2020 was a pretty crappy year for a lot of reasons, but the TTM side of my life was pretty great. I put a lot more effort into sending things out and research and I think it paid off in the amount of TTMs I got back as well as the consistency with which I got them back. And that’s considering that TTMing current players was almost nonexistent with the way Spring Training and the season was messed up.
I didn’t meet all my goals for the year, but I blew by some of them. I’m just pushing some to the new year and see how that goes. Hopefully a busy year of my real job that’s coming (at least for the first half of the year) won’t get in the way.
This will be like my monthly reviews, but it will have a little extra. I’m going to update my goals and I’m going to try to push myself just a little bit further.
Here’s a look back at 2020…
Taking It From The Top…
The evolution of my goals in the last few years have been based on volume. In 2018 I was only hoping to get to a “one per day” ratio I was able to just get that in there. I don’t remember it being a specific goal but something that I was aiming for after I got going during the year. In 2019 my documented goal was to get to 1.5 returns per day and I didn’t get there. For 2020 I refocused around my 2019 goal and was successful
This year I was at a ratio of 1.76 returns per day. It took sending out a lot more and doing some better research to make it happen but pretty much had it every month and was only just sneaking it in for two months out of the whole year (January and April).
I was also looking to produce a little more consistency between months. In 2019 I had a high month of 45 and a low month of 26. This year I had a high of 62 and a lows of 45. So the split of 19 dropped to 17. That doesn’t feel that significant. But just looking at my chart below, it’s got a more consistent feel than it did last year. If you drop a couple outlier months I was between 53 and 59 successes consistently.
Because the numbers are lower, the failures look bigger in the grand scheme but I only had 13 more total. But given I had 32 in 2019 that is a bigger jump percentage wise. Those remained surprising consistent in some ways. But again, smaller numbers in general make it look consistent compared to successes.
Overall Here’s where my yearly totals ended up for 2020 with a comparison to 2019:
- Successful Returns: 644 (+50%)
- Failures: 45 (+40%)
- Total Cards Returned: 2227 (+58%)
The Year-Over-Year number is what I was really interested in looking at this year. So those percentages got to be really fun to look at.
One percentage I had a lot of fun looking at from a Year-Over-Year perspective was the total cards that were coming back. I blew past my 1,500 card goal in September and ended up getting almost 60% more cards back than in 2019. I hadn’t actually looked at it until putting this together but in 2019 I average 3.9 cards per day and in 2020 I averaged 6.1 – nice improvement!
TTM Aging – Ain’t Nothin’ But A Number
There are “quickies” and there are “stragglers” and which you get depends a lot on a lot of things. For the folks that sign quicker, usually they are just people that sign regularly and you are always catching them. It’s probably mostly luck and where they are in the world compared to you.
Here are the quick ones (if there’s no link I haven’t gotten to posting it yet):
- 5 Days: Tom Herr, Harold Baines, John Wehner
- 6 Days: Larry Bowa, Barry Bonnell, John Stefero, Ken Singleton, Sid Bream, Luis Gomez, Tommy Greene, Brian Meyer
I had so many more cards out and coming back than last year I’m only going to list the quickest two days.
There were definitely a few stragglers. I always wonder where these things are kept for the years they wait to be signed. I’m going to keep my list to those over 900 days out:
- 1149 Days: Danny Espinosa
- 1001 Days: Stephen Gostkowski
- 972 Days: Wade Davis
- 933 Days: John Beck
- 932 Days: Lee Tunnell
The Cards That Came Back
What should be under the headline of “Big Surprise Dummy,” baseball was the top sport to come back. As a matter of fact, I got less football back this year (102) than I did last year (110). I got a few more basketball, but it was really only a few for basketball on the whole anyway.
Oddly enough, last year I got back some celebrity/other autographs in December this year and the same thing happened last year. Maybe I go through a cycle in my thinking at the end of the year that makes me think of sending those out.
