Inspiration in the Baseball Card Hobby

Sunday's are a great day for reflection and today is perfect timing for a trade review built upon inspiration in this hobby.

The One Million Cubs Project was not some idea that popped in my head while sorting cards one morning. It was born through multiple ideas and bloggers. I've always stashed Cubs cards aside when buying collections and boxes. At times I've conducted bulk team trades. The Cubs collection was never organized and until recently I didn't seek out to add to my collection.

Enjoying the hobby began to dissipate in 2017. I started buying cases in an attempt to flip and make profit to buy more cards. It turned into more business than pleasure as the race against time was on trying to rip through 12 or 24 Hobby boxes trying to get cards listed to maximize profit. My first couple cases were fun, but the fun was sucked out more with each case I bought. I love baseball cards, but my focus needed to shift elsewhere to bring the fun back.

I love blogging, and had a few failed attempts at baseball card blogging over the years because I just didn't have focus. There are a few blogs that I read and started to inspire this project. Tony Burbs collects a card of every Cub on their all time roster. Wrigley Wax blogs each and every day spotlighting a player, Cubs team set, and new products. And 29 Collector is trying to collect every Tim Wallach card ever printed. These three blogs all had an inspiration to the One Million Cubs Project.

With my collection surpassing one million cards last year, why not trade them for cards I want in my collection: Cubs cards.

And my Project has even inspired another collector. South Indy Cards is attempting to collect one million Dodgers cards, and we are in the midst of our second Cubs-for-Dodgers trade.

His box of 260 Cubs cards included some really nice cards and several new ones to the collection. I haven't put them all together, but pretty sure I now have the Kris Bryant 2018 Topps highlights 30-card set. This package added 16 more of them.

And there were some green bordered Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo 2018 Donruss cards.

Bryzzo continued with a 2018 Topps 1983 35th anniverary Kris Bryant...

And a 2018 Donruss Diamond Kings Anthony Rizzo 354/487.

This package has some cards of Bryzzo that I will be paying it forward. A high school classmate of mine reached out via Facebook this weekend saying her son has been inspired by this quest to start a collection goal of his own. I'll be sending out some Bryant and Rizzo cards to get him kickstarted tomorrow.

There were even more 2018 Cubs in this box. A couple Opening Day cards. Opening Day is a product I'm hoping to gain cards through trade as it's not a product I buy.

Going back to the 1970's is a 1977 Renata Galasso Hank Sauer Oddball. Renata Galasso had some great Oddball sets in the 70's.

Here's a new "Big Z" for the collection. 2010 Bowman Expectations Insert. Andrew Cashner is on the other side.

The son of Wayne Gretzky. Trevor Gretzky didn't spend much time in the Cubs minor leagues as he was dealt to the Angels while he was in Low-A.

This is the first 2010 Bowman Starlin Castro rookie card I recall having, though I may have one or five somewhere in my collection.

And a couple more 2018 Cubs. This Jason Heyward Gypsy Queen Blue Parallel is numbered 205/250.

Kyle Schwarber jersey Relic! Very nice. And it had a blue pinstripe. This is a really sweet card. It would be great if Donruss and Topps could both have licenses. Donruss makes some very nice cards that would look really good with team logos.

Thanks for the trade, Brad. I'm gonna have to work hard to put together a Dodgers package to match this one.