Quietly collecting

Normally when someone who blogs predominantly about cards, starts collecting something new, they don't tend to wait very long before letting everyone know about it.

The want to share this new collection with everyone is quite understandable. You're excited by this latest endeavor, and as a blogger, it's only natural to want to write about this exciting new thing that you're collecting. It also doesn't hurt that other card bloggers, as well as many readers of the card blogs, tend to be very generous folks. So even if it's not in the front of your mind, you do know that there's a good chance that someone reading will have some of what ever it is that you're now collecting and possibly offer to send it to you -- and I'm not saying that everyone posting about their collection's has an ulterior motive, or any other nefarious plans, but don't try and tell me that you're not aware of the overly generous nature that most of the folks in the card collecting community seem to possess, especially when that spirit of giving is a big part of what makes being part of such a community so great.

Now with all that being said, I'm here today to talk about a collection that I started last March, March of 2018 that is, and even though I was excited about this new collection, I was able to refrain from blogging about it for one reason, and one reason alone... selfishness!

You see, after I decided to start this collection, it didn't take long for me to find pieces of it on COMC, and even though I knew that the chances were slim, I didn't want to talk about it publicly and risk someone else becoming interested in said collection, then going over to COMC and purchasing any of my much desired cards before I could earn enough credit via the Challenges to get them for myself. Sounds pretty selfish, huh? This sort of behavior is pretty foreign to me, and it's certainly not very flattering that's for sure, but in this instance, I felt like it was completely necessary, even justified if you will.

It's funny too, because even though I "officially" started collecting this new thing last March, the collection actually started a couple of years before, I just didn't know it yet.

2012 Panini Black Friday Progressions - yellow #1

This is probably a good time to mention that this new/old collection that I'm talking about are the Panini Progressions. If you've seen any of my COMC Shuffle posts, than you've undoubtedly seen a few of these in there. If you haven't seen any of those posts, and you're unfamiliar with Panini's Progressions, well, they're basically just blank-backed proofs that were inserted into Panini's seasonal/specialty sets (Black Friday, Father's Day, The National, etc.) back in 2012 and 2013 (there's also a few that were made in 2014 as well).

Each Progression came in four colors (black, cyan, magenta, and yellow), and were limited to just five copies per color. This scarcity is what led to my not wanting to talk about the collection, because if my talking about it led to someone else buying one of my much desired cards on COMC, at only five copies per color, this could've led to me never even seeing another copy of whatever particular card it was. And this secrecy did work the most part, I mean there's still some really expensive (overpriced?) cards on the site that I'd like to have, but as far as the cheap stuff goes, other than a Tim Duncan that I waited too long to pull the trigger on, I pretty much got everything that I wanted.

So back to the collection. As I mentioned, it actually, unbeknownst to me, started a few years ago with the yellow Jim Brown. I got it during one of those great fire sales that you almost never see on COMC anymore, I only bought it at the time because it was really cheap, and I just thought it looked neat. I didn't even know anything about the Progressions at that time, and still didn't even after I got the card. Looking back, I really wish I would've started collecting them at that time, as I'd probably have a few more completed rainbows by this time.

2013 Panini Black Friday Panini Collection Progressions - magenta #6

Then around two years ago (it was in a blog post, but I don't feel like looking for the date), I picked up this LeBron at a show for a $1. Again, I didn't really know anything about it, but I thought it was interesting looking, and it was only a buck, so why not? I did finally do some research after this purchase, but the idea of collecting them still hadn't sparked yet.

2013 Panini Father's Day Progressions - magenta #17

Now if we fast forward to March of last year, we'll arrive to the point where I decided to start collecting these. It happened quite by accident, I was at one of the big twice a year card shows here, looking through one of Jim's (everyone here's favorite seller) 4/$1 boxes, and out of nowhere I hit a pocket of cards that looked very familiar. I was sort of thinking that looked like the LeBron, but wasn't entirely sure if they were the same thing or not, at a quarter a piece though, I just grabbed all of them, and figured that I go ahead find out what's what after I got home.

2013 Panini Father's Day Progressions - yellow #37

[The yellow's can be hard see sometimes, so if anyone cares, this is Jaden Schwartz] Once I got around to sorting my card show haul, I found that I had grabbed around twenty Progressions from that box, I also confirmed that they were indeed Progressions, most of the 2013 Father's Day variety. It was at this point that I my interest in collecting these was born, I guess all it took was seeing this newly acquired group altogether to do it. My want for these cards grew very fast, it was literally within just a couple of hours of having come home from the show that I was already on COMC buying up some of the cheaper copies (including the black version of the Lillard above).

2013 Panini Father's Day Progressions - black #38

There were multiple hockey players amongst the group that I got at the card show, which wasn't a bad thing, as it actually made me want to read up on some of these guys, heck, I even bought a few more Progressions of hockey players. I've completed two rainbows so far, Chris Kreider being one of those two.

2013 Panini Father's Day Studio Progressions - yellow #8

Prince was the only baseballer from the card show. Other than a cheap Whitey Ford, I don't think that I've gotten any other major leaguers. The lack of a logo kind of bugs me on the Progressions, it just seems like it's more noticeable when everything is in one color.