The Junk Wax era rules the heat map as always. But this year is slightly heavier down on the older end of the map. I definitely increased the 70’s era of my collection. Even through the mid-80’s saw increases.
On the other end of the spectrum, my newer returns went down. I started filling in the gap after 1995, but without the Spring Training returns I had in the past, there were no larger spikes for cards from the last three years or so like there usually are.
The top 10 sets I have are all baseball and mostly Topps. I think the part of this I like the most are the increase in 1986 Topps and 1987 Donruss. Those were to wax boxes I got that increased the numbers I could send out for those sets.
1978 and 1979 Topps were at the top last year and I was really surprised to see them so far ahead again. I knew there were a lot that came back from those sets but I figured the other sets caught up to them. I guess the old “rising tide raises all ships” saying is in effect here.
What Else About These Cards
I look at more than what comes back when and what set it is though. Regarding inscriptions, personalization and the addition of numbers, that’s all in my data too. I could “Best Wishes” and other messages as inscriptions but I would bet others would put that in the personalization category.
Here’s a look at what all of those combinations were like last year:
Blue always seems like the preferred marker choice and that shows up in the data. But this year the percentage went up a bit. Last year is was around 70% blue and this year it’s better than 75%. In addition to that, last year I got back a red signature but this year I got red, purple, green as other colors.
I do find it funny that so far in 2021, black is the preferred marker. I’m sure that will go back to blue though unless there is some worldwide shortage of blue markers.
If you read my monthly updates regularly you know that I like to follow the teams and cities that are represented on the cards. In 2019 the Astros, Red Sox, Brewers, Rangers and Cardinals were the Top 5 teams and they had 4 to 58 cards for the year. This year the Top 5 exploded and ranged from 83 to 115 cards. The Orioles, Rangers, Pirates, and Mariners all repeated among the Top 10.
When the Cubs AND White Sox make the Top 10 for team, you should guess that Chicago will come through as the top city I got back. While the Mets were in the Top 5, it didn’t stop Los Angeles/Anaheim from a tie for second with New York. But I do love it that the smaller markets showed up in the list, even though the numbers might be smaller in the end.
But Did These People Amount To Anything?
I keep track of are all of the accomplishments and accolades of the people I have signatures of. Here’s a pretty good list of what I got back by sport:
Baseball:
- 453 Players
- 114 All-Stars with 302 All-Star Game Appearances
- 32 Gold Glove Winners with 97 Gold Glove Awards
- 24 Silver Slugger Winners with 59 Silver Slugger Awards
- 159 Pennant Winners with 263 Pennants
- 99 World Series Champions with 134 World Series Championships
- 8 Rookie of the Year Winners
- 10 Manager of the Year Winners with 22 Manager of the Year Awards
- 7 MVP Winners with 8 MVP Awards
- 8 Cy Young Winners with 11 Cy Young Awards
- 4 Championship Series MVP Winners with 5 Championship Series MVPs
- 4 World Series MVP Winners with 4 World Series MVPs
- 11 Hall of Famers
- 1 Golden Spike Award Winner
- 1 World Baseball Classic Gold Medal Winner
- 4 Roberto Clemente Award Winners
- 8 Olympic Medalists with 3 Golds, 4 Silvers, and 1 Bronze
Football:
- 102 Players
- 8 winners of college football awards
- 9 winners of the College Football National Championship
- 2 Heisman Winners with 2 Heisman Awards
- 10 members of the College Football Hall of Fame
- 33 All-Pros with 77 All-Pro selections
- 50 Pro Bowlers with 143 Pro Bowl selections
- 1 Pro Bowl MVP
- 3 Defensive Rookie of the Year Award winners
- 2 Defensive Player of the Year Award winners
- 1 Player of the Year Award winner
- 1 Coach of the Year Award winner
- 66 Super Bowl appearances with 38 Super Bowl wins
- 1 Hall of Famer
- 6 members of All Decade teams (2 80s, 3 90s, 1 00s)
- 1 Starr Man of the Year Award winner
- 2 Grey Cup Champions
- 1 Grey Cup MVP
Basketball:
- 9 Players
- 1 NCAA Champion
- 1 Final Four player with 2 Final Four appearances
- 4 NBA All-Stars with 14 All-Star appearances
- 1 NBA Second-Team, 1 NBA Third-Team
- 2 NBA Defensive Second-Team
- 11 NBA Finals appearances with 8 NBA Championships
- 1 NBA All-Rookie Team member
- 1 NBA Coach of the Year
- 1 Hall of Famer
- 1 Olympic Bronze Medal
- 1 World Champion
Speed Skating:
- 1 Skater
- 1 Olympic Medalist with 5 Golds and a Bronze
- 1 World Champion with 3 World Championships
So What Were My Favorites?
