In thinking about how well I’ve been doing with returns, I’m really sorry I haven’t burned out for the year. Maybe I just got past that tougher stretch in the summer and then I started seeing the numbers go up and hey… only one month left in the year!
This has definitely been a super stressful work year with an absolutely HUGE work project and then a change in leadership in my department. I’m still not going to see the end of some of the changes we are going through. So I’m definitely burned out on work. I’m just really surprised it didn’t bleed into the hobby this year, or at least not lately.
Something I wanted to highlight for you before you get to the monthly numbers below is that I’ve added a “Recent TTM Success” page. If you are a reader of my Review / Preview posts you might already be aware of that, that is if you read it all the way to the bottom.
My goal with the page is that since I’m normally posts successes from my backlog, this is a way for you to keep up with what I am actually getting back. I try to update it on Sundays and I’ve been OK at that so far. I’ve also tried to make it interesting by grouping them in topics like “coach returns, paid returns, etc.” plus just a standard “last 30”. I hope you check it out and it helps.
Hope all is well in your world!
The Monthly Numbers
November was another great month. We’ll get into the totals in more detail later but 109 successful returns for the month just beat out October’s 108 successes. It was so close but what makes it cool is that they happened in two different ways.
October had a fourteen return day and an eleven return day that really carried a lot of the weight. Add another seven days over five and two more days that were over four and that’s eleven days with over four returns. November was a bit different. There were any days over eight, but there were seventeen days with over four returns and the highs were two days with eight returns.
You all know that you are going to see the spike, and there it is below. But as I was putting this in I did the baseball returns first. I was really surprised to see the 1993 really kept pace with 1990. Unfortunately once I added all of the other returns 1990-91 really left no chance for any other year.
This month’s spike is a lot more drastic than in previous months. There’s some spread across years, but nothing like I’ve been seeing lately.
The other thing though is that the sports aside from baseball had some really good returns and the area for those got quite a bit bigger this month.
As we look at the cities that were represented on the cards, I’ll remind you that the last few months have seen one or two cities really kill the rest of them. Not so this month. This month the spread is between the top three and there not as drastic a drop after that.
Los Angeles and New York are pretty obvious to be at the top. I think that especially the case when I add in that I’ve been attempting more from the other sports. But Cleveland being number three is nice to see. Same with Minnesota and Pittsburgh being up there.
As with the cities being a bit more spread out and not the drastic difference between the top ones, the same goes for teams. The Blue Jays, Rangers and Pirates really showed up this month. I think the ones that surprised me though were the New York Jets and then… the Quebec Nordiques. That again speaks to the era I was sending out for hockey.
Here are the Top 10 individual teams for the month (by cards returned):
- Toronto Blue Jays – 19
- Pittsburgh Pirates – 17
- Texas Rangers – 17
- Cleveland Indians – 15
- New York Jets – 15
- San Diego Padres – 15
- Cincinnati Bengals – 13
- Quebec Nordiques – 13
- Chicago White Sox, Detroit Tigers, Minnesota Twins – All ties with 12
Getting Trendy
You can barely tell the difference between October and November. That said, it’s still nice to see those blue bars staying up there. I’m keeping up the attempt rate right now so I’m really hoping that I can keep that line trending up and close out the year well. I’m a little bit worried that I’m not trying guys that are as reliable of signers at this point in my process. But I’m hoping that my strategy to get out recent successes from other is going to continue to pay off.
You might notice that the failures were up this month as well. I think that’s what I’m looking at when I think I might be in an area of what I planned to send out that might be a little less reliable for who I’m asking to sign. Maybe I’m taking a few more chances.
The spread between the sports looks great. At first when I looked at this I was seeing the blue baseball line go down and I almost felt disappointed. But then I realized how much better those other sports were from previous months. Actually it looks like maybe the best performance from other sports that I’ve had all year. Makes sense if its been my most successful month.
Last month I had to say “almost 400 cards, ” but not so this month. It was 401 cards. Unbelievable.
The Overall Numbers
November had 109 returns for 401 cards. That takes me past the 3K mark of cards for the year. I just have to keep at it in the final month of the year, then I think I’ll take a little break. Or maybe just slow down a bit.
From a Year-over-Year perspective I have 33% more returns than last year overall and the pace for the year is currently at 45% more returns. That should be a lot higher though after December. Of course the fact that I was 113% higher for November this year over last year is helpful. As for cards, I had 38% more cards than last year at this point and the pace is currently at 50% more cards. But I had 121% more cards come back for the month.
These last two months have just felt crazy. It’s the type of numbers I really wanted to see but there was a point in the summer where I didn’t think I’d get there.
He’s Making a List
The stragglers went back up a bit. The interesting one, or two actually, is Bruce Bochte. You can see I got two back from him. Those came back on the same day. I really try not to overlap them like that and send out two requests at the same time. I guess I really just wrote the first one off. There are some more down there that are a year plus.
Here the list of anything 200 days or more:
- Bruce Bochte – 693
- Jim Leyritz – 512
- Mike Krukow – 365
- Bruce Bochte – 365
- Sister Mary Jo Sobieck – 354
- Kelly Gruber – 329
- Renie Martin – 324
- Nick Kingham – 289
So there are a lot of favorites this month: Kevin Stevens, Walt Terrell, Joe Sambito, James McCann, Brian Mitchell, Rob Blake, Trent Yawney, Toby Harrah, Andre Thornton, Brad Arnsberg, Rufus Porter, Ken Schrom, Travis May, Ernie Whitt, Carl Banks, RJ Reynolds, Bill Swift, Zane Smih, Randy Jones, and Kelly Gruber. That’s like 20% of what I got back – LOL!
I hope you had an excellent hobby month too!