New, but Not New Enough

Another one card wonder. 

One of the big reasons I feel like I haven't quite gotten into the flow of 2017 yet is that, for the second year in a row, I have made the decision not to buy any of the Topps base product. I'm still going to collect the team, the inserts, and all of the other detritus that bubbles up and has red birds on it. This solidly means, however, no packs to bust for me for awhile. That all could change this weekend with March's release of 2016 Topps Heritage. I am in the process of deciding if I'm going to bother to continue on with the Heritage tradition, something that seems like it needs to have an end point with me. Do I wait until they are reprinting cards in the year of my birth (1975)? What about 1979, the oldest cards I was freely allowed to touch with my grubby little mitts as a kid (in hindsight, I shouldn't have been allowed.) What about 1970? That sounds a bit arbitrary. I could just wait until I feel like I've lost interest, and I think I'm about as close to that point as I was in 2013 when the cards were inexplicably printed on Allen & Ginter card stock. In any case, if I manage to find some packs or boxes this weekend, I at least won't feel guilty purchasing them like I would the base set, even if I don't end up collecting this year's model.

This bring's us to Lou Brock, who came to me courtesy of The Lost Collector. Coming out of 2016 Topps Chrome Update, this is still one of the newest cards that I own. I have since picked up a few base Cardinals cards from the 2017 set, but Lou's shiny insert card reminds me that I haven't really let last year go. I was a fan of the Chrome set in spite of what I didn't like about the base set, but I couldn't bring myself to buy any of the Update Megaboxes because I would just be stuck with packs of the stuff I swore off buying. I'm pretty sure the local Fred Meyer's still has a couple of these boxes, but they aren't tempting me. I'll have to continue to seek out trades and look at COMC and possibly other sites to fill certain needs, something I will probably be doing more of in 2017. Once it really gets going, of course.