the day I finished the set, I was busting a few packs at my then LCS. A handful of packs into my day I pulled the following Star Rubies parallel:

I was happy with the pull, but younger me was disappointed that it wasn't one that had Elway or Terrell Davis on it and I was still laser focused on trying to pull the last base card I needed for the subset. A few packs later I finished my subset and stopped buying packs for the day. Before I left the shop, I slid the somewhat disappointing parallel into a sleeve and top loader. When I got home it went into a box of some 'lesser' PC cards where it stayed, rarely touched in the years since. It had probably been around 5 or 6 years since I had last seen it when I stumbled upon the box it lived in while searching for cards I could include in a (relatively)recent trade. Funny thing is that when I saw it this time around it stirred up all of my memories surrounding that first SB victory for the Broncos. There began a search for other Rubies from the subset. I wasn't committed to trying to build the parallel subset, but the thought was now floating around my mind. In short order I had added a few more for cheaper than I thought I could get limited parallels from 20 years ago.

These three were acquired within a few weeks of starting to search. Slowly, I began to consider hunting for the full set. However, none of these featured TD or Elway and those would surely be cost prohibitive. I set a saved search notification and put the idea of finishing this potential project on the back burner. Then one day about a month later, a notification for another one of these popped up. It was reasonable priced with a 'best offer' option so I sent in an offer that I was comfortable with and it was quickly accepted. A few days later this greeted me at the mail box:

I was so excited! TD, Rod Smith, Mile High Salute...its all here in its sparkly glory. It was here I decided that finding the rest of these would be an official collecting goal. I just told myself that a task like this would require time and plenty of patience(funding and collecting sacrifice too). What immediately followed my decision to try to complete the subset was several weeks of no luck finding additional needs. Why not test hat patience right out of the chute, right? About two months into the hunting drought I received a new notification. I was immediately struck with joy and sadness all at the same time. There was joy at the potential of adding another of these to the collection. There was sadness because the asking price was nowhere near being in my collecting budget. I immediately began searching my collection for cards I could sell to raise funds. I sacrificed my Bray Wyatt 1/1 auto that I pulled a while back. I set it up on eBay with a really high BIN/make an offer. I was surprised that within a day I had an offer that was higher than I anticipated settling for. I gambled to see if I could get more out of it and countered. The buyer upped the original offer a bit and I accepted, all the while hoping that the sale would help me land the latest project need to hit the market. Once the funds hit my PayPal account, I offered on the Star Ruby. After a bit if back and forth, a sale price was agreed upon and I was one card closer to my collecting goal.

One HUGE card closer!

Fast forward to just before Christmas, and I hadn't seen any other copies online or at the few shows I was able to browse. All of a sudden, a 6-day auction popped up for one I needed. Every day I anxiously checked in on the auction to see if any new bids were made. While I certainly preferred the gratification of the BIN nature of the others I had added, the waiting forced by the auction reminded me that the hunt should be just as fun as reaching the goal. I can't easily verbalize how I felt, but going through a week of checking and hoping and checking again made winning that auction even more satisfying.

With this one in hand, I sit at 7/15, teetering on the edge of halfway complete. Once again it's been a long time since a new need has popped up. That's alright though. Patience is on my side. Someday I'll track down the eight remaining needs and this project that inadvertently started over 20 years ago will be compete. Until then, I'll do my best to enjoy search. If you've made it this far, thanks for coming along on the journey with me.

The Broncos Defense Decided To #keeppounding Cam Newton

When I had started composing this post yesterday, I knew it could obviously go one of two ways. Either this would be a tribute post that said 'good job' on a great season, we'll get 'em next year or it could be this post. Thanks to the Broncos defense the Lombardi Trophy is headed back to the Mile High City!

The following trio from the defense are guys for whom I didn't have any Broncos cards for so I decided to go with the next best thing. Digital cards of them from my Huddle app!

I don't have much to say about Talib other than he is a great defender. I wish he was a bit more professional otherwise. 

Chris Harris Jr. has been one of the best corners that doesn't get a lot of recognition out there. All season, he routinely played the role of 'shut-down' corner and did it well! 

What can I say about Malik Jackson? He quietly goes about his business and is a big reason the defense played so well against the run all year. Plus, he's the guy that recovered the fumble in the end zone for the touchdown early in the 'Big Game'!

Williams is another one of those guys whose name you don't hear all that often, but without him, the other guys won't make a lot of the plays that they're able to. Shane Ray was a rookie this year and he made one hell of a hit on Cam last night. I'm hoping to see big things from him in the years to come.

Danny Trevathan and TJ Ward were definitely linked briefly last night. Ward came up wit a crucial pick and fumbled as he was running it back. Luckily, Trevathan was there for his second fumble recovery of the night. It would have been deep in the red zone and likely an easy score for the Panthers without Danny being in the right place at that time. These are the only Broncos cards that I own of each of these guys. I hope I'm able to change that in the near future.

Roby was just in his second year, but he really emerged as an excellent cover guy in the latter part of the season. He made some really big plays in the Division and Conference Title games and he kept up that momentum last night.

Wolfe has been incredible on the line all year. He allows for a situation where if this guy doesn't get you than that one will...and if that guy doesn't then this one will. He definitely finishes the trio of hard to handle guys that make up the core up front.

D-Ware! I am so happy that he came to Denver and will now have a championship ring. He was an absolute monster all year and certainly had a case for being the MVP of the game last night.

That brings me to the man! Von was unstoppable in both the AFC Championship and the Super Bowl. They were quite the mind boggling performances he was able to put together at the time where they were needed most. I hear the Broncos are already planning to place the Franchise tag on him and work towards a multi-year contract extension. I sure hope that Elway can work his magic and get the deal done!

I mean, he's got to have some kind of leverage speaking from one Super Bowl MVP to another, right? 

I couldn't be happier with the outcome of the game last night and I'm thrilled that the defense was at the center of it like they have been since week 1. Thanks for reading. Go Broncos!!!