My 2016 Collecting Year in Review

I went into 2016 with a plan to buy fewer cards over all while focusing more on Phillies and Astros cards (current and past). I think I was successful. I purchased 2,876 cards in 2016, about a thousand fewer than in 2015. Of those, 530 were Phillies cards and 162 were Astros. 1,888 were 2016 cards so about one thousand cards were from prior years. Most of them were from repacks, although I did make some dents in prior years Phillies want lists. This is the oldest card I bought:

1952 Topps #149

I got it for $2 at a card show in February. It's one of ten oldest cards I own.

Here are some other interesting cards that I haven't featured in prior posts this year.

1962 Topps #135

I got this for $3.50 at the same card show as above. It's the oldest Babe Ruth card I have although still nowhere as old as during his career.

1985 Renata Galasso Pete Rose #40

That February card show also yielded 3 cards from this set. I consider this a big find.

1990 Topps Tiffany #479

Topps Tiffany cards weren't easy to get back in the day, and are still rare. This is the first one from 1990 that I've seen. I pulled it from a repack in November.

1990 Upper Deck Comic Ball #398

Upper Deck produced these Comic Ball cards, featuring Warner Bros. cartoon characters from 1990-1992. I don't remember seeing them for sale. I had cards from the other 2 years but this is the first one from 1990. All of them have come from repacks.

1991 Topps Stand-Ups #12

The weirdest thing I bought this year. I got it from eBay in February. From the scan it looked like a die-cut card. There was little information in the listing. It is a plastic container of candy. It has a sliding door on the bottom to get the candy out but someone had glued it shut. 25 year-old candy was not that tempting.

1992 Donruss Rookies #69

I got this 132-card set in March, mainly to get the 5 Phillies cards in it. It's a nice looking set but it must have been a poor year for rookies. Besides Pedro Martinez, the only other big rookie was Manny Ramirez (which I already had).

1992 O-Pee-Chee #244

1992 Topps Gold Winner #244

I bought the complete Phillies team cards for each of these sets on eBay, filling some big holes in my Phillies want lists.

2016 Donruss Promising Pros Materials 

I'm not a big fan of modern Donruss but Nola is supposed to be a big part of the Phillies future and this is a nice looking relic card.

2016 Panini Diamond Kings Rookie Signatures Bronze

But I did like Panani's Diamond King set. I got this on eBay. It's the most expensive single card I bought this year.

2016 Grandstand Reading Fightin' Phils #24

I also bought a couple of 2016 Phillies minor league sets. Does the front design look familiar to you?

2016 Topps Opening Day Printing Plate #159

I managed to pull a printing plate out of a retail pack of Topps Opening Day.