I just managed to get my yearly Topps Factory set from the pops this year. I am probably the complete antithesis of everybody here. I hate all the insert sets, I can't stand the parallel sets, and the SP varieties of cards make me want to hurl. Heh. I guess I'm too old fashioned of a collector. (31 years old). But the factory set was nice as now my collection is complete from 1980-2011. With finances received from the holiday, I was able to go back and get the 2011 Update set from eBay, unopened hobby packs from each series this year, and a bunch of "true" parallel sets. (In addition to my set collection of Base Topps Sets, I also collected the standard packs from each year. It's nice seeing the sets in the binders with the unopened wax/foil pack right in front. Getting the 1985 Topps Traded unopened pack was a bit of a pain though).
So I took the spare money leftover and got me the 1991 Topps and Topps Traded Tiffany sets (factory sealed), 1990 Topps Traded Tiffany (factory sealed), 1987-1990 Topps Tiffany sets (factory sealed), and an unsealed 1986 Topps Tiffany set. For the '84-'85 sets, as well as the traded sets from 84-89, I know where I can purchase those and just need to work up the funds. Still, it's nice being able to get those sets from back in the day to go with the 2000-2002 "Tiffany" sets Topps put out that I picked up for basically the price of shipping a while ago.
Still sickens me these days knowing that it will be almost impossible to get "complete" sets of Topps baseball cards due to random SP inserts/variations, 8 different versions of base cards, etc. etc. Yes, I know having just one of those versions of that card number makes it "complete", but not to me it doesn't. If a card set has 660 numbers in it, but there are 700 cards printed to make up the set, then the complete set has 700 cards. Thanks to Topps method of oversaturating the sets to the point where there are more inserts/parallels than there are basecards, it looks like my hobby days are coming to an end. At least, the days where I could actually accomplish getting a complete set of cards. I now have to go to the days of collecting 95% complete sets.
So I took the spare money leftover and got me the 1991 Topps and Topps Traded Tiffany sets (factory sealed), 1990 Topps Traded Tiffany (factory sealed), 1987-1990 Topps Tiffany sets (factory sealed), and an unsealed 1986 Topps Tiffany set. For the '84-'85 sets, as well as the traded sets from 84-89, I know where I can purchase those and just need to work up the funds. Still, it's nice being able to get those sets from back in the day to go with the 2000-2002 "Tiffany" sets Topps put out that I picked up for basically the price of shipping a while ago.
Still sickens me these days knowing that it will be almost impossible to get "complete" sets of Topps baseball cards due to random SP inserts/variations, 8 different versions of base cards, etc. etc. Yes, I know having just one of those versions of that card number makes it "complete", but not to me it doesn't. If a card set has 660 numbers in it, but there are 700 cards printed to make up the set, then the complete set has 700 cards. Thanks to Topps method of oversaturating the sets to the point where there are more inserts/parallels than there are basecards, it looks like my hobby days are coming to an end. At least, the days where I could actually accomplish getting a complete set of cards. I now have to go to the days of collecting 95% complete sets.