I'm giving up on Heritage

I have decided I will not collect the 2009 Topps Heritage set this year.

A couple of bloggers have quite eloquently stated their intention to avoid collecting the set this year, and that planted the seed. Then my two-week-long failed mission to find Heritage, including an entire week in which people all over the country were discovering retail packs, was the rain cloud that caused this idea to flower: collecting '09 Heritage? Why put myself through it?

Keep this in mind: I LOVE the Heritage set. It is a great idea. I hope it lasts a long time. I'm not one of those collectors that thinks it's getting stale or old or anything like that. I cannot wait for 2024 when Topps puts out Heritage that looks like the 1975 set. And if I am around in 2057, I will be asking one of the nurses in the rest home to bring me some of the Heritage cards that replicate the awful 2008 design.

I cannot stress enough how much I enjoy the set.

But here is what I hate: the insane short-prints. Some people like them. They believe it makes collecting the set a challenge. Frankly, I found collecting any set of 500 cards a challenge, whether it has short-prints or not. I am not a hobby box buyer. I can't afford it. I buy maybe one a year, two if I'm lucky. So, throwing my money at a hobby box of Heritage, especially when Allen & Ginter is on the horizon, is out of the question. Which makes searching for short-prints an added, unnecessary chore.

That's why I was primed for the release of Heritage. I was going to get to the stores as early as possible and get a jump on the Heritage set, so I wouldn't have to go through what I did last year (did I mention that I'm still collecting the '08 Heritage set?). But the card company distributors have some sort of evil plot going where they're managing to avoid certain segments of the country when stocking retail Heritage.

So, in conclusion:

Short-prints: strike 1
Cost: strike 2
Availability: strike 3

No set for me. I will buy Heritage packs here and there. I may even buy some hobby packs. I will collect the Dodgers, probably through trades.

I fully expect that now that I've written this that Heritage packs will magically appear at Target next week. I don't care. I'm still not collecting the set. You've made it difficult, Topps, for a rabid (but not THAT rabid) collector like me.

That brings me to the card featured up top. You may wonder why I am featuring a 2009 Topps Heritage card if I haven't been able to acquire any Heritage yet. Well, that card was sent to me by Jim of gcrl (I will feature more cards from him soon).

Jim is a generous collector who cares about other collectors. I can't say the same thing for Topps. Or else I'd have some Heritage now, more than two weeks after it went "live."