A scanning project milestone!

This one was one I knew was coming, and it's been a long time coming...10 and a half years! As you may know from previous posts, my main focus is on getting at least one card of every person to ever get one, in the NBA, NHL and NASCAR. What you may not know is that I'm also getting as many different people as I can, total, besides just my three main sports. I'm generally not seeking them out in baseball and football, but I'm not unhappy when I get some randomly. I'm sort of seeking them out in non-sports cards, in that, if I have a choice between two cards that are otherwise equal, I'll pick one for somebody not yet in my collection.

I call all this the Names Project. Yes, it's more than just names, but that's what I originally thought of it as so that is what it got called. It spun out from when I went through and compiled all the names of people in my collection, circa 2014 or so. Thus- Names Project.

Also you also probably know, I'm copy & pasting one example of each person into a folder called "Alphabetical Directory", which you can see on my Cardboard History Gallery by clicking the green link. When I finished the January uploads, I saw that three letters were getting tantalizingly close to having 1000 people scanned...letter B was at 993, letter M was at 996 and letter S was at 997....

As you can see from this screencap, B sits at 993 as I said, and if you look to the right, what I'm about to upload is highlighted... (Remember you can click the image to enlarge it)

And there we go, milestone hit! B becomes the first letter to clear 1000 people scanned!

The actual thousandth person to get uploaded?

Juan Bell, a baseball player. This is one of the cards Dan gave to me at the New Windsor show.

Country singer Neal McCoy has the honor of being the 1000th person in M...

...and Cynthia Scherr takes the 1000 spot for the letter S. (this card was also a gift from Dan)

Interesting, to me, that none of the milestone cards were from one of my three sports, which dominate my collection by a wide margin. Also, I know for certain that both McCoy and Scherr are the only cards of them in my collection. I'm not sure on Bell, see below. 

Even though B started out in third, it actually now has the most people scanned with 1019. Both M and S now have 1015. The overall lead among letters will probably stay fairly close, I expect.

It will be a while before any other letters join the 1000 Club. The next closest letter is actually H with 737 people. I thought W would be higher, but it's not...only 579 people, 6th overall. Because I was curious to see how many people I had scanned, I typed them into an Excel chart and let it do the math for me. 

10,914...that's way more than I thought. And to think that each and every one of them...and all the people I have not scanned any cards of yet...will eventually get their own album on the Cardboard History Gallery! At my current rate of scanning, and adding people, it will probably be at least 2024 before even H hits 1000, unless I start specifically seeking them out in my "waiting to be scanned" boxes, which I have zero intention of doing. And even if I did that, I don't think I currently have enough people needing scans to even get me there anyway. When I was so burned out last year I lost track on entering the people into my overall Excel chart that lists everyone and how many cards I have of them...and the cards have gotten all mixed up, so I probably will just update it when I get them scanned, but knowing exactly who I have is no longer really possible for me. Last year at this time I would have been able to check and see if I had enough people missing scans to put any of the other letters over 1000. Disappointed in myself for letting that go. According to what I entered before I gave up, I had 955 people who's last names started with H. I have no idea how many I've added since then. Is it 45 people? Who knows? (my gut feeling is no, but I don't have a good memory handle on the baseball cards I've received as gifts since then) I had 13.922 people typed into the chart when I lost track. So I'm closer to getting everyone scanned than I have ahead of me. Still years worth of work, but at least I enjoy it. 

It would be arduous, but I could get that info back. I maintained my Excel chart where I listed the exact order I got every card. I could open them both split screen and go line-by-line using Control+F to search on every name I'm unsure on, but I don't know if I want to put in the effort. The last time I entered anything into that file was in June 2019. That's a lot of effort...but what else do I have to do, besides scan? It's still too cold to work on models outside. Hmmm...

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I really like the Alphabetical Directory because it's one of only two spots where everything is all mixed together, scan wise...sports and non-sports, all in albums sorted by their names. It's fun to look through. Heck, it's fun to just keep refreshing the Alphabetical Directory itself and see the album sample image change! 

I don't exactly know when the next scanning milestone will be. I wonder if I will even remember that the first letters to hit 1000 all did it in February 2020? Of course, it'll be even longer if I take the time to resurrect my overall chart! 

PS: Tomorrow is my Mom's Birthday! I don't intend to post tomorrow, with the next one scheduled for Tuesday. Happy Birthday Ma!!