After a slow April (which was kind of expected), I’m pretty disappointed with how May turned out. I figured with a refresh of the cards I was going to send out and a change in focus to hopefully gain some more successes I would have improved for May. Instead
I think I pretty much called my shot on this one. Compared to previous months. April was a bit of a disappointment. That’s not to say it was horrible. If I look at it compared to some months last year it was great. I felt like I had some momentum going though and although I might have seen this coming, I still don’t like it.
When I try to dissect why it might not have been good, I think I might see why. I didn’t send out less or anything like that. I think it has to do with the way I plan what I send out. I usually get inspired to send things out so I plan for different themes that I try to get out. For instance, I might have piles of:
- Cards for players where the oldest cards are pre-1980
- Cards for players who I have already but these are new cards
- Cards for players I haven’t sent before
I think you get the idea. Each of those piles has the ones I really want to try at the top and probably guys I have more cards of at the top as well. I think in March and April I might have been writing to guys at the bottom of those lists. Maybe they were long shots or maybe they were guys that take longer – either way I think that added up last month.
The Monthly Numbers
So yes, there were definitely some strong parts of the month. From 5/9 to 5/21 I was definitely getting some consistent returns. But in the beginning of the month and the end of the month, aside from two really good days with three and four returns, there wasn’t much to speak of.
I know some people might look at this and think that it’s good for them. So I was trying to think of a way to equate it to something else, especially the stretch at the beginning and the end of the month.
Let’s look at it like wins and losses for a team. I’m thinking of a baseball team to equate for the daily nature of that sport and receiving TTMs. Let’s say that getting a TTM on a day is a win and not getting one is a loss. I won’t even worry about Sundays or holidays since there’s no chance to get a success. Check out these streaks:
- 5/1 to 5/8: 2-5, .285 (Win Pct.)
- 5/9 to 5/21: 9-2, .818
- 5/22 to 5/31: 2-6, .250
- Overall: 13-13, .500
So I had a .500 “winning percentage” for the month with one good streak in the middle and two bad ones on the ends. I thought about taking it a step further and thinking about the number I got back like runs, but I think that’s taking this a step further than it needs to go.
Baseball certainly dominated returns this month and that’s mostly what I send out. I’ve done a better job getting some older cards out and its very nice to see some good chunks or spikes pre-1980. I still have that MAJOR gap though from the mid-to-late 90’s through more recent years. I’d love to pick that up some but it’s going to be hard if I don’t have as many doubles from that era.
That’s a whole lot of similar returns for the things less than Topps last month. I think I’ve just had a good chunk of older cards that I’ve been trying to get and those have been Topps. If you see bigger spikes in some of the others, I’m probably sending to mid-80’s to early-90’s players.
Wow that’s a lot of teams toward the upper end that have only one or two teams (or former teams) in their city. I can tell you that Houston was partly Oilers cards, but St. Louis and Atlanta are really just made up of their baseball teams for what I got back. Chicago is the big city that had the bulk of returns this time.
Here are the Top 10 by team for the month:
- Houston Astros – 10
- Chicago Cubs – 9
- St. Louis Cardinals – 6
- Atlanta Braves – 5
- Baltimore Orioles – 5
- Chicago Bears – 5
- Minnesota Vikings – 5
- New York Mets – 5
- Four team with – 4
Getting Trendy
Oh no, the “camel” in the data somehow got a little more pronounced. I need this to become a mountain range with a lot more peaks.
There were a few more Spring Training successes that came in this month and a few of them were ones that I didn’t expect to get. Some of them though were failures for guys asking for donations with two of them being from the Tigers. That must be a thing with the Tigers. But I also tried a few addresses that I could have probably taken off my list that caused some of the failures. They were just too old with not enough recent success.
While my return number was down, the number of cards I got back definitely jumped a bit.
The Overall Numbers
We’re now one month away from halfway through the year and I’ve gotten back 164 successful returns and 19 failures. My total cards in those returns is at 512 so far. Still a good year for me, but it’s not exactly where I wanted to be at this point. I think I would have hoped for closer to 200 returns at this point.
Last month I said I was doing what I could to up my game. I think I did that, but I just didn’t get the returns back. I’ve got a lot that are prepped and ready to go out so I can keep the steady stream going out to the mailbox. Just gotta see if I can keep the steady stream coming back into it.
He’s Making a List
Some of my favorites from this month were the Spring Training returns from Kyle Freeland, Danny Duffy, Mitch Garver and Mike Fiers. I’m loving that those are still coming back. I also had fun getting back both Roger Metzger and Doug Rader. They each signed a ’73 Topps card and if you know what they look like, they are almost exactly alike.
Hope you guys had a great month too! Keep at it and be patient!