Why are you here and where are you going?

[mchenrycards]

Over forty years of my life have found me involved in the sports card hobby in one form or another. I have been a snot nosed kid collecting the 1973 Topps baseball and football sets as well as a card show dealer, promoter and shop owner. I have purchased major collections and sold mine off so many times I cannot even count the times. While my devotion to the hobby tapered off during the late teen years I have always found myself returning to the hobby that brought me so much joy as a child.

There was a time that making the most money that I could from the hobby was my top priority while at other times all I wanted was a few completed sets and a way to escape the pressures of the everyday world. Now, as I enter mid-life I found myself returning to those sets that brought me so much joy as a child while looking for nice cards….not gem mint cards but nice cards that will fill my set needs. Some would say my passion has matured and no longer chase cards or sets that are impossible to obtain but look for cards that remind me of a different time. The hobby has become an escape for me and a way to clear my mind.

So having said all that…..what is this hobby to you. If you are in it to make a buck admit it. If you are in it to pass the time until something better comes along, that is understandable. What I want to know is this. Making the assumption the hobby will continue as it is today (let’s not make this a debate on companies and monopolies but rather on the hobby itself), answer the following questions:

What got you into the hobby?

Why are you still in the hobby?

In terms of this hobby, where do you see yourself in ten years? Twenty? More?

 

[Enfuego79]

Well, I got into the hobby cause of my grandfather. He was real big in collecting his favorite players, Mays, Clemente, Berra and a few others and every time he would pick up some more cards, he would bring me along and helped me to start my own collection.

I just got back into it maybe 4 yrs ago and I do it for a few reasons.

1. I still love baseball and everything involved in the sport

2. I enjoy looking at my PC and just telling stories to my daughter

3. My daughter is coming around to knowing about baseball and the hobby, I help her build her PC "Yankees theme" an her favorite players are Jeter and AROD.

I see myself still collecting for a very long time, I'm only 35 and I still have ways to go. Once I feel as though I'm officially done collecting, I plan to pass my collection to my daughter and it'll be up to her why he wants to do with it...right now she's only 11 and she loves showing off her collection to her friends which really don't understand why a girl is collecting baseball cards, her answer is "this is what sparks daddy/daughter time". I'm so proud that I didn't have to drill the sport into her, she just loves it cause her daddy loves it...

 

[tramers]

I don't hunt , fish ,golf and never played on a team in sports . Played poker and shot pool for awhile .
Still have my collection from the fifty's minus the bike spoke cards .
I do sell at local stadium but doubt i'll ever sell my 400,000 collection there.

 

[mrmopar]

A new friend moved into my neighborhood in 1978 and he collected baseball cards. He introduced me to them and I started to buy them as well.

Simply because I enjoy the sport and like to see what different items I have tracked down and obtained over the years. It likely reminds mew of a fun time in my life now as well.

Into the future, I see myself eventually starting to liquidate the collection, as it seems my family cares little about it. I will probably continue to collect as this happens, but hard to say.

What got you into the hobby?

Why are you still in the hobby?

In terms of this hobby, where do you see yourself in ten years? Twenty? More?

 

[mrmopar]

I don't really know the answer to this, but would assume people just in it for a quick buck are not likely apt to chat cards on a site like this, other than to push their newest flips and breaks. I've found many of that type to be all business and taking the time to reminisce about cards or share stories doesn't fit the bill.

what is this hobby to you. If you are in it to make a buck admit it.

I still love to find a nice crisp vintage card that still need or discover an issue I knew little or nothing about. Finding the new items is a lot of the enjoyment, but winning/buying/trading for them so that the item is mine puts me over the top.

I have my eye on something that is very exciting right now and I hope to win the lot. It will help explain something I was previously unsure about with regard to how items were originally distributed. I'll share more later if I do win and have the item to confirm what I think to be true.

 

[Mighty Bombjack]

It was a way for my father and me to bond when I was a kid. He liked baseball but really wasn't into cards. One day I bought some packs, he started talking about today's players versus those of his youth, and we went to our LCS to see if they had older cards. That started a tradition of buying me a card of one of my dad's favorite players from his youth whenever I got a good report card. I still have those cards and love them.

