General Forum

Recently, my household has gone down to just a single income.  My wife and I decided it was best to have her quit her job so she could be the primary caretaker of our 1 year old son.  It's been working well so far, and we plan to do it at least until he is off to school.  

However, this has meant that I have much less money to spend on things- including the hobby.  We go to Target pretty much every week, and I used to be able to buy blasters there or even hobby boxes from local card shops or online without really having to think about it too much.  

Now what i can pretty much do is grab a single pack of cards every now and then and occasionally a rack pack.  What I have noticed though, is that somehow I seem to be really enjoying the cards that I am able to open.  I kind of think that when I would open more cards at one time, it would lessen the fun of pulling something really cool or pulling one of my favorite players or someone from one of my teams.  

Just the other day I pulled an Albert Pujols Tarot of the Diamond out of a single pack of Gypsy Queen and also pulled a Shohei Ohtani rookie card from a single pack of Opening Day.  I seemed to have more excitement getting those cards out of a single pack versus finding them in a blaster.  

I was able to get rack pack of 2017-18 Panini Prestige last weekend and pulled some fun cards out of that as well.  Basically, my whole point to this long rambling post is just to say that even when you have limited resources to put into the hobby- it's still a lot of fun!

I understand. When we were expecting our first and only, we pretty much stopped adding to the collections as we had to prep a room and the furniture, and save for other expenses.

After a couple years (I guess really after diapers stopped being an expense), we kinda popped back into the hobby. Time was available, and I knew I had a few boxes of unsorted goodies. Attempting to see what Phillies stuff I had and was missing is what got me here.

Then, more recently, in 2016, I was out of work for 3 months. When I did get a new job, it was consulting almost 1,000 miles from home for almost a year before I fouind something local and permanent. So, not a lot of purchasing was done from July 2016 to Sept 2017 (and even then, the first couple months were slow). While completely out of work, I did some organizing, selling (as much as possible), and a lot on the site. The cool part about collecting is just because you aren't actively buying, you're still a collector (as long as you don't sell everything off).

Enjoy the little one. It doesn't take long before they are no longer little. And yes, you can still have fun in the hobby with limited financial resources. Time to start trading more!

That's cool and nice to hear. Not quite the same thing, but since I've been more focused on super vintage cards, I've found myself looking forward to receiving and enjoying single cards more than I do lots of newer cards. I take more time to label and display and enjoy just one, single, special card than I do with 300 semi-interchangeable ones.

One other note from your post, and adding to my recent rant: what is a rookie card anymore? I've said this before, but what does getting an Ohtani rookie card even mean? I have the 2018 Gypsy Queen of him. Is that also a rookie card? Are there about 20 Ohtani cards that are all rookies? I've said this before, but if you say "Lou Brock rookie card," people know what you're talking about. Now, you need clarification on any "rookie" card. Grumpy rant aside, congrats on the nice pulls and continued enjoyment of the hobby on a reduced budget. All for the good of the team!

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Absolutely true. Back in the early 2000s I could afford a box or two of every NBA and NASCAR set, and I usually got them, plus a steady stream of repacks. That all went away, tied in large part to the rising costs associated with maintaining my health. Now, I am lucky to get one blaster a month, and I spread it out...I only open a pack or two at any time. I definitely appreciate what I get more now than I did back then. In that time period, it was all spent on documenting the new cards- in my paper listing and in my old Excel chart where I only listed how many I had of each person. I would do that as fast as I possibly could because more cards would soon be joining the collection...

I distinctly remember, I opened a box of 2002-03 Topps Chrome, every single pack, in the short time my mom was on line at the Duncan Donuts in Hyde Park, NY. That's not a very long time. Now, doing a hobby box generally takes me over a month. Back then...5 minutes or less. I would go through as fast as possible just to see what was there, I wouldn't take the time to appreciate them, and forget even reading the backs! In fact, I still have not read the backs on most of them. It's something I plan to do at my leasure when I finish scanning everything. And then, as soon as I was done entering them into my files, the hunt was on for more new cards. During most of that time I also had my sets sorted in numerical order, something that I have not maintained since 2004.

I know I would still collect that volume if I could...But I can't afford it, for one, and now there are very few actual sets to chase, mostly 5-cards for $400 "packs". I like to think I would appreciate them more now than I did then. With the fact that I now scan everything, I have to scrutinize each card several times over- to make sure there is nothing on the card, then when correcting the scan to make sure it matches the actual card in hand...it's given me more chance to look over each card. It's also changed my preferences...as time has gone on I'm much less accepting of flashy designs with a cut-out image of a player than I once was. An example is 2002-03 Fleer Box Score. I loved that set when it came out. I did three boxes trying to complete it. But now, I look at it and I don't know why I went so nuts for it. It's really not all that special, design wise. The memories of chasing it now are more important to me than the cards themselves.

I also document my cards in a MUCH more detailed manner than I did back then. I am actually beginning to worry if I am trying to document too much. Besides my paper listing which I still maintain, I track them here, I track some of my wants on Cardboard History, I keep an Excel chart of the exact order I get them in (because it matters to me for some reason), I keep track of what I scan in a month, I keep track of how many I have of each person- both a total and a detailed listing of each card- I also have charts for each team, each season, and overall. (I type it once and copy and paste it to the others). I also am still in the process of creating a new chart where I track the totals of how many cards I have per player by team and how many I have of each team by season. And I do this for the NBA, NASCAR, NHL and some of the charts for MLB, NFL, Other sports, multi-sport, non-sport, Olympics and WNBA. I already got to frustrated with the mistakes I made on the team-by-person chart that I had to set it aside and do something else- the first time that an excel project did that to me.

