My New Blog

I haven't been at this blogging thing for long, but I'm finding I absolutely love doing it.  The process of thinking up the next post - and admittedly some are more inspired than others - is fun for me, and it's been great to connect with a community whose interests (and dare I say collecting quirks) are as varied as mine.

And in that same vein, I've loved reading a range of blogs, from team collectors like myself to the more eclectic blogs like Nick and his Dimebox finds.

I have a bit of a confession - this whole team collecting thing is a relatively recent development in my collecting lifecycle.  I've only been focusing on the Bucs since around 2006, and even then at a much more low-key pace than the pace my collection has grown from 2010-today.  Before that my collection was all over the place.

And I mean that in a good way.

I have always loved adding a wide range of cards that, simply put, caught my eye, whether because of the jersey, photography, design, or player.

I've also been an avid autograph collector since 2004, mostly collecting through the mail and occasionally graphing minor league games.  Though Pirate cards make up a big chunk (around 20%) of my 4000+ autographs, I've found myself wanting to find a way to showcase some of these less categorized aspects of my collection.

I tried out a new feature here, Buc Battlers,to feature those other aspects of my collection, but I don't think it fit with the overall tone of this blog and I'd rather not be constrained to trying to make my 1993 Donruss Carlos Baerga post try to somehow relate to the Pirates. 

So instead, I'm starting up a second blog, which you can find at http://returned-to-sender.blogspot.com/.  Don't let the TTM centric name deceive you. I'll be posting on a range of collecting topics that strike my fancy, from autographs, to throwback jerseys, to cool 90's inserts, and just about anything that falls in between.  I honestly don't know how frequently posts will appear (I still plan on this being my primarily blog, and hope to continue posting more or less daily), but I'm sure the format will work itself out over time.

So if you're interested, follow the new blog.  I will try to get a fairly steady stream of posts up over the course of this weekend to kind of set the tone for where I would like to take it.  But if I've learned anything from my blogging experience thus far it's that these things tend to take on a life of their own, so I look forward to seeing what else I can do with this new project.

-Mark

ps Bonus points if you managed to read this entire post without a singly pretty picture in it!