30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Saturday, May 2, 2020

A Different Kind of Set Building

2009 Topps Heritage Heroes of Spaceflight Relics #SSC3

1981 was a pretty exciting year for firsts.  The STS-1 became the first orbital space shuttle flight when the Space Shuttle Columbia launched on April 12th at the Kennedy Space Center.


On August 1st, MTV is officially launched and impacts a generation of music enthusiasts.

1992 Starline Americana #125

A little over month later on September 25th, Sandra Day O'Connor takes her seat as she becomes the first woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court.

1981 Fleer #574
1981 Topps #261
1981 Donruss #119

And somewhere within those twelve months, my parents bought me my very first baseball card set (1981 Fleer)while on a trip to Seattle.  That year also involves my earliest memories of collecting baseball cards in general... as I can vaguely remember trading 1981 Topps and Donruss cards with the other neighborhood kids.  It would ultimately play a huge role in my life off and on for the next thirty-nine years.


But I'll save that story for another day.  Today's post was inspired by Trevor over at Bump and Run Football Card Blog.  He started a Blog Bat Around and asked his readers to write a post about a collection outside of sports cards or sports memorabilia, so I decided to show off my collection of Legos.

According to my records I started with the purchase of this UCS Lego set:

Google Image

I've been a Star Wars fanatic first took me to see the iconic film when I was four years old.  That's approximately four years before I opened my first pack of baseball cards.  At some point, I became obsessed with Boba Fett and his shipSlave I.  It's still one of my favorite ships in the saga.  My set sat on a shelf in my office as a display piece until I put it in storage to create space for other Star Wars memorabilia.

I never built this set and I'm not even sure I intended to.  Like unopened wax boxes, I also enjoy collecting unopened Lego sets.

I quickly learned that although I found pleasure and comfort in building Lego sets, they were a little more challenging that I anticipated.  So far, I've stuck to smaller sets that require three hours or less to build.

Here's a look at the nine different sets I've constructed...

Set 75038Jedi Interceptor

Set 75135Obi-Wan's Jedi Interceptor

Set 75153AT-ST Walker

Set 75168Yoda's Jedi Starfighter

Set 75172Y-Wing Starfighter

Set 75173Luke's Landspeeder

Set 30611R2-D2 (2017 May the 4th Promotion)

It took a few years, but I stepped out of my comfort zone and built a couple of Lego Architecture sets:

Set 21043Architecture San Francisco

Set 21047Architecture Las Vegas

In addition to these sets, I have at least ten, maybe twenty more that are in storage.  The three that are standing in the on-deck circle are the Lego Iconic Chess Set (set #40174), the Volkswagen T1 Camper Van (set #10220), and an X-Wing Starfighter (set #75218).

In addition to those three, I just ordered the Boba Fett Helmet (set #75277) and preordered The Razor Crest (set #75292), since Lego is in the midst of their annual May the 4th promotion.


I'm not exactly sure when I'll get around to building my next Lego set, but in preparation for this post, I did go out and purchase this special vacuum attachment that helped me dust all of the sets pictured in this post.

If you're interested in reading about other collector's hobbies, I encourage you to check out Trevor's phone card collection as well as Greg's political, sports, and rock band button collection.

You can also share your other hobbies in the comment section below.  

Better yet... join in on the Blog Bat Around and write a post about a hobby outside of collecting sports cards or sports memorabilia.

And you didn't think I'd leave you without playing...


Happy Saturday and sayonara!

12 comments:

  1. I did collect Comic Books for awhile but I found it was to hard and expensive to keep up with both hobbies.

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  2. Yeah.......you sent me down a rabbit hole last week, as far as "other" collectibles. More on that later......

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  3. I'm a big fan of LEGO (obviously based on my blog) but I also love those Heroes of Spaceflight cards.

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  4. Gave away the pile of Legos I had, but I still have two more "other collections" posts in the works.

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  5. There's a series on Netflix called "The Toys that Made Us", and one of the episodes documents the history of Lego. Very interesting story, and I'd recommend watching it if you're a Lego fan, for sure.

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  6. I have no patience to build legos, I have tried. They look amazing as you have displayed but I just can't do it.

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  7. Those Heroes of Spaceflight relics are probably the only relic cards I actually like.

    Also I used to collect coins and stamps. Still like them for many of the same reasons I like cards. There's history there both in terms of the objects and the collecting community. I'm sad though that neither has really survived for my kids to get into.

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  8. Ah, Fuji, didn't know you were into Lego as well. I've got a room full of the stuff. One of my lockdown projects is to build a train station.

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  9. elliptical man - they're fantastic. it's pretty cool what they're able to design on such as small scale

    sg488 - i have 100 or so comics, but i really only buy them once ever few years, so i don't consider myself a collector

    johnnys trading spot - can't wait to see what you're talking about

    nachos grande - awesome blog. love your lego posts

    gca - it's always fun to see what other card collectors collect outside of cards

    gregory - i think i watched one episode a long time ago. maybe i'll check out the lego episode you're referring to

    sport card collectors - i hear ya. i definitely have to be in a mood to do it... and it definitely takes patience

    nick vossbrink - yeah, those heroes of spaceflight relics are sweet. i'm glad i picked them up when i did. my dad has a huge coin collection. i don't know much about it, but i saw some proof sets he has

    jongudmund - best of luck on your train station. if i had more room, i'd definitely build more. but they take up a lot of space that i just don't have.

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  10. I love Lego sets and Star Wars, those ones you've got there are great.

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    1. sean - thanks. combines two things i enjoy too

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