Childhood brain explode

I mentioned this in my January returns wrap up but it deserves to be its own post. Where my childhood collecting goal was to get one card from every set, I’m fast approaching a place where I’ll accomplish my childhood goal with autographed cards. This hasn’t been an explicit project or anything it’s just been mostly organic growth as a result of my autograph hobby.

Taking a look at Topps right now. As a kid I had cards from 1960–1994 (minus 1965). Right now? 1957–1997 minus 1971, 1975, 1982, and 1996—three years with facsimile signatures and one that’s past my childhood window.

I don’t like the facsimile signature thing but the double signature doesn’t look awful in the 1959, 1967, and 1977s here. I do like that my 1980 card is a non-facsimile card and I’ll likely find a way to get the three years I don’t have. I also expect to gradually add more-recent cards to this. I have a decent number of 1997 but there’s multi-year gap before I get to them.

It’s fun to see a sample of everything all together so I figured I’d do this with the other flagship brands from my youth.

Donruss is one where I have a sample from 1981–1993. No 1994s. Go figure. I don’t usually pick Donruss designs for autograph requests although 1986–1989 tends to feature decent photos. The printing though is frequently super dark and not the best for showing off a signature.

Fleer is a better autograph card. Even 1982 with its disastrous photography frames things pretty nicely. I just haven’t been able to bring myself to get 1991 signed and for some reason haven’t gotten any 1993s either. Everything else from 1981–1994 is here though.

I’ve also gone ahead and done the rest of the Fleer run since there are no multi-year gaps here. Post-strike I’m just missing 1995, 1998, and 2001 which brings me to missing five years total from the 1981–2003 run.

Score is the first manufacturer where I have a complete run of examples even extending past my childhood collecting. It’s helped by only starting in 1988 but I have signed cards from there through 1995. I frequently like how Score signs although I shy away from the 1992 design.

Upper Deck, especially the 1990–1993 run, is a other favorite of mine. Like Score I have samples into 1995. Unlike Score, that Upper Deck rivals Topps as the card of record up until 2010 means I have a decent shot of carrying the run forward. Upper Deck’s designs have also meant that, like Fleer, I’ve accumulated a decent number of autographed samples for the post-strike years too. For the run from 1989–2007, I’m missing just 1996, 2000, and 2005.

As I said at the beginning, this isn’t something I’m doing on purpose. But it’s definitely something that’s a lot of fun to keep track of. My childhood brain wasn’t even able to conceive of accomplishing something like this and in this hobby it’s always good to remind myself to keep that sense of wonder in mind.