State of the Collection, Part II

Yesterday I focused on the different Cubs team sets I added to my collection. Today, I like to talk about the state of my complete set collection.

When the year began my complete set collection consisted of Topps from 1969 - 2008, Fleer 1981-1982, and Donruss 1981-1982.

Putting Cubs team sets together from other brands gave me the chance to see these cards and learn about them. They weren't as bad as I thought they might be. So I decided to try to get the first year complete set from any of the brands that were in my complete Cubs collection.

Confession time: When I put a set together, I try to do it all at once. I don't have the patience to do it a few cards at a time. I want/need the instant gratification of getting the set in a box and seeing all of those consecutive numbers on the cards. I've also found it is the most economical way to build a set.

Many of the sets I was looking for were easy to get on ebay, and cheap, too. Thanks to the overproduction for the junk wax era, I was able to get many sets today at a price lower than what the sets sold for originally in the late '80's and '90's.

A few, Cracker Jack 2004 and Goudey 2007, I had to piece together. And there are two, Turkey Red 2005 and Chrome 1996 that I am still working on. They are on my 2010 to do list.

I also picked up many other sets from the junk wax era. I just couldn't say no to a set of cards for $5.00. I ended up with several early years of Upper Deck, Bowman, and Score. I don't know if I'll keep going with those or not. Probably not.

Late in the summer I found a good deal on some of the early Fleer sets, and with that, I had another quest - the complete run of Fleer. Through the mid 1990's it was an inexpensive thing to do. But some of the later years, when they started the annoying short print thing, it got a little harder to do. But by Thanksgiving, I had that project knocked out, too.

Here is the current inventory of complete sets:

Topps 1969 - 2009, including traded and updates -- 33,989 cards, complete
Fleer 1981 - 2007, including update sets -- 13,229 cards (missing 1984 update Clemens and Puckett)
Donruss - 1981 - 1982 -- 1,265 cards

Allen and Ginter 2006 - 2009 -- 1,400 cards
Bowman 1989 - 1990 -- 1,012 cards
Collectors Choice 1994 -- 670 cards
Cracker Jack 2004 -- 250 cards
Flair 1993 -- 300 cards
Goudey 2007 -- 240 cards
Heritage 2001 -- 407 cards
Kelloggs 1970 -- 75 cards
Leaf 1985 - 1986, 1993 -- 1.078 cards
Masterpieces 2007 - 2008 -- 210 cards
Pacific 1994 -- 1995 -- 1110 cards
Pinncale 1992 -- 1993 -- 1240 cards
Score 1988 - 1993, 1998 -- 4,764 cards
Select 1993 -- 405 cards
Stadium Club 1991 - 1992 -- 1,500 cards
Studio 1994 -- 264 cards
Turkey Red 2005 -- 270 cards (missing 45 cards)
Ultra 1991 - 1992 -- 1000 cards
Upper Deck 1989 - 1993, 2008 -- 4,739 cards

That puts the compete sets total at 75,227 cards.