I'm Collecting ...

The hardest thing for me as a baseball card collector is deciding what I should collect because I want almost everything which isn't realistic. When I started collecting in the late 70's, it was all about putting Topps sets together (although, with the exception of 1984, I would always come up short, at least until it became so easy to buy factory sets). I stopped buying cards around 92 or so and got back into the hobby in 2005. Damn, things changed a lot over that time. Now that I've been back for over three years, I think of narrowed down what I'd like to collect:

• Any card I can get my hands on of Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz. They are my favorite players of all time and when I got back into collecting, they were all I had intended to collect.
• This will sound odd, but since I have about a dozen small 40 card binders (4 cards per page), I think I'm going to put together a team set for every year that the Atlanta Braves made the post season. That would be 1969, 1982, 1991 - 1993 and 1995 - 2005. I already have the 1969 team set ... I'm certain I have the 1982 and 1991 complete but I need to dig through my boxes of those years to be sure. As for the rest, I doubt I even have a decent start.
• I'm also putting together a binder featuring every player that has played for the Atlanta version of the Braves. I completed a list of players that I made from the Baseball-Reference so I know all the guys I have to get. As I go through my older cards, I've been setting the Braves aside and slowly ... very, very slowly ... building this binder.
• I was born in November of 1970, so I'm also looking to put together every Topps set issued in my lifetime. So, I want to complete every regular issue (and traded or update issue) of Topps from 1971 on. I have over 500 from the 1971 set, and very little of all the other sets from the 70s. At one time, I had a lot of 1977 - 1979 cards, but they've disappeared over the years.
• My favorite period of collecting was the 80s, so I'd like to get any and every set issued in the 80s. I have, or I am close to having, every regular set issued by Topps, Donruss and Fleer, but now I'd like to get as many of the little odd ball sets as possible.
• When I started collecting again, I had no intention of collecting new cards, except as needed for my Braves and player collections. However, on a lark, I bought a blaster of 2005 Topps Total and 2005 Bowman Heritage in late December of 2005 and now I'm collecting new stuff as well. Basically, any new set that comes out that manages to catch my fancy, I try to complete it. Slowly. 

The good news is that as I go through the cards I already have, I'll have thousands of cards to trade or give away. Stay tuned!