A hidden milestone - my 1000th autograph

I'm always working on documenting my collection. It's a never-ending project, and I don't want it to ever end, because to be honest, it's sometimes my favorite part. I'm constantly trying to come up with some new thing to make a list of, and I try to create one new stat per year- although I have not been able to maintain that for several years now as I have not been able to think of anything new for a while now.

Until this week. Sort of. I've been talking about figuring out how many autographed, relic and serial numbered cards I have in my collection for over a year. While I'm unashamedly a base card fanatic, I collect everything. If it exists, I want it, at least for my three sports and some aspects of non-sports. Nor do I turn down other sports I don't actively collect either.

I finally did it. I'm not sure it's entirely accurate- for the college basketball cards I had to count my scans, as I don't care about them enough to remember or even make a list. If I have not gotten around to scanning them all yet, then the number's off. But I'm going to treat it like it's accurate.

As it turns out, I hit my 1000th autograph card in August, when my COMC order arrived...which included a bunch of autographs I got because they were cheap and I didn't have them. (My favorite way to buy cards!)

This turned out to be the 1000th:

Interesting that it turned out to be an NHL autograph as I only began collecting the NHL earlier this year. I only have 15 NHL autos in my collection- 12 of which came in this same COMC order- which I had been building before I even began watching the NHL! The NBA leads by a VERY wide margin.
I have 790 in my NBA collection. I have been making a conscious effort to add more to my collection via COMC- I had been buying base cards on there but several times I got them there and then got duplicates out of repacks- so I have now decided to focus on things I am not likely to get in repacks when I get COMC money. Meaning autographs, relics, serially numbered, regional promos and vintage. Of course, money has been tight in 2017 and I have not done a single NBA repack...the longest I've gone since I returned to the NBA in 2012. (I've been getting NHL ones instead since I have so few NHL cards, but I've only done two all of 2017) Think of that more as what I'd like to do than actually doing...I have 8 cents in my COMC account, and have for weeks now.

I started collecting autographs in 1994. My first were NASCAR, although I no longer remember which came first, I got two from the 1994 Maxx Autographs set around the same time, in 1994, and I didn't keep any sort of records until 1998, so that, unfortunately, has been lost to history. It was one of these two:

 But I have no idea which one.

The number does include the only TTM auto I've ever gotten- which I will devote a post to at some point.

Here's the complete breakdown of everything in my collection...at least as close as I can make it! I forgot that I had the one Indy autograph until after I had made the Excel chart and didn't want to have to redo the math coding I had already set up on Excel, LOL. You know I'm not going to do any actual math, of course! :)

I have less relics than I thought I did, with a total of 2149. It must seem like more since they are so thick. Serially numbered cards are a major addiction of mine, and they top out at 4277 cards. With how often I chase them on COMC and elsewhere, I will probably hit 5000 of them in circa 2020. You can be sure I'll post about it, but by then I'll drag out the college cards and make sure the count is accurate, lol. Those numbers do include some duplication. A Triple threat card is counted in each chart, for example.

The real test is if I can remember to keep this chart accurate, I have a tendency of making lists and then not updating them again for a long time. It's a major character flaw I've tried to fix, but keep failing. I guess in the grand scheme of things it's not a big deal but it drives me nuts.

As an aside, I think the Devils are going to be a lot better this year than the predictions I have seen. I was watching them when I began this post, but the game has since ended. Nico Hischier is going to be a legend (Even if I have not learned how to spell his name yet!), and Will Butcher looks like the real deal too. I know one game and 2 pre-season games is not enough to judge on, but I would not be at all surprised if they are in the playoffs this year.

Thanks for reading!