[ Outline ] · Standard · Linear+ What do you enjoy the most about this hobby?

[ffman]

I saw a similar topic on a different board, and I'm eager to hear responses from fellow TCCers.

What do you enjoy the most about this hobby?

For me, it's the thrill of getting a nice pack pull and interacting with other collectors.

[sschind]

My first response to the question was "not much" and I felt like I could make a much larger contribution to the "what don't you like about this hobby" thread. As I was reading through the posts in this thread however, I realized that my initial "not much" response was not in answer to the "What do you enjoy the most about this hobby?" question but rather was more of an appropriate answer to a more specific question such as "what do like most about what this hobby has become"

A little background if you will permit, and an advanced warning that this will get a bit long. It's a slow day and this is my first venture back to a card collecting site in about a year so I have a lot of things to say. You have been warned. log out now or hold your tongue later.

I started collecting Green Bay Packer cards probably not quite 20 years ago. My first trip to a card shop came when I was in my early 20s. I had alway been a Packers fan and I had a few odds and ends laying around but not much in the way of cards. I went into a card shop just to check it out an I got hooked. My first few visits were spent splitting my time between admiring the new Packer inserts that were selling for outrageous amounts of money in the case and going through the guys nickel box for commons. After a few weeks I had depleted those nickel boxes of cards that I needed and I moved on up to the quarter box. After a couple of years the 50 cent and dollar boxes eventually fell victim to my relentless pursuit of all cards cheap relating to the Packers. Remember, 20 years ago a buck could still buy you a decent looking card and not simply because they had been overproduced ad nauseum.

That's when I started buying packs. My reasoning was that if I pulled a decent Packers insert great, I would keep it, if I got an insert of some other stud it was almost like pulling my favorite player because I could always trade it. At that time Favre, Marino, and Smith were all booking for the same so a 20 dollar Emmitt Smith insert was the same to me as a 20 dollar Favre. All I had to do was find someone with the 20 dollar Favre who wanted the 20 dollar Smith. Enter usenet newsgroups and rec.collecting. whatever it was called. I made lots of trades and built up my collection, and had a lot of fun. Soon the packs turned to boxes and I was sitting there with team lots of hundreds of cards that I had no interest in. Usenet to the rescue again. Trading team lots became my thing and again I had lots of fun my and my Packers collection grew and grew. What also started growing was the box prices, and the strict attention to "book value" when it came to trades. It was no longer acceptable to trade my 500 Bears cards for your 500 Packers cards. Everyone wanted to know the player breakdowns and the number of inserts etc etc. Then they would come back with comment like my lot books for $20.00 more than yours so I will pull out a couple of the inserts to make it even. Thats fine as far as it goes but it was getting that so a mixed lot of 500 Packers commons might only net me 2 or 3 cards that I needed and the few inserts that were being pulled were the ones I really needed.

I really started to get disheartened by the whole thing and was cutting back when the whole autograph thing started up big time. Autographs never meant anything to me. As far as I was concerned if you didn't get the autograph in person what was the point and I couldn't think of a single person that I would have waited more than 2 minutes to have sign a piece of cardboard for me. Game used was next and then ultra low count parallel sets and ultra high prices to go along with them. I quit completely for about 5 years. I started up again about 5 or 6 years ago but found that everything I enjoyed about the hobby back then was even rarer now than when I quit and the things that made me quit were even more rampant. I did do a quite a bit of buying of Packers lots on Ebay and did build my, by now seriously lagging, Packers collection back up to where most of the base cards and low end inserts were now safely tucked into their respective 9 pocket holders in their appropriate binders. However, after a couple of years of trying to trade my low end cards for other low end cards that I still needed I found that no one was interested in them any more. I was not one of those who tried to trade my three 1995 one per pack inserts for a brand new 1 per box game used. I was realistic in what I was looking for but it seems like there was no one interested in the low end cards any more. So I quit again.

The Favre race to 420 has once again renewed my interest. In watching Ebay I see that most of the cards can be had for about $1.00 $1.50 each. That is a doable thing for me and I may try to go for the set. I clicked on my old link here and this is one of the first threads I found. After a very long and probably not so mesmerizing post here we are. What do I like most about his hobby. Most of them have already been mentioned. Finding that one particular card that you have been really searching for and finding it in a box of commons for that matter. Finding the only card ever made of that one player that only played for one season as a #4 wide receiver. Getting the new team set of whatever brand when a team set was really a team set and you didn't have to pay extra for the rookies. Getting that last card to fill your 1976 wonder bread team set. The list really does go on. The two things that I like most about the hobby though are number 1, seeing posts from people in this thread who haven't forgotten what it was like. And # 2 seeing my 7 year old nephew's face light up when he opens a cheap pack and pulls a common of Devin Hester or Brian Urlacher or Peyton Manning or Tom Brady. I've been buying packs again just for him and I am dreading the day when he picks up his first Beckett. Until then, I will try to enjoy the hobby again for what it has meant to me and the heck with what everyone else thinks.

If you are still reading I think you will know exactly what I am talking about and I wish you all the best in your all collecting endeavors.