Sorting Old-School Style

[sanjosefuji]

When I was a kid, I'd wake up early on Saturdaymornings, sit myself down in front of the television, and watch cartoons. After a few years, I added sorting cards on the floor to the routine.

Due to a sensitive back, these days I typically organize my sports cards sitting down at my office desk. However... every now and then... a big project requires me to spread out and get comfortable on my family room floor.

Today was one of those days.

The story actually begins earlier in the week. Some of you might remember the time one of my readers reached out to me and offered to hook me up with some supplies and non-sport sets. Well... this past Wednesday, I finally had the opportunity to pay him back with some Hawaiianfood from one of my favorite restaurants in San Jose's Japantown.

Most of my friends and family members aren't into collecting, so it was nice to get out, eat, drink, and talk about cards with Pete.

After dinner, he gave me a giant box filled with auction guides and hobby magazines. I'm not sure if you've ever flipped through an auction guide before, but they're filled with interesting information on a variety of sports memorabilia along with tons of high quality photographs. One of these days, I'll share some of the scans I took.

He also gave me two more boxes of supplies, a binder of Comic Ballcards, and a 3,200ct.monster box.

Today... I spent almost seven hours sifting, sorting, and scanning through the stuff he gave me. That's not a typo. Seven hours. I was able to watch a bunch of Star Wars Rebelsepisodes as well as a few episodes of Elementary.

What did I do for seven hours? Well... I started by going through all of the cards, deciding what I wanted to keep and what I was going to take into my classroom.

There were close to 700baseball, football, and basketball inserts/parallels/rookie cards that I slipped into penny sleeves or put into my binder collections. In addition to that there were two different football sets, a Tiger Woodsset, and a bunch of 90's basketball inserts sets included in the monster box.

He must have busted a box of 1986 Donruss baseball, because there was more than half of a row dedicated to the stuff.

Before this morning, I needed 134cards for my set. Thanks to Pete, I'm down to the final43:

There was also a nice stack of 2000 Fleer Greats of the Gamefootball cards. The cards are so nice, I decided to build this set too:

If you look at who's missing... I'm sure you can figure out Pete'sfavorite football team.


And remember that binder of Comic Ball cards?

Almost the entire set was in there. It was only missing three base cards and three holograms. At first, I thought about finding a student who likes Looney Toons and hooking them up. But after flipping through the binder, I decided to keep it and try to finish it off myself. Who knows... maybe I'll chase down the 2nd, 3rd, and 4thseries too.

Last, but certainly not least... there's this 5x7box topper of Hideki Irabu. I had never seen this set before, but from what I found on the internet... this card was included in special boxes of 1997 Fleer Ultra which were made for distribution in Asia. Maybe one day... I'll actively chase down the other two box toppers in this set.


Thank youPete for these awesome additions to the collection! It was fun hanging out and talking sports. See you in a couple weeks at the GTSMshow.


Everyone else... I hope all of you are enjoying your weekend. I appreciate all of the kind comments people left on my anniversary post. As usual...


Happy Saturday and sayonara!

More...