Since about mid-April I’ve been planning the next round of TTM requests that I was going to get out. Like a lot of things I do, I go overboard with it a little bit. But I like to think that what I do helps me get a consistent stream of returns, break up the work a bit more, and then ends up benefiting me by restoring my energy. I know that last part sounds odd but bear with me.
The process starts with going through boxes of doubles, going through information online, and then going through more boxes of cards that I already had set aside for TTMs… and then more going through cards later.
It’s definitely an iterative process of going through cards but it ends up getting to me to what I want to settle on for my next round. I know that sounds like a round might be small. But a round of planned attempts could last me several months. And hopefully with sending our 2-3 a day it means I get back a steady stream. Also, planning a little bit breaks up the types of cards I am sending out and hopefully getting back.
My piles for this round ended up being:
- Recent Successes: This involves me going through my Twitter and IG feeds to check recent successes others have had.
- Recent(ish) Attempts: These come from my own recent(ish) attempts that I’ve had success with and have more cards for them.
- Old Successes: This is me going through older successes from years ago that I want to attempt again.
- New Attempts / Old Cards: These are for guys that I know sign but I’ve never attempted them and their cards are older than 1980.
- New Attempts / 80’s Cards: Same as the above but their cards are mostly from the 80’s.
- New Attempts / Newer Cards: Again, same as the above, but their cards are after 1990 and usually the newer the better.
- Football: This is basically a version of all the above mixed up for football (and maybe a little bit of basket ball mixed in).
My hope is that all of this generates some good returns obviously. Well, in mid-May I started sending this batch out and I’ve already started getting some back! All that is to say it helps to see the work I put in to my hobby paying off. It gives me a new energy to keep it going. I feel like having something to look forward to and to WANT to do it not bad these days.
Let’s take a look at the May numbers.
The Monthly Numbers
The consistency of my numbers in May was exciting to see. I kind of had a feeling in the middle of the month that I was headed for a good month. I think if I could have taken out the weekends and holiday (non-mail days) in the numbers below it would have looked even better. There’s only a few failures in there but that’s going to happen with as many as I’m sending out. And a couple of those were me just plain messing up an address.
I think my favorite part of the month was 5/7 – 5/19. I got something on every mail day and of the the 11 mail days, there were three four-return days and four three-return days.
Last month there was a good spike in the day in the junk wax era. This month it’s even more pronounced than it has been previously. ’88-’89 was definitely where basically hit the mark below and ’90-’91 was HUGE for football this month. Those years alone are what helped football go crazy and make it a more even month by sport than usually (you’ll see more of that later).
As always Topps rules, but you can see how the football brands (Pro set, Pacific and Pro Line) really brought strength to that sport’s returns. Fleer and Score were also major players in that area.
Rise up Baltimore! Not that they aren’t doing that right now. I don’t really think about what I am sending out by team, except for the Mets. But I had a ton of Orioles cards come back this month. The only other team close to them was a third of their total (San Francisco Giants) and the only other cities close to them were about half of their total (New York and San Francisco/Oakland). I went back and checked and those 29 cards were over eight returns.
Here are the Top 10 individual teams for the month (by cards returned):
- Baltimore Orioles – 29
- San Francisco – 10
- Minnesota Vikings – 9
- Pittsburgh Pirates – 9
- Chicago Cubs – 7
- Cleveland Indians – 7
- Buffalo Bills – 6
- Texas Rangers – 6
- Toronto Blue Jays – 6
- Five teams with 5
Getting Trendy
55 total returns topped February and March’s dual 53s. That’s closing in on a two-per-day average. I definitely know there is no way to keep that up. I’ve been having a pretty goo success rate lately but at this point I just don’t think that is possible unless I send out a whole lot more attempts. Those failures are still pretty consistent so I’m not making too many mistakes or sending too many crazy attempts.
I thought football was good in April, but you can see that May was even better. There was a lot closer to even split. But consider that I am only really sending out football as every seventh card I send, you’d think the totals would end up being a lot different. I didn’t do anything to push up that total other than maybe planning well.
You might thing that more successes equal more cards, but May wasn’t the case for that. Don’t get me wrong it was still an amazing total of 182 to match the previous month. But I will say that I’m getting to some attempts where I might not have the normal amount of cards I like to send out for guys so then there’s more chance for the total cards to be lower.
The Overall Numbers
In total I had 55 returns that brought back 182 cards. I went back through 2019’s numbers and I didn’t have any months close to what I’ve been getting back this year at all. So this was definitely the best month I’ve had in a really long time.
As for how it looks from a Year-over-Year perspective. Last may I had a 26 return month so I more than doubled that. And as far as returns go, I am way more than 50% of last year and we still have another month to be halfway through the year. In fact, I am at almost 60% of last years return totals.
As for total cards, I am in even better shape. I have about 600 cards to go before matching last year’s total. I’m at better than 60% of that total right now. If I continue a the pace I am on I should be there in maybe four months (conservatively). But I’m still not counting on my pace holding up even though I like where I am from a planning perspective.
He’s Making a List
This month I did something a little different. I actually paid for a couple TTMs for the first time in a while. I sent out to Boggs, Sandberg and Dawson and got returns from them all. I had planned to do that a bit more this year and I finally went ahead and jumped in. There are definitely a few more I will do this year. I just don’t know when I will actually get tot them.
Speaking of Andre Dawson, he was one of my higher rated returns this month along with Scott Studwell and Ron Cey. You’ll see those coming up in my feed at some point (but who knows when!). Some other favorites I had for different reasons were Walt Suggs, Scott Bailes, Kyle Hendricks, Randy Cross, Doug DeCinces, and Jay Bell.
I had a few longer returns. Kyle Hendrix led that group at 813 days. Jim Morrison (669) and Kevin Maas (515) were the next closest to that range. Other than that Erik McMillan and Frank White were in the 300+ range.
Hope everyone else had a great month too!