Grading 2016, Not Setting Goals for 2017

First and foremost, Happy New Year! Celebrate safely and see you in 2017.

Secondly, if you haven't entered my contest, then you should really get on that. All you have to do is blog about your favorite card of 2016 and post a link to the comments of my contest post. It's pretty easy and you might win a blaster of cards!

Now, on the meat of this post. I want to take this time to run through my goals from last year and throw a couple of ideas out there for things I might pursue during the next 365 days. Let's get right to it. 

Goal #1 from 2016: "I'd like to collect one set in the middle price-range."
If you take a look at Sets & Duplicates tab at the top of the blog you'll notice there's nothing for 2016. Officially, I guess I failed at this one.
However, I did finish the 2015 Bowman Draft set (which is a late '15 release), but I don't think that counts. Other sets I completed or added to my collection during the year were:
2013 Panini Hometown Heroes 
2001 Upper Deck Hall of Famers (1-90)
2000 Fleer Greats of the Game
1999 Upper Deck Century Legends
1998 Metal Universe
1997 Metal Universe
1993 Cardtoons
1993 Upper Deck Diamond Gallery Holograms
1986 7-11 Slurpee Coins, Mideastern Region
1985 7-11 Slurpee Coins, Great Lakes Region
1985 Topps Rub Downs
1984 Fun Foods Pins (1-133)
1984 Topps Rub Downs
Most of those sets came from an estate sale last spring. Some were already complete, but there were gaps to fill in five of them.
I didn't meet this goal, but I can't say that I completely failed either. Many of those sets are really cool and I'm pretty happy to have them in my collection!

Goal #2: "I'd like to create more room for my ever growing Cubs collection, which means I'll have to ship out some cards to my readers through trades or contests."
This was a huge success. I'm really happy with where my collection is at this point. I went through a huge re-organization during summer vacation and I was awarded for my efforts by winning My Cardboard Habit's Man Room Contest.
Did I ship out cards? The short answer is a resounding yes. I was invited to be a member of the SuperTraders and I used that to my advantage. I sent out at least two padded mailers of cards to each individual within the SuperTrader database and I sent out numerous boxes of cards and mailers to other bloggers. Many times I wasn't looking for anything in return, because I had the goal of clearing space. In all, I figure I moved out just under 10,000 cards this past year from my man room. My collection is now fully organized and most everything belongs. It's a great feeling and it took a lot of work, time, and postage to get to this point. Totally worth it.

That's it. Two goals from 2016 and I fared pretty well in my estimation.

This year. Nope. Not going to do it. No goals for this blogger.

I may build a set from packs. I may not.
I may reach 500 different cards in my Kerry Wood collection. I may not.
I may finish the monster Conlon Collection set or the Wrigley Celebrates 100 Years set. I may not.
I'd like to build a 2017 Vogelbach rainbow. I may not. I think that depends more on Topps than me. We shall see.

All of the aforementioned are on my radar, but for whatever reason I don't feel the need to make a list and cross things off. It's kind of refreshing.

Collect, but do it your way. And, enjoy what 2017 has to bring.  Happy New Year!