Yes, checklist cards were great and could be very sort after in their own right. The last card in a set might be the final checklist. Also the whole thing about finding the mint unmarked/unchecked checklists takes me back.
Posts: 10529 | Location: New York | Registered: November 20, 2007
The big point is that the "base set" of 66 or 90 or 100 could have their titles listed on a 2-sided card, but today's sets focus on a wide range of inserts and hits, and a base set is treated as a single item.
Some cardmakers still do checklists, more of them do title cards, while others post checklists online or in sell sheets. Older checklist cards might have been used physically to make tick marks for the cards you have, but who did that after they reached age 12? From the 1980s and earlier, the best approach was to print more checklist card than the typical base card, maybe even one per pack.
Occasionally web and PDF lists are accurate. Other times they are only marginally helpful because the "titles" on the list don't match anything that's printed on the cards, making it difficult to recognize a card that would fill a gap from just the card front. If the only value in filling a set is to keep track of the numbers, a collector can do that offline.
Sometimes a "checklist" is just a "set composition list" that says base 1-90, insert set 1 XX1-XX9 etc., sketch cards (no artist list), autographs (maybe see website), four parallel sets, and so forth. Other times the cardmaker fills the same purpose by printing subset insertion odds on the back of the pack.
I encourage people to give more attention to the older sets where it actually meant something to have a high-grade title or checklist card without rubber band or tick marks!
Posts: 2424 | Location: North Augusta, SC, USA | Registered: November 28, 2002
