If You Build It, They Will Come

 I hadn't taken full account of the number of cards in my collection until today.  As I write this, I have 12,341 unique Iowa Connection cards in my collection.  That is insane!  Of course, this number is more insane.  The number of Iowa Connection cards I need are.... Well, take a moment and think what your guess would be.  I'll put it at the end of the post.  I'll take a guess here myself.  Now, my best collection is Kurt Warner, where I have about 8% of his cards.  Towards the middle is Harvey Kuenn at 3.5%.  Some 90's players I have a significant chunk of including Kevin Tapani at 35.9%.  Many pre 1970's players and minor leaguers I have 0% of.  Hockey, Wrestling and other collections are wastelands right now.  So, I'll be a bit conservative and say that I own 2% of all the Iowa Connection cards.   That would make my guess 605,000 wants.  We'll see if I'm closer or if your guess is closer at the end...

 Now we get to the fun part.  I am a Northern Iowa alum, so I do take some pride in this collection.  Some of my favorite collection are in this group, including Kurt Warner, David Johnson, Dedric Ward and Kenny Shedd.  Kenny Shedd holds a dear spot in my heart.  I remember opening 1993 Classic packs skipping past Bettis, Bledsoe, Hearst and the rest hoping to get the Shedd card, the first card I had ever seen with a Panther in his Panther jersey on a card.   Big gainers this year included Kurt Warner (45 cards), David Johnson (28), Jeff Burris (19) and Bryce Paup (18).  I moved up to 2nd place for Warner, and remain a mere 950 cards behind 1st place (Go Thunder21 !)  Most collections I'm in 1st or 2nd, and the one that are lower are typically Northern Iowa coaches that I started collecting later (Burris, Frost, Klein, Chambers, Bullocks). Trevor Penning and Brandon Lynch are new additions to the checklist.  Penning, Terrell Sinkfield an...