But, my health is lousy, I need to do something to keep me from going a little crazy staring at the walls. This is something that's simple and I can step away when I need to and come back to it when I am feeling better...and besides, I have nothing better to do. It's not like it's hard work, it's just typing and then copy & pasting. Now if only I could do a better job of it...I've discovered many, many mistakes already...for instance, I listed Manu Ginobili on the Chicago Bulls on one card. Not sure what I was thinking there.
For the past 5 years getting everything scanned and posted on here was what I spent most of my time doing when I was able to be at the computer. Now that I've finished, I needed to come up with something to fill that time. This is what I chose.

I also have to say, the people in this card community are exceptional. I add more cards from other collectors than I buy from myself by a wide margin- I'm just guesstimating, but I would say for every card I buy for myself, I am either given or trade for 5 more. The past three years have seen me add more new cards to my collection than any other year except 2002, and that's because I've recieved 5 different gifts that saw me add over 1000 new cards in a day- including January 31st, 2015 when I was given more than 4000 new cards in one day, mostly hockey, which would form the basis for my collection. I have roughly 9500 different NHL cards already...and I've bought for myself maybe 2000 of them. Probably less!

i think most people go through this like a roller coaster, buy then hold, buy then hold. Yes, i was one of those who used to go in to my local here and buy a couple boxes of the Immaculate or wouldn't think twice about cracking half dozen mid to high boxes at a time. The one good thing at that time was that if i had any decent hits, i could leave them in the store for sale and get store credit for it. That helped, but after a recent marriage and buying a house that kinda money went to the waist side. Now i get a box when i can and just trying to fill in what im missing one card at a time. Even been pondering with the situation of just selling everything-- but everytime i think about it- i just buy more lol 

My hobby budget has always been very small.  My wife has only worked a few years (not enough to claim SS) out of the 50 years  (Aug 3 this year).  When I started collecting in the early 80s with my son $10 a month was it. But we sure had fun.  I stopped building sets in the early 2000s and foused on my Husker collection.  The last time I purchased a box was in 2002 hoping to pull a Eric Crouch card.  I do not remimber if I did.  But now I'm thrilled that I picked up a Crouch CFL card, It is in the mail.  Thanks to this site.

Now I'm retired I have way to much time to find cards I need.  BUT my income has dropped 52% so that really takes a bite out of my buying.  I have find a lot of cards that I did not even know existed  but can not buy but a few.  Big bummer

I know a couple of guys that buys cases and rippes them.  They pull what the want and can sell and throws the rest in a room.  At time the rooms were fulled.  Would he let me go though them to  pull my huskers  NO!!!  Last I knew he solded them real cheap to buy more boxes.  I do not talk to him any more.

I really need to verify what I have and what I have on my list again.  That should keep me busy for a while.

Oh, and when things are tight and I've exceeded the budget for cards, that's the time I start to go back through the entire collection and just look through my cards. I love getting them and sorting them and putting them away. But I don't love just putting them away and never looking at them again. So every three to five years I try to look through the entire collection. It takes months, but it's a ton of fun, and sort of like new cards all over again, because I haven't seen some of these cards in years and don't even remember having them. It's awesome. This will be an even better when my memory starts to go. Then they'll ALL be new to me....

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I went through the same thing when my kids were born, I limited my purchases around each birth. Dan is dead on, diapers are so damn expensive even though they are a loss leader. I was working as a retail manager when my oldest was born and even got them at a discount but as often as you buy them it adds up quickly so the hobby move down the list of importance in the budget. 

Life changes had a big impact on my collecting budget also.  I have not opened a hobby box since 2003.  That year we built a new house.  Child #1 came in 2005, #2 in 2008.  I do bust the occasional blaster box, but have found that trading and hitting the bargain boxes at card shows takes care of my pack busting itch.  I can be hard to see everyone busting open the newest releases, but delayed gratification can save you a lot of money in the long run.  Wait until you start looking into what college will cost, not to mention what health care is.

I have managed to always keep the priorities in the right order.  I used to budget $100 a month on average but accumulated money till a really good buy came along. In my 4 years in Toronto, I bought many large lots of cards, older ones quite often, from people selling off their cards because they could not afford them anymore. Have done this since 1990, during the growing up of 3 kids, buying 66 acres, building a house and a barn, buying the equipment to make hay, and everything else in life. Now, retired and divorced, I still have plenty to buy like I used to.  But I look for other people's cards and don't buy the new stuff from retail.  

This site has done wonders in rejuvenating the hobby for me as it did get stale in the years of over production of parallels, inserts and what have you. My collection is all on here, every card that has a place here has been scanned and uploaded, and many checklists not previously on here added. Even have added packaging as recently as yesterday from the 1971 Dell Today set and the 1978 SSPC set.

Still a few cards to be identified. Added them in the Forum but either no one knows of them or people have stopped reading those Forums.