Challenging the Blogosphere

Sometimes inspiration strikes at the most unexpected moment. I have spent a lot of time over the past several weeks juggling in-office work, working from home, home schooling my two oldest daughters, and trying to come up with ideas for interesting blog posts in the additional time I've been afforded to spend on the hobby. Last week, my oldest was assigned a 'daily LEGO challenge' as an option for art. She was sharing the list of building themes with me and suddenly the light bulb in my head came on! I started brainstorming a blog challenge theme list. I realize this isn't a new concept. In fact, what I'm going to share is quite derivative of the 30 Day Baseball Card Challenge that was introduced by Tony from Off Hiatus Baseball Cards back in 2017 so I made sure to get his permission before reimagining it. He gave his blessing so I moved forward with the idea of creating topics that I want to write(and read) about. Most of these aren't ground breaking by any means but I hope at least one of these topics might generate some interesting back and forth within the community. If not, I'll still enjoy putting my opinion out there for all to see. Without further delay, I am throwing down the gauntlet to everyone in our hobby community(blogosphere,Twitter-verse, etc).

Feel free to share(if you're so inclined) and make this your own. I'm just throwing some ideas out there. Post on a daily/weekly/monthly schedule, modify topics to fit your specific collecting preferences, or pick just one topic to write about. Have fun with it. Should you choose to participate in the challenge, please share links to your posts/tweets so the community can follow along. I'd love to add to my blogroll or follow some 'new-to-me' accounts.

Day 1 - Favorite card acquired during quarantine 

I understand that this may be a topic that some aren't able to participate in for various reasons. If that describes you, please don't let it keep you from tackling this list. Use day one as a wildcard or skip it altogether. For me, continuing to acquire cards in various ways has been an important source of escapism for me. I've completed several trades and purchases since North Carolina's stay at home order went into effect. My favorite of all the cards I've picked up so far is actually the first one that arrived during this period.

Historically speaking, I haven't made a habit of seeking autographs from actors. However, this one has been on the non-baseball version of my Cardboard Wishlist for quite some time. Trust me, it's definitely not because I am a Game of Thrones fan. I am a fan of the annual World's Strongest Man competition and 'Thor' here has been one of top contenders for the better part of a decade. He has been one of my favorite non-American competitors for just as long. During my time away from the blog, I started to piece together a strongman collection. I've made some good progress on that and will show off some more of it in the future. Since WSM card sets don't exist(that I know of), the only Björnsson cards I've been able to find come from the various GoT sets. I've seen 3-4 different autos from those sets on the market, most at prices I haven't been willing to pay. This design and photo selection was the one I really wanted to track down. Aside from the large series title splashed across the front, you wouldn't be able to tell it wasn't a sports card. The other designs picture him in armor or with gashes on his face. I jumped at the chance to pick this copy up as soon as I got the eBay search notification. Why? First, the price was right. Even better than the palatable price tag was the fact that it's a full name signature. Many of the autos I have seen are signed 'Thor Björnsson'. Prior to seeing this one, I had only seen one other example of his full signature on eBay(though a quick search as I write this comes up with more than a handful of to choose from). I'm happy to cross this card off of my wishlist and it gave me the perfect opportunity to introduce a new part of my collection to the blog!

There you have it, day one is in the books for me. The challenge has been issued.

Thanks for reading.