It is now the close of the 2018 card collecting year. Overall I think it has been a very productive year. This was the first year I stayed mainly collecting Barry Larkin and Topps Now. Thankfully this was much easier on my pocket book. With this final post of the year I will outline the overall 2018 Barry Larkin checklist, where I am at currently in the collection, and what my 2019 card goals are.
2018 Barry Larkin master checklist:
The 2018 year found Larkin getting a lot of love. Both Panini and Topps seem to go a little overboard for the retired hall of famer with him a total of 33 sets. Topps taking it to the extreme with 24 unique sets and Panini with just 9 for a total or 441 unique cards. The most cards since his retirement year of 2004. I’ve said it a few times over this year, but I believe the card companies have officially have me working more towards Barry’s playing days. If it was just 30 or 50 a year I could do it, but I can’t keep going after the expensive autographs and relics that will go down in price in five years.
Currently my Larkin master checklist has 4,645 unique line items. I should make a disclaimer that this is far from a perfect list. There are several error cards, unique 1/1, custom cards, and others that I just can’t keep track of. However I can confidently say the new release list over the past few years is pretty solid and I intend to keep up with it via the release calendar.
I just hit 1,400 unique Larkin cards to ring in the new year. I believe this was a 2018 goal, but I can’t seem to find my goals at this time. Thanks to the abundance of new releases this year I’m holding steady at 30% of his overall collection.
Goals:
I can’t find my 2018 goals, so I’m going to start from scratch.
Goal 1, Downsizing My Collection: This is essential for me. When I started collecting again 6 years ago I went more for quantity and everything with no real focus or goal in mind. Two years later I began focusing on Larkin. The only problem is I have a disorganized mess outside of this collection just sitting. I must get rid of some of this cardboard! Any thoughts on how to organize and potentially maximize a profit would be much appreciated!
Larkin Goal 2a, Complete the 1980’s checklist: I only have a handful left to have every card from the 1980’s. There will be a few challenges, like the 89 Upper Deck Sheets for example, but should be a good challenge.
Larkin Goal 2b, Stay within his playing days: I am officially burned out on the new stuff coming out. 2018 was the year the spirit died with having so many Larkin cards coming out. My favorite span of cards was the late 90’s early 00’s, so I am going to try to stay within those parameters. I will still update my checklist with 2019 sets, but will only go after them if they have a nice design
Larkin Goal 2c, Continue to go after the Ultimate Want List: See more on this specifically in a separate post.
Card Thoughts 
Good job. Keep up the collection. I go back and forth on sticking with the cards from his playing days and chasing the shiny new stuff. I wasn’t doing much of 2018 until late in the year and then I saw a bunch of cheap cards on sportlots and comc.com and then Gold Label came out so I have to chase it and pretty quickly I’ve ended up with over 60 2018 cards and I neglected the 90s stuff for a couple months. Stay within your budget, focus on that you enjoy collecting the most and have fun.
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