2013 Panini Father's Day Inked Progressions #AH

My scanner doesn't do well with the non-mirror backed Progressions, so my apologies for this terrible picture. Panini also made Progressions of the autograph and relic cards that were inserted into the specialty packs as well. I'm still kind of on the fence about these particular cards, but since I get half of this Adam Henrique rainbow for just fifty I am inclined to want to complete it. And the same can be said about...

2013 Panini Father's Day Inked Progressions #CS

... these Cory Schneider's too!

Close to half of the cards that I got from that show were the Progressions for the relic cards (the top two in the photo), those I'm really not crazy about, and have no plans to collect (don't know about the two inked cards in this photo either).

I didn't take a picture of all of them, but you get the idea of what the relic version's look like. I keep meaning to try and trade some of these, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

As I've mentioned, and as you may have seen in the last couple of months, I've gotten quite a few Progressions off of COMC since I started actively collecting them. Those of course will continue to pop up in the weekly Shuffle posts, but I have gotten a few from eBay over the last year as well, so I might as well tack those onto the end here:

2012 Panini Black Friday Thanksgiving Classic Progressions #5

This Rob Gronkowski was my first completed rainbow... and this too sort of happened by accident! Last summer I was looking at something or another on eBay, clicked to view the seller's other items, and there it was, a full Gronk rainbow separated into three different listings. I can't remember exactly how they were listed, but it was something like the black and magenta together in one listing, and the other two were listed individually with a copy of the base card. This was the first time that I had seen a full rainbow, so that was kind of exciting at the time. I didn't waste any time getting my best offer's in on these three listings, and thankfully the seller quickly accepted all three offers.

As an interesting aside, at some point in the last couple of months I was going through my eBay purchase history from last year attempting to find out how much I paid for something else. While doing so, I ran across these (if anyone's interested, I paid around $16 total for these) and noticed that it said that this seller was no longer a registered user. Curious, I did little feedback searching and found out that not too long after I got these, the seller listed, and sold, a bunch of rare Tom Brady cards, but never sent them out to their respective buyers. I thought that this was kind of odd, because I had communicated with the seller and had found them to rather pleasant, they even sent me a message to apologize for taking three days to send out my cards (a message that was completely unnecessary btw). So I don't what happened, but I am sure glad that I got these when I did.

Also, I'm using the term "rainbow" to describe the four Progressions by themselves. Most of these sets have other parallels as well, cracked ice, lava flow, and autograph's -- some people might say the rainbow isn't complete until you get all of those as well, but in my mind, it's complete once the four colors are gotten.



 

Not too long after I got the Gronk's, I was actually searching for the Progressions on eBay -- and that reminds me, searching for these on eBay is a real pain in the butt, as they get listed under multiple different names. Part of that is Beckett's fault, because even though Panini calls them Progressions, Beckett lists them as Make Ready, which is what the SAGE proof's were called, not Panini's. So you got people out there listing them as Make Ready, Progressions, and then there's the folks who can't take a few seconds to any research, and just list them as proofs. And the you got the Beckett Marketplace and Sportlots, who both have them under Make Ready. Thankfully COMC knows what's what, and has them under their proper name!

So I was searching on eBay, came across this wicked awesome DJ Kool (the base card is there to help you see it better) from Steel City Collectibles, and even though the price was a little higher than I had paid on any of my other one's up to that point (no best offer option available), I still went ahead and bought it. This is a card that I'd really like to complete the rainbow of too, but I still haven't even seen one of the other colors pictured anywhere else, so there's probably a good chance that it might not end up happening.

 

2012 Panini Black Friday Kings Progressions - yellow #2

I know that this has turned into a really long post, so you'll be happy to know that we're hitting the home stretch. My final Progressions via eBay, whose presence I became aware of thanks to a saved searches email, came just before last Christmas. A seller had listed a couple of these, but I was only really interested in two of them, Broadway Joe...

2012 Panini Black Friday Thanksgiving Classic Progressions - yellow #6

... and Timmy Tebow! As usual, offer's were made, and said offer's were quickly accepted. Within in minutes of them accepting my offer's, the seller sent me a message asking if I was interested in anything else from the Black Friday sets, I didn't know necessarily if I was or not, but said that I wouldn't mind hearing about what else they had for sale. Most of the stuff ended up not being of any interest, but there was one more Progression mentioned, which a deal quickly struck on. I'm not showing that one because initially I bought it with someone else in mind, but liked it so much once I got it, that I decided to keep it for myself (more selfish behavior). So I'm not showing it, because that person would probably be able to figure out that it was supposed to be for them, and I don't want them to know that I kept a thing that was intended for them.

I realize that some folks might consider these to be a bit gimmicky, especially if you're of the anti-parallel mindset, but I really do like them. Do I think that they're a bit gimmicky? Sure they are, but most cards are. Hell, one could argue that the idea of cards coming in packs is gimmicky. How about cards that come packaged with a food item, that's a straight up gimmick right there. And yet, that doesn't stop anyone from purchasing these things, does it? Most modern "collectibles" are gimmicky, but if you enjoy whatever it is, does it really matter what someone else might classify it as? I for one certainly don't think so, and neither should you.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.