The Big Train Toppling Dominos

Sometimes, you put a project on the backburner.  Or the project moves to lower status as you find other, shiny objects which distract you.  Other times, you look at your list and think, what is going to be the hold up from finishing your set.  And finally, you find a card you need, make a bid, don't expect to win the card at all and then look at your E-Mail and say "Oh, I did win that Walter Johnson Portrait."



A few weeks ago, I won the above Walter Johnson Portrait.  It was one of the three big cards standing between myself and completing my T206 set, along with a Cy Young Glove Showing and the shortprint Kid Elberfeld Washington Portrait seen below.  For some reason, I was locked into this thought cycle that Walter Johnson and Christy Mathewson cards were equal in value.  Amazingly, I found a Johnson Hands at Chest with this mindset, but the portrait eluded me.  Watching the portrait go for 1.5 to 2 times of a Mathewson, I finally flipped the switch and accepted it would be costlier to add one of these cards to my collection. 

Still, even with this in mind, I continually lost every Johnson Portrait which came to market.  It became such a joke to me, I anticipated I would end up getting to 517 cards and still need to track down a Johnson Portrait.  But then, a few weeks ago, I had that surprise moment where someone didn't outbid me and I won the above Johnson Portrait.  So, over the next few weeks, we will see how I've gotten from 490 to 518 in rapid succession, assuming I can find the last five cards which meet my standards.  Of course, I went from 10 to 5 in the last two days, so the race is on. 

And to think, it was just the Big Train falling off the list, that have made it seem for the first time, that yes, I am going to finish the set.  The Big Train with the yellow background and oh so soft upper left hand quadrant of the card, which still makes it the better of my two Walter Johnsons, since there isn't a crease in the middle of this one which would allow you to fold the card in half with ease.