Thursday, June 30, 2016

End of June Status Report

June has come and gone, and with it the first half of the year.

If I had made it a new years resolution to get back into collecting, this might make a great mid-point review. As it is, it's just the passing of another month. Still, it provides an excellent opportunity to assess where we are and where we hope to be. Well, since we don't actually have any specific aims, where we hope to be is a bit of a misnomer.

Freebies:

Listia - The Free Stuff Site. If you don't know what Listia is, check it out. You obtain credits through various means, though the "easiest" way is to "give" stuff away. People bid their credits for your "free" stuff and then you mail it to them. Or e-mail. Or whatever. There's a fairly decent population of cards that can be found on Listia, and it makes for a great little site to pick up some "free" inserts and the occasionaly cheap AU/GU. My biggest score was last year scoring a patch card of my sister, Megan Kalmoe, from 2015 A&G. Unfortunately it was poorly shipped and ended up getting slightly bent. VERY frustrating.

Starting Balance: Low. Very low. Sad numbers.
Acquisitions This Month: None
Ending Balance: 121,347 credits.

Now, if you figure the "buying rate" for credits is about 11k/$, we're sitting on a pretty $11 or so, which is nice. Enough to get... not a whole lot, but something. Going to keep saving and doing free offers to build my reserve and hopefully nab some nice things when 2016 Ginter rolls out in July.

Swagbucks - My favorite so-called 'beer money' site. Collect points for doing whatever you normally do, turn it into PayPal. Easy day. Basically one Swagbuck is a penny. Need 2500 to turn into PayPal, but it's worth it. Usually takes me a few months to very casually get there. But a few free blasters each year is worth it, right?

Starting Balance: Also low. Very low. Sad numbers.
Acquisitions This Month: None
Ending Balance: 285 SBs.

I haven't been paying a lot of attention to SB. Shame on me. I'll probably try and pick back up with my daily searches at least to get some stuff flowing in.

Others:

Nothing more to report. Getting back into the swing of things so we're trying out a few other things. An app or two here that I'll hopefully get a post/review up on and whether they'll be able to help in getting free stuff in the future!

So the only real success we can report is the Listia credits. Inflation has been terrible for Listia Credits, AU/GU's used to go for 3-4k, now people are demanding 10x that much, easily. Which is hilarious. On the flip side, people are also listing boxes of cards, like this box of 2014 Elite Extra Edition for 888,888 credits. I'm a bit shy, obviously, but how sweet would it be to score a free box of cards?

I look forward to July, and not just because Ginter is coming...

Keep it in the family,

-GG

Monday, June 27, 2016

It's aliiiive! It's aliiiiiiiiiive!

Would you look at that. More than a two posts in a time span of less than 6 days, let alone 6 months. What. Is. Happening. Could it be there is some sort of re-kindled interest in blogging and love for collecting? Lets be honest, the flame never really died out. So re-kindled is the perfect word for it. Yes, that and I could just be looking to procrastinate from doing work currently. Either way, it means more posts!

I've decided that rules themselves aren't very fun. So we'll go with guidelines, which are more flexible and less rule-ish. It is a rule I must have coffee everyday. A guideline for coffee is that it should be great coffee, but good coffee will suffice in a pinch. Get my drift?

So, my new Guidelines for Collecting:

1) Only disposable income earned through random means should be used for purchasing things. When possible, acquire things for free (or some mild amount of effort for contests and the like).

2) The only sets I will be actually collecting going forward shall be Topps Allen and Ginter. If there is a new set that is released that is set-building worthy, I might add it, but for now I don't see being able to really build more than one set, and only on the most basic of terms at that.

3) I shall also only be collecting Twins players in Twins uniforms (past and present) from here on out. I don't care about the Blue Jays or the Cubs.

4) Cool or otherwise rare cards not fitting the above description are worth putting into my PC of nifty things, as long as I pulled them myself (Or the missus, or the mini-me's...). Example: Larry Bird auto. I have no reason to like basketball, but Larry Bird is cool enough and the auto is on-card. Sharp. Worth holding onto.

5) Have fun. <---- This is actually a rule now, not a guideline. If it isn't fun, cease and desist immediately.

Four guidelines and a rule. Should be pretty straightforward, yes?

Current Projects to start me off:

1) Organize. My. Desk. It is a damn mess and has been sitting like that for months with stacks of inserts, autos, and GU's just piled up with no purpose or organization. First I need to sort them by sport, then by product/year. Liquidate all uncool football and basketball. Make room. Be more zen. All that fun stuff. I may even need to enlist the help of the missus to use or Organization-Fu to make things happen.

2) Come up with a list of needed base and inserts for Ginter Sets years 2011-present.

3) Come up with a list of needed minis for Ginter Sets years 2011-present.

4) Have fun.

I'm really bent on having fun, can't you tell?

Cheers!

-GG

Friday, June 24, 2016

The Adventure Continues...

Hi everyone!

Long time, no post. Right? Have been taking a bit of a hiatus from the hobby to focus on family and school, to be honest. But with June/July comes Allen and Ginter Season, which means Gint-A-Cuffs. And that also seems like a pretty good time to get back into the hobby in a leaner, cleaner sense.

I'll be hopefully posting a bit more frequently with opinions, reviews, breaks, etc. Expect a post in the near future with some more thoughts and rules for my new collecting hobby!

As always, keep it in the family.

-GG