A New Year is (Almost) Upon Us

Let's put 2014 Topps to bed.

Even though I'm unusually excited (no more white borders!) about the soon-to-be-unleashed 2015 Topps set, I haven't looked at the checklist yet. It went live today, and I'm sure that the Cardinals were at least adequately represented. I'll check it out in due time, but it served as a reminder that I need to close the books on 2014 before I move the list of all of the cards I still need to unearth to another place while I make room for the shiny new list.

Thanks to the holiday generosity of One Man's Junk (Wax), I can at least say that I have two fewer parallels to collect. These scorching red cards were the color du jour last year, which makes me wonder what Topps has up their sleeves in the parallel department this time around.

But before we talk parallels, I could use your help in the most basic way. I still need these plain old white bordered non-crazy-stat-having, unbedazzled, boring old base cards for my Cardinals collection:

#US-71 - Justin Masterson
#US-113 - Oscar Taveras
#US-117 - John Lackey
#US-145 - A.J. Pierzynski

Yes, these are all from the somewhat recent Update set, so I don't feel quite so lazy. Anyway, if you've got 'em, let me know. I'll send you something you need in return. Meanwhile, if you're ready to get depressed with me, here's what else I need (just Cardinals!) from the flagship set alone...

• 14 short printed variations
• 25 inserts
• 8 already expired online code quasi-parallel cards
• 152 parallels that aren't even serial numbered
• ... and an untold amount of serial numbered cards, memorabilia (fake and possibly real) and autographed cards that I don't bother to keep track of because it's healthy to have limits, right?