I dropped the hobby in high school and really forgot about it until a few years after college when I was looking for a job in NYC. Topps is hiring! Why not? I went to work there and got a crash course in how the hobby had changed. I started collecting again, found these boards (or what was Beckett), and when I started trading for HOF autos it got my dad and me interested again.

10 years from now? It will all depend on whether my sons are into it or not. I am not pushing them, though my 5-year-old likes to help me "sort" cards, which just means looking through a stack for a funny beard or something. I dig the cards for the connection to my father, my own youth, and the game itself.

It's healthy to have a hobby.

 

[michaelstepper]

Not really sure when I started or why but I've always been crazy about baseball. Playing for hours on end outside with my friends. Kept a bundle of cards with a rubber band around them for years, then my mom took a chance and bought me a griffey UD RC for Christmas. I was just starting to watch him play as well and that was that. I emulated him, learning to hit lefty with his stance. Still use the glove I bought 17 years ago with his name on it for softball.
I've come and gone collecting wise, but always come back. Always a mild core player collector I spent a small fortune on eBay early on and went in to far. Watching griffeys career has always been the driving force behind my collecting until he retired. (I cried, I can honestly say that) The "need" for new things waned, and as I looked into his stats more I read all the names and people in the history and record books he was mentioned with or surpassed, my curiosity of the history of the game got the better of me. HOF autos or certain GU is now my focus.. I don't watch nearly the amount of baseball I used to, and newer players I don't connect with. Not out to make a buck, not really sure why I do what I do with the hobby. Interesting stories and cool to have but doesn't influence anyone I'm around other than myself. No one cares.. I think the variety of material keeps it interesting. And getting that next piece good deal or not I a extremely satisfying feeling I don't get much anywhere else..

 

[BBCgalaxee]

Growing up in the 80s, all my friends collected cards. I had a head start on most because I started collecting in the late 70s, years before the "boom" of 1987.

And like just about every kid, I grew out of it and into girls, college and partying.

In late 94, got re acquainted with the hobby in a toys r us because they were clearing out 94 collectors choice series 2 packs.

Those led to buying retail packs of 95 collectors choice (and "se") plus leaf and a little of topps and Donruss.

In late 96, I started posting on the internet message boards (usenet or something like that) and soon after joined BMB until that went down and FCB was formed.

Then, once I opened my store in 1998, I became addicted again and started opening "expensive" boxes like 99 bowman chrome and the like.

That gave way to bowman chrome and elite extra cases, bowman sterling boxes and cases and Leaf draft products.

2012 were the last products I opened by the case (leaf valiant and metal) and completely loved it for both my pc and selling (although I missed the boat on the 2013 versions).

Honestly, just about nothing interests me to open nowadays out side of leaf and sterling. Would rather let someone else online or at shows open a jumbo bowman case and get hammered when they sell me nearly all their autos at a few dollars per.

I am interested in seeing the checklist for bowman chrome. Five autos per jumbo sounds great, but because of that and its topps, I'm skeptical. I have no desire to get three scout autos or three rip girl autos a box. Plus I heard Chaz Roe, Brandon Mauer and Didi Gregorious are itching to sign, and that's scary.

 

[nkdbacks]

Sorry in advance for the long post!

I first got into the hobby shortly after I got into baseball. My mom, too, had just gotten back into baseball after not watching must for the previous 10 years or so, and she was curious what a baseball card looked like. I didn't care at all, but I went with her to the card shop and she bought a pack of 1999 Topps. Pulled a D-backs card in the very first pack, and it was like a choir was singing when we opened the pack (cheesy analogy, to be sure, but accurate). After that, I was hooked (and I still blame her to this day for my obsession).

I've pretty much been collecting steadily these last 15 years. There have been times where I've slowed down (too busy with school and girls, or just too poor) or where my collection's shifted focus (pretty much ignored the rest of the team in favor of Brandon Webb for a good couple years, I still shudder about what I probably missed out there).

