It’s almost that time of the year to start thinking about the next year. I’m really starting to think that I have to take a step back with regard to what I’m sending out.
First, I find that I have a tendency to not look at what I’ve sent out before and that makes for two problems. Obviously it means that I have a ton of doubles of signatures. I could get into trading, which I’ve wanted to do, but given I haven’t yet it probably won’t start. I think the bigger issue though is that then I find my self prioritizing people that are more guaranteed signers even if I have them already. That’s great for my return rate but I need to keep expanding into players I don’t have signatures of. If I send out out less, maybe I will prioritize better.
Second, cutting back will definitely cut down on cost. Obvious right? Less stamps, less envelopes, less all the way around. The cost isn’t a problem, but my wallet could use a break. Maybe I could shift it to getting more cards. So maybe not savings but prioritizing my money. Wait, is there a prioritizing theme going on here.
Lastly, I think I need some of my time back. There’s a lot of work to get the letters written and get them out. And then the more that comes back the more I want to keep up with my tracking. I have fun doing that and I don’t want it to go away. But maybe I could spend my time (maybe on the blog) doing different things. Essentially PRIORITIZING my time differently.
OK that confirms it. I need to get my priorities straight. Will I do that? Tune in next year.
Hope you are all doing well out there!
The Monthly Numbers
October 2022 was a comeback month and November 2022 just kept the good vibes rolling. Returns and cards were up and there will be more detail on that later. It’s interesting on that from too because November has two days where we don’t get mail in the month – Veteran’s Day and Thanksgiving. So even with that it was a better month.
You can see there was one day, November 12th, which really carried things. The month was going really well up until then and then it slowed down a bit before it got a little better before another little ramp down at the end of the month. The failures were really all focused mid-month and before. But that one big day wasn’t as big as my big day in October.
While the peak of the “Heat Map” shifted to 1991, that’s not inconsistent with where it normally lives. But the overall shape of the chart in the ’88 to ’93 range is a lot more consistent with how I think it used to look, maybe last year and prior. I still see baseball having a peak in 1993 though. As for the left and right sides of the chart, they are pretty light again for a second month in a row.
Chicago is my kind of town… apparently it was this month – by far!
Chicago pretty much doubled up on the number two for last month. After that you see a gradual decline from St. Louis and Houston down to about the Kansas City area of the chart. It again felt like there were some new places at the top.
The White Sox really brought it home for Chicago and might have topped the month all by themselves for that location. But what I like about last month is that a few teams peaked though in a second consecutive month that I even back in October were a surprise. Teams like the Tigers and the Cardinals are not mainstays in the top of the team charts.
Here are the Top 10 individual teams for the month (by cards returned):
- Chicago White Sox – 18
- Houston Astros – 15
- Detroit Tigers – 14
- St. Louis Cardinals – 14
- Atlanta Braves – 13
- Milwaukee Brewers – 13
- Texas Rangers – 13
- Chicago Cubs – 12
- Cleveland Indians – 10
Getting Trendy
The trend is still going in the right direction after that dip three months ago. This was actually the fourth best month of the year from a success standpoint. That’s pretty good because I really haven’t budged from the rate that I’m sending things out all year.
I still can’t really explain the dips, but I have been feeling like lately I am sending out less of the more heavily monitored and researched returns that I base on what I see others getting back. I’m kind of expecting December to be a bit down compared to November, but not a complete dip.
This one looks a bit funny to me. I actually think I did something wrong, but I don’t want to go back and fix it. I think that I got some basketball and football mixed up a bit here because I know I got more football returns back than this. Hockey was definitely down though.
In my last monthly review I wondered how I would make those lines go in the right (i.e. upward) direction. Somehow I did. While the returns were the fourth best of the year, the totals of cards that came back were the third best all year (only by one card).
The Overall Numbers
November 2022 had 84 returns with five failures. They brought back 319 cards in total.
From a Year-Over-Year perspective, because I did so well at the end of last year, I was way down. Last November I had my second highest returns of the year with 109 and my highest amount of cards back with 401. So I was down 23% in returns and 20% in cards back compared to the same month last year.
Somehow I am still tracking at being over on returns and cards compared to the pace I was on last year. I really thought I was going to be in the negative as of a few months ago. But right now I am 7.57% over last years pace at the same time and 1.5% over the cards I got back at the same point last year. But December 2021 was a pretty awesome month last year so I expect to finally get pipped at my pace.
He’s Making a List
While I had some more severe stragglers compared to what I saw in October. It wasn’t the same volume that I’d seen. Of course the more extreme the straggler the more interesting they are. The John Wathan return below is particularly interesting because I got another return back from him a few months ago that I sent out after the one that I most recently got back.
Here the list of anything 200 days or more:
- John Wathan – 1579
- Chris Chambliss – 623
- Keith Lockhart – 507
- Hoby Brenner – 341
- Eric Metcalf – 201
October saw a slight bump in paid returns. Well, percentage wise if was doubled, but it was only two more. Here’s the full list:
- Jim McAndrew – $10 – 2 cards
- Mike Vail – $20 – 4 cards
- Danny Jackson – $20 – 5 cards (he gave me an extra)
- Kevin Bass – $20 – 4 cards
- Jerry Reuss – $40 – 4 cards
And finally the failures:
- Hubert Davis – Doesn’t sign
- Jim Poole – Doesn’t sign because I think he has ALS
- Teddy Higuera – Return to Sender, I guess I just got the wrong address
- Pelle Eklund – Returned to me and maybe he just doesn’t sign
- Roy Hinson – Returned to sender
I hope things are going well – many happy returns!