I look at favorites a couple different way. I look at it from a score perspective, but also for who they are or what they might represent to me. I actually scored a bunch or cards a 9 so I’m only going to list those. It doesn’t mean the return averaged that, but it would mean that a card in the return I rated that high individually. If you don’t see a link below I just haven’t posted it yet.
- Bryn Smith – 1992 Fleer Ultra
- Zane Smith – 1992 Fleer Ultra
- Ken Hill – 1993 Upper Deck
- Steve Pearce – 2019 Topps Heritage
- Zane Smith – 1990 Leaf
- Frank Viola – 1993 Upper Deck
- Ricky Proehl – 1991 Pro Line
- Scott Studwell – 1991 Pro Set
- Lary Sorensen – 1978 Topps
- Dan Pasqua – 1987 Donruss
- John Olerud – 1998 Fleer Tradition
- Rocket Ismail – 1991 Pro Set
- Charlie Ward – 8X10″
- John Matlack – 1978 Topps
- Del Unser – 1973 Topps
As for the others are favorites but not for the score, I would put up some of the Hall of Famers I got in that category. Ryne Sandberg, Wade Boggs, and Andre Dawson are all in that category. And I got back some fun Mets from my childhood like Jesse Orosco as well. There was definitely a lot to like.
What’s Next?
Time to make some new goals for next year. But first, let’s take a quick look at my 2020 goals:
TTMs:
- Averaging 1.5 Returns Per Day – DONE
- 1500 cards – DONE
- Break Into Hockey – NOPE
Blogging:
- Start the Review/Preview – DONE
- More Old Wax Box Posts – DONE
- More Collection Posts – NOPE
- A Series Post – NOPE
I didn’t break into hockey last year but I’m making some moves for that to happen this year. As for posting, I did posts about my collection, but not the way I was thinking and it wasn’t enough to meet that one. I also didn’t do the series of posts I was hoping for so hopefully I can change that.
Here’s what I’m shooting for this year:
TTMs:
- 2500 Cards – I was within 300 of this in 2020 so I think it’s doable, but I think this is pretty lofty for me. This will change if my sending habits have to change for budget reasons.
- Break Into Hockey – This will definitely happen this year.
- TTM Trades – I have a lot of doubles and I know there are people out there who are building some sets or have some needs. I’d like to post what I have available for trade and get a few more trades in next year.
Blogging:
- More Collection Posts – I’m rolling this into the new year because I have a couple things planned. Not that it means I’ll get to them though.
- A Series Post – I also have things planned here but who knows if it will happen. Gotta keep it on here though to keep shooting for it.
- Update Branding – I’d like to update all my branding and my logo at some point this year. I just want to change it up a little bit.
- Expand Social Media – I think I’ll be trying to post to Facebook as well, but I think this one is one of the least likely for me to do.
- Update Set Needs – I have some sets that I am one or two off from completing and I’d like to get those done. The problem is I haven’t really tracked them like I wanted to.
To close it all out, thank anyone who reads my posts. I really appreciate all the hits and likes and everything you have for me. I hope you have another great year of collecting and/or TTMing too! Whatever you do and wherever your collecting interest lies, I hope it’s successful.