Posting a quarterly update on my progress in organizing and purging helps me in a number of ways. It gives me an opportunity to look at the big picture, and helps with both motivation (if I do well) and guilt (if I don’t).
I know it’s not the most exciting subject for a post, which is why I’ve included four carefully selected oddballs.
The numbers here reflect changes since October 12th (not QUITE quarterly this time around)…
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Regular readers of The Shlabotnik Report will remember that I bought two large boxes of cards back a couple of months ago. Because I knew that the vast majority of those cards would be coming in and going back out, I did not count those “temporary” cards in my totals… It would’ve needlessly inflated the numbers, and to be honest, I do the same thing with those junk wax cards which come in as part of a repack and immediately go into the recycling.
1989 Topps Sticker back Gary Carter
Net change in the collection since 10/12/14: +354 (519 added, 165 purged)
Net change to the # of cards in the house since 10/12/14: -5,180 (1,574 in, 6,754 out)
2001 MLB Showdown Sean Casey
In the below figures, “to date” means since I started tracking this stuff on 10/16/2011.
Total # of cards purged from the collection, to date: 10,595
Total # of cards which have left the house, to date: 41,862
Net change to the collection, to date: -2,546
Net change to the number of cards in the house, to date: -26,404
1976 Hostess Joe Coleman
Number of individual cards tracked in my Access database: 49,956
Number of cards that make up the sets flagged as completed in my Access database: 17,623
1998 Classic Update Red Travel Edition Cal Ripken
…which means I’ve got at least 67,579 cards in my collection.
Epilogue: Looking at these numbers makes me feel like I have a long way to go, but that’s good because it makes me want to be more aggressive in what I purge.
I have GOT to find a copy of that Classic Ripken, great card!
As one of those that benefited greatly from your purge, I thank you again.