It was my daughter’s birthday this past weekend and she turned 13. It was kind of sad to not be able to throw a bigger party (not that she would want that) and to have to think about still keeping things safe. We didn’t even bother asking friends because that could get odd. I honestly don’t know how I would feel if someone asks us to come to a party. I probably wouldn’t go much less send my kid.
In the end we went with a small family gathering around the firepit with some local family. Even though we were all outside we kept masks on because there was food involved. Of course we had a good time. I mean, how can you pass up s’mores and pumpkin pie (my kid picked pumpkin pie over cake… cuz awesome!). But it was good to catch up.
It was odd though to feel weird about being near people and giving them space. I think because we are family we kind of felt it with each other that we wanted to try to be careful.
Has anyone else had gatherings? Have you felt weird or just even bothered?
Hope everyone is staying healthy!
The Monthly Numbers
The good news about September is that I didn’t feel like I had the mail struggles like I did in previous months. I didn’t have Informed Delivery lying to me or the mail just plain not showing up. But I will say that first big day was actually a makeup for the last time I had an issue on August 31st. So without that it probably would have been a much slower month.
You can see the gaps in days between some of my returns. Man, do those gaps feel weeks long as I go through them. I know everybody gets things back at a different rate because they send them out at a different rate, but those are the times you start thinking, “am I going to get anything again?”
Mount 1991 looks like it’s back for a second month in a row. I think it actually might be Mount 1990. Either way, the junk wax era was in full effect last month.
The oddest return is probably the 2007 and 2008 Topps cards for football. Those were from John Beck and were out for maybe two years. I don’t have many from then and for that reason I don’t send out many from those years so it’s always a little out of the blue when they come back.
Sometimes I wonder about the obvious one sport returns I have. I’m not sure what I really wonder, but I just think about it when I look at all the stats like this. Like Pro Set and Pacific are pretty much only football. It’s the opposite with Donruss and Leaf being only baseball. I know that isn’t all those guys made but those tend to be the returns I get for them.
A few teams stayed in the Top 10 that I wouldn’t expect to. But Chicago really took the month this time. That was mostly driven by the monster 18 returns just from the White Sox alone. But Atlanta, Boston, and Kansas City were all still up there pretty high after having a strong month in August too.
Here are the Top 10 individual teams for the month (by cards returned):
- Chicago White Sox – 18
- Pittsburgh Pirates – 14
- Atlanta Braves – 12
- Boston Red Sox – 12
- Kansas City Royals – 11
- St. Louis Cardinals – 11
- New York Mets – 10
- California Angels – 8
- San Francisco Giants – 7
- Texas Rangers – 7
Getting Trendy
It was a little bit of a down month with 51 returns. I think last year I would have killed for that. But this year that is actually the second lowest monthly total I had all year. I keep on going up and down a little bit these last couple month. I think if there is a pattern here it probably means I’ll have something like 53 returns this month. That’s what I’d put the over/under at anyway.
The failures jumped a bit. The theme behind most of those were returns because guys charge and I either didn’t pay attention to it or they are sort of changing their policy. I think I’m seeing more and more do that lately.
You can see how hardcore baseball I’ve been. I’m just running out of football and basketball to send. But I’m about to get into a new list to go through so hopefully I’ll find some new stuff to send out.
Total cards for the month wasn’t actually too bad. It was almost in line with last month with only a 10 card drop. It helped me break the 1500 card barrier though which felt great.
The Overall Numbers
I had 51 successful returns with 182 card coming back overall. 51 cards would have been a monthly high for last year, but as I mentioned earlier it only makes it the second highest total for a month this year. And 182 cards coming back has been a theme this year so far as I had two other months at 182 and it’s tied for fourth as far as a monthly number goes.
As for the Year-over-Year numbers this whole year is looking really good. It was 45% better than what I got back for September last year and the card totals for the month were 42% over. I guess it makes sense that those numbers kind of go hand in hand. I’m at 11% better overall for the year in successes and 16% better in cards. That for the year so I am already going to blow last year out of the water.
He’s Making a List
For my favorites this month, I think Ron Swoboda tops the list. As a Mets fan if you can get back a ’69 Met I think that takes the cake. But for some of my other favorites I’d put Roger Craig (who seems like he might have stopped signing now), Charlie Hough, Greg Swindell (a surprise), Del Unser, Sid Bream, and Randy Jones. There were definitely some cool signatures coming back this month.
I detailed in in a Weekly Review / Preview post a couple weeks ago, but I had some really long recent returns. John Beck at 933 and Tim Foli at 825 were tops on that list. Other than that there were a few 300 and 200 day returns too. I love getting those old ones back as a surprise.
Wishing you more happy returns for the rest of the year!