2018 Year In Review

Last Year I took a look at how 2017 impacted my collection, and I thought I should continue again this year and see what changed in 2018!

2018 Highlights

• The blog continues to go strong! I hit the one year mark in 2018, and have settled into a nice groove of posting every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
• In honor of my one year anniversary, I held my first ever contest! It was fun to do, even if the prizes were pretty meager. Hopefully I can do a better one this year!
• Due to a prize win early in the year, I acquired a bunch of hockey cards which gave that collection some serious weight. Although I don't really target hockey cards in my collection, it was good to add some more cardboard of my second favorite sport! As an added bonus, the contest win had a strange effect on my viewership, as you'll see later on.
• I did more online trading than I ever have. A big reason for this was my Time Travel Trading series, which turned out to be a colossal success! 
• Of course, I'd be remiss to not mention the Red Sox wining the World Series! If that's not a 2018 Highlight for a Red Sox fan, I don't know what is!

2018 Diamond Jesters Blog Stats

Number of posts: 174
Month with the most posts: 19 posts in March (4 Time Travel updates, plus a week of posts from my trip to Spring Training gave this month a few extra posts)
Top 5 viewed posts: (Somehow, the Top 5 viewed posts were all posts about those hockey cards I won from Billy at Cardboard History. I can't explain it - the Top hockey post picked up almost 100 view this past month alone, even though it was originally published March 27. Someone out there really likes hockey cards!)

1. Cardboard History Radically Changed My Collection (253 views)
2. Hockey Cards From Cardboard History - Pack #7 (230 views)
3. Hockey Cards From Cardboard History - Pack #5 (221 views)
4. Hockey Cards From Cardboard History - Pack #6 (193 views)
5. Hockey Cards From Cardboard History - Pack #8 (190 views)

Most commented post: One Year, 200 Posts, And The World's Lamest Contest - 13 comments (Ha! I had to bribe you all with a giveaway to get this many comments! )
Most commented post (Non-Giveaway post): 6 Seriously WTF Moments I Had Opening A Pack Of 2018 Donruss - 10 comments (Only one of those was mine! I guess this made for an interesting discussion!)
Followers: 42 (The Ultimate Number! Up 14 new followers from last year! Thanks to each and every one of you!)

My Collection

(Stats courtesy of the Trading Card Database)

Total number of cards: 39,281 (Up 3,853 cards from last year, again with the caveat that I'm still cataloguing my collection!)
Cards from 2018 sets: 911 (A few hundred more than I bought of 2017 product. The base set was better, and the stock didn't get wiped out from Aaron Judge rookie card  hunters.)
Red Sox cards: 3,412 (Over twice as much as any other team - I guess I am a team collector at heart!)
Autographed cards: 14 (4 new this year: Jeremy Hellickson, Clay Buchholz, Michael Chavis, Austin Meadows)

Thanks Jeremy!

Graded cards: 1 (No new cards this year)
Relic cards: 9 (5 new this year: David Ortiz, Hanley Ramirez, and 3 Kevin Youkilis!)

Thanks Paul!