Sometime last year I picked up the last card I needed for my 1980 Topps set, placed it into its nine-pocket, and then took my well earned victory flip through the binder of majestic completed pages…only to find a page with a missing card. Dewey defeats Truman. Defeat from the jaws of victory. Bird steals the inbound pass.
Completing a set without actually completing a set is just one of the many cardboard errors I’ve made lately. Here are three more.
My largest player collection (by about 600) is the 700+ playing era cards I have of Dwight Gooden. For whatever reason, I decided a couple years back that the card at the very top of my Dr. K want list was Doc’s 1986 Meadow Gold milk carton “sketch” card.
I’d seen the card on eBay in the $10 range for a while, but you don’t amass 700+ cards of a guy by paying $10 each. At last one turned up for more like $3 and I couldn’t hit “Buy It Now” fast enough. When the card arrived I was genuinely excited to add it to my binder, only to find…
…I already had the card!
Just two weeks later, I “doubled” down by adding a card I thought I needed for my 1972 Fleer Laughlin Famous Feats set.
And again…
On the bright side, it’s not like these cards cost me real money. I’d never make the same mistake adding this Kaiser Wilhelm to my T206 Brooklyn team set, right?
Oops. Think again.
Of course what Hobbyist hasn’t accidentally added the occasional double or two…or three? Probably most, but how many could pull off the feat three times in one month?
In the corporate world, bosses would be calling for a root cause analysis and demanding corrective action. Am I simply getting old? Do I have too many different collections going? Have I gotten lazy at updating my want lists? In truth, probably yes to all three.
As a kid, and I think this was true of most die-hard collectors, I could open a pack and instantly know which cards I needed and which were doubles. I could do the same at card shows, looking through a dealer binder or display case. When it came to cards I had total recall. Evidently such cardboard lucidity is long gone, and it’s probably not a stretch to assume the same degradations have spread to various areas of adulting.
On the other hand, it’s also true that my purchases had much more riding on them back then. For one thing, every nickel, dime, and quarter were precious. Spending $0.50 on a 1963 Topps Ernie Banks (ah, the good old days!) when your entire card show budget (i.e., life savings) was $3.80 “borrowed” from various sources around the house was high finance. Add to that baseball cards being the only thing I thought or cared about, and it makes sense that I always batted a thousand.
An eternal optimist, it’s just not my nature to brand my “triple double” as what some collectors might bill a #HobbyFail. Rather, I’ll take solace in the adage errare humanum est and remember that it’s not the mistakes we make but how we respond to them that defines our true character. As a kid I would have sulked for weeks having committed even one of these blunders. Today I can laugh (and write) about them. Call these senior moments if you will, but isn’t”growing up” just a bit more pleasing to the ear?
Now does anyone wanna trade me a T205 Wilhelm for a T206?
UPDATE: The Wilhelm is no longer available for trade! About an hour after publishing this post the seller contacted me to let me know he’d accidentally sold it to someone else already. I guess I’m not the only one losing track of his cards these days! 😊
SABR's Baseball Cards Research Committee 
Don’t be too hard on yourself. I bought 2 1959 Al Kaline All-Star cards within a couple weeks of each other last Spring.
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There are worse cards to have two of! 😀
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I know I’m not alone in this… I’ve received a shipment of cards from COMC and discovered that I’d inadvertently bought *and shipped* two of the same card
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Ha ha – that’s a hilarious update. Great post – love the collections you have going and how you relate back to childhood. The Meadow Gold Gooden ‘card’ is hardcore! Those senior moments sure are relatable too. Occasionally I go the self-inflicted route: just bought two ’72 Rennie Stennetts and two ’72 World Series Game 6 cards because I couldn’t decide which ones were ‘best’ by looking at the eBay pictures. Crikey.
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I once bought two 1967 Clemente cards.
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No error there! That’s called winning! 🏆
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I’ve accepted the fact that at least 3% of what I buy will already be in my collection even though my lists say different.
I’m currently selling the 2nd 1964 Tops in NL Aaron/Mays card that I picked up several years ago. The upside is, they go for about $60-75 and more now, but I probably bought it for less than half that…
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I hear ya and can empathize. My most common “AARP moments” (I am old enough for AARP, but not a senior yet…) generally involve me buying a card on eBay or Beckett Marketplace or COMC and then buying it again before the first one arrives, since I don’t like to cross a card off my Word want list until it actually arrives. I now highlight in yellow cards that are on order, but I’m not always looking at the latest version when I have a printout. That’s my root cause analysis. Some sellers will allow you to send them back, at least. But USPS rates have made that less and less practical.
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