Most sports card enthusiasts have a player collection or ten, a short list of guys (or gals) that we'll prioritize and stash away as a 'PC'. Some of us even attempt to Super Collect one specific athlete. The Lost Collector(Tino Martinez), Collecting Cutch(Andrew McCutchen) and Zippy Zappy(Luis Torrens) come to mind. CC has ceased his pursuit of all things Cutch and ZZ has divested himself of nearly all his Torrens singles, with good reason. Super Collecting is insane!
I knew this when I started super collecting a former NHL enforcer, but I figured that Peter Worrell would have a manageable amount of cards to collect considering that he had a short career (mostly in south Florida) and was not a star. TCDB doesn't have every Worrell card counted, but a rough estimate puts his card count at about 205-210 unique singles.
Today I'm going to spotlight just two specific sets, to illustrate how chaotic super collecting can get.
2011-12 Enforcers Combatants dual relics had an announced print run of 120 copies per card. Peter Worrell was featured on two of these - one with future Hall of Fame defenseman Zdeno Chara, and one with prototypical pugilist Dennis Bonvie, who holds the career record for penalty minutes in the AHL.
Simple, but not easy. The Chara red parallel was a tough one to track down, but once I did it felt like a complete collection of Worrell cards was possible -- aside from One of Ones of course. Hold that thought.
The print run was increased to 150 per card for these base relics, but the red parallels were still 10 copies each.
My guy was still appearing on hockey cards ten years after he played his last NHL game. This pleased me as a super collector; I wasn't expecting to have any more of his cards to collect. And I assumed this unlicensed niche set would be the last one I'd have to worry about - especially when In The Game was unable to secure NHL licensing and folded in 2014.
But... two years later, the company liquidated its stock in a 2015-16 release called Final Vault. The cards ITG set aside as replacements were stamped in several different colors, creating "new" cards.
On the plus side, this allowed me to easily acquire Worrell One of Ones.
On the minus side, there were now way too many One of Ones.
In The Game used ten colors for these 1 of 1 stamps. So the base Worrell-Chara now has ten more variations and the red Worrell-Chara has ten variations. Twenty more "unique" Worrell cards to collect!
And twenty more One of Ones of Worrell and Bonvie:
And twenty more One of Ones of Worrell and Downey:
I actually don't have a Vault 1/1 of Downey, so I clicked on over to COMC and that's when I saw this:
There are two Emerald Green One of Ones?!?!? That's unpossible! No wonder In the Game went under.
The gold versions are One of One, at least according to TCDB. I have assumed this to be true since they were released. How eva..
I have a couple Worrell-related eBay searches set to notify me whenever something hits the site. Just a few days ago I was deleting the same 'Artifacts Petwer' email that yields nothing for me, when I thought to myself that I might never find another Peter card I need. There are very few non One of Ones remaining, and everything that does come up is a show-stamped parallel of the same card I already have.
That's right -- even more One of Ones!! |
But this seller had two of the EnFOURcers Superbox quads - the gold versions.
I quickly accepted that I would not be adding any more Worrell to my PC. And then I started to wonder if I was satisfied with my collection as-is. Do I really need any more cards of this long retired 4th-line enforcer? There are so many other things to collect.
One of One my ass... |
What would you do in this situation - buy the card you don't have and continue super collecting? Or let it go because the Ones of Ones are multiplying so fast that a complete collection will never be possible?
~
If something's that over budget for me I'd leave it alone for now, but that's me. Anyway, cool stuff! I think I know about this set mostly because Fuji collects it so it's cool that you do as well.
ReplyDeleteI don't know that I would consider myself a super collector, but I decided a long time ago that if I was chasing all of a player's cards, when it comes to 1 of 1s and 1 of 5s those didn't count. Now, if I was blessed to get my hands on one okay, but I sure as heck wasn't going to chase it. If you can get it great. If you can't, that's okay too. You'll still have a great collection of that player.
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ReplyDeleteLMAO... the gold Enfourcers quad I *didn't* have sold, while the one I do have is still available
ReplyDeleteThis is why I could never be a true super collector. I love my player collections, but I just don't have the money to try and own ever single card of Gwynn, Largent, or even Kurt Suzuki It's pretty disappointing to see two Vault 1 of 1 cards. Shame on In the Game for doing that to collectors.
ReplyDeleteI must admit that I'm terribly confused. It's getting so hard to keep up with modern releases. Kudos. To you for still trying, even if it is just for one player.
ReplyDeleteOne of my player collections is also someone that was considered an enforcer. I have decided to not delve into those vault cards unless they are below a certain price threshold. But it's fun to see someone that has picked up some vault cards
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