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Keyser Soze
New member
**UPDATED WITH NEW PICKUPS IN REPLY 18 BELOW**
***NOTE: I'm back!!! I've been ansent from FCB because my work firewall mysteriously started blocking FCB, and work is where I do 95% of my baseball activity. I've periodically tried to get here, and this morning was able to! Hopefully I'll be back and more active. ***
I'm generally known as the Anthony Rendon collector, and while I am still a big fan of him, I grew bored with only collecting him. Topps assisted with this by apparently blacklisting him, as they no longer even give him base cards in their last 8-10 releases, much less cool inserts or autographs. So once I opened myself up to the idea of amicably moving on, the question obviously became what I would move on to. I've gone through collecting phases in my life. Like most, it started out when I was young in the late-80's. I collected baseball from 1987 until around 1991. I then dipped my toes in the basketball pool when in college, as there was a card shop right next to my apartment that lured me in every time I scrounged up an extra $10. eBay also got big around this time and I constantly walked to the Ace Check Cash Express to exchange my cash for money orders and mail it off to sellers. I spent every dime I had for about a 4-month period collecting Steve Francis. He was awesome. Young, explosive, dynamic. When 1999-00 SPx came out and Steve Francis had a autographed rookie serial-numbered to only 500........ I had to have it. The shop owner had 1 box, and I bought 1 or 2 packs at a time until there were only 4 left. As you would expect, some ******* swooped in and bought 3 of the last 4 packs and, naturally, pulled my Steve Francis. I would eventually go on to own 2 of them, but a few months later grew bored and sold everything.
Move forward about 8 years and I got a new job. I was being led around the office meeting everybody and was brought into this older gentlemens office, and like entering the gates of heaven, I walked into an office where the walls were covered with color scans of vintage baseball cards. My fire was re-lit. While I've moved around within my company, this gentleman is still in the same office and we've become buddies. He's an old grump and hates technology, so sometimes he'll bring me some cards to sell for him in order to buy something else he wants. He has the most amazing collection I've ever seen. Now a baseball fan in my later, more mature years, that's what I've collected.
Now is the time where I tie all of this together. When I collected in 1998-2001, I LOVED basketball versions of sets like SPx Finite, Flair Showcase, Fleer Ultra, Topps Finest, etc; so now I've determined that my passion for those sets has translated into a new PC for me. Inserts and parallels from that time period, only I shifted over to baseball. I love hometown favorites Biggio and Bagwell, as well as all-time greats Griffey Jr, and Jeter. So that's become my new focus, and here's what I have thus far.
I'll update periodically with new pickups. Thanks for your time.
First, I felt like I needed to ceremoniously connect my collection back to those glory years of my collecting, so I had to buy this for $20, instead of the $250 it used to cost:
Now for the baseball, loosely collated by player.
***NOTE: I'm back!!! I've been ansent from FCB because my work firewall mysteriously started blocking FCB, and work is where I do 95% of my baseball activity. I've periodically tried to get here, and this morning was able to! Hopefully I'll be back and more active. ***
I'm generally known as the Anthony Rendon collector, and while I am still a big fan of him, I grew bored with only collecting him. Topps assisted with this by apparently blacklisting him, as they no longer even give him base cards in their last 8-10 releases, much less cool inserts or autographs. So once I opened myself up to the idea of amicably moving on, the question obviously became what I would move on to. I've gone through collecting phases in my life. Like most, it started out when I was young in the late-80's. I collected baseball from 1987 until around 1991. I then dipped my toes in the basketball pool when in college, as there was a card shop right next to my apartment that lured me in every time I scrounged up an extra $10. eBay also got big around this time and I constantly walked to the Ace Check Cash Express to exchange my cash for money orders and mail it off to sellers. I spent every dime I had for about a 4-month period collecting Steve Francis. He was awesome. Young, explosive, dynamic. When 1999-00 SPx came out and Steve Francis had a autographed rookie serial-numbered to only 500........ I had to have it. The shop owner had 1 box, and I bought 1 or 2 packs at a time until there were only 4 left. As you would expect, some ******* swooped in and bought 3 of the last 4 packs and, naturally, pulled my Steve Francis. I would eventually go on to own 2 of them, but a few months later grew bored and sold everything.
Move forward about 8 years and I got a new job. I was being led around the office meeting everybody and was brought into this older gentlemens office, and like entering the gates of heaven, I walked into an office where the walls were covered with color scans of vintage baseball cards. My fire was re-lit. While I've moved around within my company, this gentleman is still in the same office and we've become buddies. He's an old grump and hates technology, so sometimes he'll bring me some cards to sell for him in order to buy something else he wants. He has the most amazing collection I've ever seen. Now a baseball fan in my later, more mature years, that's what I've collected.
Now is the time where I tie all of this together. When I collected in 1998-2001, I LOVED basketball versions of sets like SPx Finite, Flair Showcase, Fleer Ultra, Topps Finest, etc; so now I've determined that my passion for those sets has translated into a new PC for me. Inserts and parallels from that time period, only I shifted over to baseball. I love hometown favorites Biggio and Bagwell, as well as all-time greats Griffey Jr, and Jeter. So that's become my new focus, and here's what I have thus far.
I'll update periodically with new pickups. Thanks for your time.
First, I felt like I needed to ceremoniously connect my collection back to those glory years of my collecting, so I had to buy this for $20, instead of the $250 it used to cost:
Now for the baseball, loosely collated by player.
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