2015 NSCC #5 – Terrible Short-Term Memory

The mind is a funny thing.  I love my mind and take pride in my level of competence and ability to learn quickly.

However, the mind is also a disappointing thing, and an unreliable thing.  I’ve quickly learned that I can’t rely on the short-term memory side of my brain.

That’s why I prepared for the NSCC by uploading my checklists to my phone for quick and easy reference.  I also made some paper checklists on a notebook for easier reference of certain sets.  Yet, with all this at my disposal, I still decided to only trust my brain in some instances and ended up purchasing quite a few cards that I already had.

The good news is that it’s a pretty small percentage of the overall haul.

Let’s start by looking at some cards I already obtained through generous trades.

Pink and Brown – Yup, it’s an ’80s card.

A 1984 Topps Gwynn?  There’s no way I had that.  Well, I did, thanks to a really old trade with Hiflew.  And, it’s the only card out of this group that I posted.  Still, there are certainly worse cards to have dupes of.

Sadly, it only looks textured.  It’s not…

Here’s one from a more recent trade with reader Nick M. The trade hasn’t been posted yet (hopefully soon), so I’m going to use that as an excuse for not remembering I had the rest of these.

Not squared, but rectangled.

This card also came from Nick in that same trade package.  I got it in my head that maybe I had some of the regular X cards, but to have level 2 of the insert card?  Nah.  That’s too fancy for me.

Got it, Got it, Don’t Need it

Here’s one I got from The Angels, In Order in 2011.  It’s been in my binder a long time, but again, never reached the blog.  That’s a shame, because it’s a great card.  Well, it finally made it!  What an honor.

A prelude to E-Motion

Here’s one from The Diamond King.  I actually knew I had it, but my checklist said all the Thomas inserts from 1993 Leaf were either not part of my collection or could use an upgrade.  So, I bought ones I could find and wound up with this guy.

Someone’s about to juggle

This card came from reader Jeremy, the man responsible for my Overload series.  When a guy sends you over 1,000 cards, there will likely be a few that I don’t remember seeing.  So, now I have this duplicate – along with many other duplicates from that lot.

If I could find a NNOF for $1, I’d buy it every single time.

Now we come to the cards I had from older boxes and packs I opened at some point.  I honestly didn’t remember that I had a Thomas rookie, or if I did, I assumed it was going to be kind of beat up.  This one was in good condition.  Turns out, so was the other one I had.  Again, not a bad dupe to have, but I don’t need two.

It’s really not safe to play in the middle of the road, kids

When I looked through bins, I would create two piles. Ones I knew I needed and ones I wanted to check.  I remembered getting a Road Warriors card in my box, but I thought it was Tony Gwynn, so into the “need” pile it went.

Is it natural to waste half the card?

This card is numbered /2499.  I now have two of them, because I forgot I bought it from COMC.  My brain said, “oh, it’s numbered. I must need it.”

I bought it twice and neither was in great condition on further inspection

These last few are really painful.  It’s not that I had them and just forgot, or didn’t bother to check.  No, I already bought these cards at the National.

Blinded by the light

I’m almost positive I bought this twice from the same booth.  That’s how terrible my memory can be.

I did not dominate my memory

In this case, the the duplicate is actually peeled.  So, does it count? I could add a line to my wantlists for peeled and unpeeled….

Blinded by the white

I’ll forgive myself a little more on this one.  I saw /250 on the back and made a quick judgment call to pull the trigger.  Still, it’s disappointing I couldn’t remember buying it from someone else already.

Relegated to the corner, and the extras pile

It was really easy for my mind to look at a foil stamped number on the back and put it in the “don’t check” pile.  This one is /1250.  With a bland card like this, I also may have fallen victim to thinking that I saw it in a bin or two, but maybe passed it by.

Who needs it?

I probably checked my want lists twice with this – one for each purchase. I’m so confused by the Leaf Certified Cuts stuff, that even a card as low numbered as 599 could already be mine.  The problem is I didn’t update my lists each night.

Don’t look at me like that. Not like you threw a perfect game

Lastly, we have this Bowman refractor.  It’s usually easy for me to visualize the non-Cub/non-Brave stuff I have, and I know I don’t have many refractors overall.  Apparently I went through that thought process twice.

So, the moral of the story is that nobody’s perfect, but I really messed up.  Still, we can still turn this into a positive, because that means that everything you see here is also now trade bait.

Hooray?

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