I collect for the same reason I like music, because every card (or song) is just a blast of nostalgia. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, but every card reminds me of where I was during the time in my life I got it. Makes me remember all the good and bad times and how I've gotten to where I am now, as well as all the good and bad times the D-backs have had. Despite all the changes in my life (I was 9 when I started in 1999, now I'll be 25 here soon, so it was quite the time for changes), the card collection has always been there. I love that I have something to show that represents all those times, and it's really my only hobby, so it keeps me busy whenever there is down time.

I love collecting an team, because there is, obviously, no way I will ever get everything out there, so it's something I can continue to chase the rest of my life. I also like that I have seen every single player in my collection play, so I have some connection to them, whether it's amazing (Randy Johnson) or horrifying (Looking at you, Chad Qualls). Very few team collectors get that, but with the Diamondbacks coming around in 1998, it's been really cool.

I don't imagine my future in the hobby will ever change. There were a couple months when I was going through a bout of depression where I just thought about keeping a few cool cards and selling the rest, but thank god I never made that decision. Assuming the hobby doesn't go to crap (and I think it's really gone down hill since Topps became the exclusive and prospects became the name of the game, though I completely understand the thrill of prospecting, I just wish it wasn't such a big focus of so many people), I'm going to continue chugging along as I have the past 15 years. At 24, I now have a steady job (knock on wood), have pretty much established the friends and family I'll have around the rest of my life, and that diploma is finally hanging on the wall. Working hard on paying off the student loans and credit cards now, but it's quite nice to have some extra income to put towards the collection and not worry. I can never know what's going to happen in my life or for how long I'll have the means and time to collect, so I'm going to keep going strong at it while I can. Even if times get busy or hard or whatever, I'll always have the collection to look back on.

 

[predatorkj]

I got into the hobby because my grandmother loved all sports, especially baseball, and talked to me quite a bit as a child about greats like Ruth and Aaron. I spent quite a bit of time at her house after school and in the summers as a child. Plus, I loved playing baseball and was pretty good at it. I was an only child so all my time was spent outside alone throwing at a target I made on a fence or swinging a bat and seeing how far I could hit a ball(pissing several neighbors off in the process). Plus when I was growing up, baseball cards were the thing to collect. Everyone collected them!

Why I'm still in the hobby is a more complex situation. I collected comics starting in high school and amassed a very great collection, especially when I graduated and started making good money. But it just got overwhelming. I went after everything and spent way too much money. I would never drop any of the books I read because I felt I needed to keep reading them. I finally grew tired of it and sold/traded off my collection. I was well aware of the new types of cards out when I came back into the hobby in the winter of 2006 but I just felt overwhelmed from the start. Everything seemed expensive and there was too much of it to even decide where to start. But trading off my comics for a ton of sealed wax helped me get a nice jump start. I also picked up several vintage cards and sets along the way.

I guess why I'm still in it is because I've always felt the need to collect something and be involved in something bigger than myself but that still affords me a means to pursue things and enjoy them in a hermit type fashion. I can collect things nobody else would and still have a connection to other collectors.

I'm not sure where I'll be in 10 or 20 years but hopefully it'll be collecting something I enjoy.

One last point...I think a lot of people start off as collectors and then the hobby loses it's appeal and luster. Then they decide to sell stuff. I've run across only a handful of people who do both collecting and selling. What I mean is, for a while they may sell to put the money towards their collection. But I've yet to see too many people stick with their collection. At some point even it becomes for sale. But I think everyone who deals in cards at some point and maybe still in some ways, likes the hobby. But they are afraid to like it too much because of the money involved. It's hard to rationalize the hobby and how much money is involved now. Especially if you own a shop and see people losing their rear ends on wax. Or see people buying any type of card only to see it drop in price or be overdone a million times over by the card companies. It's almost like people want to buy back in. But they don't totally trust the hobby enough to do so. And maybe they are the smartest people in the hobby for that...