An upgrade, an update on my cardboard regrets, and another Seneca add (of sorts)

I recently started a wacky little forum thread on Blowout for people to shoot the breeze and win prizes.  It's mostly for the former - the website doesn't have a chat function, and it's kind of nice to have a little AIM/FB Messenger type spot for talking with fellow Blowout members.  Largely inane banter, but there's been some good stuff too, and some of it led to the start of this long, windy post (but aren't all my posts that way?)

The short part of it is that a guy on the thread started looking for Seneca Wallace cards on COMC (there are prizes associated with Seneca Wallace stuff, obviously, since it's my thread).  He didn't find anything new, but he did find an upgrade on my Authentix ticket /1250.

On the front it's all the same:

But the back numbering is very cool...#1/1250!

Now, I care about ZERO for numbering, but to have #1 of a run that went over 1,000 is pretty neat to me.  Plus the card was like 70 cents shipped...so that's an easy buy!

So here comes the update on my cardboard regrets thing.  In my collecting past, I've had a lot of times where budgets were tough, and passion for a certain collection was waning, and a combo of the two led to me selling off cards.  I had forgotten, until this recent Seneca streak started, that I had one such stretch with Seneca, directly after I failed in my quest for his Mirror Black 1/1 card.

When I didn't get that card, it really hit me that I'd never have them all...and that kind of bummed me out.  I mean I always knew I wouldn't, but it never really felt as definite as it did that day.  So I went into a little tailspin...offered some cards for sale on BO and on here.  And then eventually sold a few cards (like 5 or 6, all /25 or less) to the guy with the Mirror Black.  I figured, if not me, at least they're with a Seneca fan, right?

Well now that it's years from then, and I've been reinvigorated, and I really feel like THE Seneca Wallace collector again (and I've come to terms with not being able to get them all), I realized a few crazy facts.

1. I'm 47 cards away from owning one of every Seneca Wallace card ever made.
2. Of those 47, 23 are 1/1's, meaning they're ultra rare.  Leaving 24 cards /5 or more to track down.
3. Of those 24, I've only ever seen 12 in the wild (whether in a collection or for sale)
4. Of those 12, the other Seneca collector has 8 - including 5 I sold him in that moment of collection frustration.

In other words, if I had never sold him any, I'd only need 42 cards to finish the collection.  But them's the breaks...and I guess it's better to have owned and sold than to never have owned at all.

When thinking about all of that, I decided to prowl Ebay for weird mispellings/typos/etc. in case I found a weird Seneca that way.  It used to work in the past, so I figured why not again.  And I didn't even have to look very hard until I found a card I needed - his Authentix Standing Room Only /25.  I used to own this one too, but sold it to the Seneca guy as well with my other 5 cards.  Now I finally have one back, and it's in person autographed to boot:

I've bought from this guy before - one of my other Senecas is from him and is autoed.  But when I grabbed the Standing Room /25 before, I forgot about this one sitting on Ebay since I already owned one.  Thanks to that sale, and a second look, I got an upgrade of sorts.  So that's kind of neat, and I'm glad I was finally able to replace one of the cards that I sent away.  With Seneca at least, I'll make sure that doesn't happen again!