Night Owl Cards

It's January 1 and most of the things that people do on January 1, I don't do. I don't watch parades or college football. I don't make goals or start new diet plans. I don't curl up in a corner and moan with a hangover. Mostly what I do is organize and file cards. This is the season for that. I usually start putting away the previous year's cards in November or December. I got a late start this year so I'm still doing that now. I'm in the middle of filing 2017 Topps flagship with Update, Allen & Ginter and Heritage still on the horizon. Everything else has been filed and stored. When I file cards I first record them in my favorite archaic filing system, an ancient Microsoft Works Spreadsheet that will likely die with this computer. I don't like the fact that I am risking the disappearance of my filing system, but I am already about two-thirds of the way into finishing it and I don't want to restart now. My fear in recording cards on...

Each year, when I make the determination that I am not going to attempt to complete that year's Topps base set -- which has been every year lately -- I go about organizing the cards in order by team. This way, it's easier for me to find cards if I am trading. Also, there is just something pleasing about categorizing cards by team that goes back to my childhood. You can assemble them by their respective divisions, in alphabetical order or by which ones you wish would die in a bear trap. The possibilities are endless. And if the set is particularly colorful, as it is this year, you get the neat effect above. That picture is just as pretty as all get-out. This is how I had assembled my cards for 2015 Topps, but all the while I had this nagging feeling that it wasn't quite the way they should be arranged. Today, I decided to do something about it. See if you can guess, by the pictures, what I am doing now. That's right. Yeah, I have no idea why ...

I am not super strict in how I order my cards. My Dodgers are in order by year, then set, then player. My incomplete sets that are in either binders or boxes are in order by team most times, but by number periodically. But my complete sets? They are all in order by card number, almost without exception. I'm sure I've gone through this before. But searching for cards that you want when they are in order by card number can be an absolute pain. It's a lot easier to find a card if they're in alphabetical order (who has the time for that?) or by team. So that's why I have a lot of my sets in order by team. But I can put my complete sets in order by number because there is little chance that I am going to break up the set. I don't need to search for particular cards to trade or ship off to people, so I put them in order by number as the card maker apparently intended that to happen. I feel like I'm continuing a collecting tradition. I have done this fo...