Collection Growth Over the Year

With 2017 in the books I can take a look back and see how the Cubs collection grew over the year.  To do this I use the numbers in the Five Random Cubs Cards posts. 

I came into the year with 14,554 Cubs.  The total Cubs listed in the Five Random post on December 31 was 15,291.  That means I added 737 new Cubs cards in 2017.  That one of my better totals over the past couple years.

The chart shows four points per year.  You can see how over the years the growth has been relatively steady.  There was a steeper climb in the early years as I was catching up from all the years I was out, but since 2013 the growth has been fairly similar each quarter.

I also track the number of complete brands I've got and right now I'm at 128.  That was a jump from the 109 at the start of the year.  The big jump was due to a decision I made last winter.  Previously I had lumped all of the Topps retail brands into one group.  In January I decided to split each of them into separate brands.

Over the year I also added several smaller brands, so my overall increase was 19 brands.