“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,….”
Charles Dickes, A Tale of Two Cities
From a TTM perspective, June was an amazing month. To give that some more detail, it was the best month I think I’ve ever had. I got a record number of returns and I think a record number of cards back as well.
But all of that is tainted by the death of a friend. I mentioned this in posts last month, but it was hard. One of my employees at work, a manager of one of my teams, had a heart attach while riding his bicycle and passed away suddenly on a Saturday morning. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do for work and as a manager to call his team members and tell them.
I talked to him at least once a week during all this working from home. I used to get to see he a lot more frequently when we were all in the office together. But he was around my age and really tried to take care of himself. So not only was it shocking, upsetting, and sad. It was also scary and a reminder. And to add to all of it was all that we have going on in the world right now.
These are the times that I’m glad that I have a hobby. I’ve lost other hobbies that I share with other people (like my band) since we can’t be together. So it was nice to have TTMing and the blog to take my mind off some things as I dealt with it. And like I said, it was a good month. I’m sure that helped.
Let’s dig into the numbers.
The Monthly Numbers
Last month I talked about the consistency I had. This month was consistent as far as receiving them daily, but a lot more up and down regarding what I got every day. I only missed four days last month. At least four days that were days that I should get mail (i.e. not counting Sundays which are in the graphic below).
A six return day on 6/8, two five return days on 6/2 and 6/18, and then four other days with four returns. Those are some great high points for the month. And I had only one failure (Steve Cooke). I don’t know what I did on that one. I probably took a chance on an old address.
Another big spike for the Junk Wax era shouldn’t be a surprise. It was a little later (1990) this time and that was mostly due to football returns. But there’s always those little spikes that I get a lot of joy from like the ones for 1978 and 1980.
It might be hard to see, but there are some little “speed bumps” down there in more recent years. I would have loved for those to be a little more like the speed bumps in my neighborhood, which are too big for me.
Yeah, yeah… Topps on top.
Last month Baltimore absolutely killed it. That really didn’t happen this month, and more on that later. But what I noticed when putting the data together this month is that Baltimore is now the city represented the most for me in this years returns. And it’s not even close. The next city down is like 15 or 20 returns less.
This month was a lot more consistent between the cities represented on the top returns. Oakland pulled into the lead individually with 12 and then the next seven have 11 and 10 returns. As much as I like running the metrics and seeing a city I didn’t expect come out on top, I think seeing the results spread out probably make me feel better about the month.
Here are the Top 10 individual teams for the month (by cards returned):
- Oakland Athletics – 12
- Chicago White Sox – 11
- Detroit Tigers – 11
- Milwaukee Brewers – 11
- Minnesota Twins – 11
- Baltimore Orioles – 10
- Chicago Cubs – 10
- Cleveland Indians – 10
- Three teams with 8
Getting Trendy
62 means that June was by best month yet. This year and maybe ever. I haven’t gone through all my historical numbers and plugged them into the way I do the metrics these days. But I can’t believe there would be a better month. I’ll say the same things I’ve said in recent months. Putting the work in on the research and maybe taking more educated chances than just plain chances is really helping my numbers.
Another good month for football in June. The basketball returns took a little jump too. Baseball returns were of course good. I know this is not the way to think about it (because it’s now how it went), but it’s like football and basketball were the “gravy” for me this month.
211 cards is another big number coming in my biggest month yet. I posted a picture of the stack of cards on Instagram and Twitter (follow me at @bravestarrcards on both) and the stack goes higher than a card standing up in portrait view.
The Overall Numbers
62 total returns with 211 cards coming back was a great month. I know I’ve probably written those numbers a lot in this post, but I love writing them… 62/211, 62/211,…. I’ve had months close to that in total cards, but not the returns. And the returns are the good side and show that things are working for me.
From a Year-over-Year outlook I was better than a pretty good month last year… 58% better after 39 returns last June. And I was 45% better in total cards after having 145 in returns from last year. I am getting so close to passing last year’s total numbers. I think it will be two more more months (but probably the beginning of the second month) that I’ll pass last years totals.
He’s Making a List
I paid for a couple more autographs this month. There’s still one of those outstanding, but the others came back already. There are a lot of affordable autographs you can go for out there that are worth a try. I don’t know if I’ll be able to “correct” my only failure, so I’ll have to wait on trying Steve Cookie again
My favorite returns for this month from both a score and interest perspective were Eric Metcalf, Ricky Proehl, Rich Camarillo, Scott Brooks, BJ Armstrong, Tom Herr. I also tried a few current players at home addresses. So far I’ve only received one back – Sal Romano. I don’t know if I will get the others though since baseball is getting back to it.
I only had one really long return from Ricky Horton (506). My other long returns were not really too bad at all: Jim Leyland (174), Tom Brunansky (162), Mike Caldwell, (162), Dave McKay (130).
I hope you had a great month of returns as well!