General Forum

I finally thought of one:

https://www.tradingcarddb.com/ViewCard.cfm/sid/145671/cid/10785592/2006-07-Extreme-Brampton-Battalion-OHL-17-Justin-Levac

Levac was my favorite player on the Danville Dashers team that won the FHL Commissioner's Cup two years ago.  This is the only known card of any player from that roster, and I have it (I'll scan it when I find it).  Two years later, the team is bad again.  The coach left for a bigger league.  The stars like Levac are gone (mostly).  The arena is overrun with unsupervised children.  An expansion team is in 1st place.  I've only gone to two games this season.  And that is due to the children. I support my teams when they stink. But I don't tolerate rowdy kids in public.

Mine are certain sets from my childhood. My parents (who have both passed) used to buy the boxes and open packs together.  This site has been great in trying to complete the 4 sets. The sets are 90-91 hoops,  95-96 hoops and 95 collectors choice regular and se for baseball.

I first developed an interest in card collecting when I was around 8 or 9 years old. Unfortunately, that happened to coincide with the peak of the junk era from about 1990 to 1993, and the vast majority of my collection is from this time, so most of what I have is really only of value to me.

One card that stands out, though, is a 1969 Topps Roberto Clemente card I bought for my dad as a birthday off eBay years ago because it was his favorite player. The card itself is in reasonable shape, but is badly off-center so it came at a pretty substantial discount. At the time, it was all I could afford. My dad passed away a little over a year ago and now the card has come back to me. Serious collectors would likely turn their noses up at it, but to me it's worth far more than any other.

I have 2 cards that came to mind while reading this thread. And neither is of someone I REALLY collect. Oddly, both are football cards.

1st, the no perceived value card. I have a 1999 Ultra Torry Holt RC card. Some would quickly say that card is worth a few dollars. Sadly, this specific one is only valuable to me. The card was in a toploader in a bookbag that got left out in the rain. No penny sleeve and no team bag. The card is permanantly stuck inside the toploader now. I tried to get it out but stopped when I saw that most of the front and back were staying in the toploader. What makes it special to me is that I got him to sign it in-person about 2 weeks after the Rams won the Super Bowl in his RC year. I have a small collection of his cards b/c he's an NC guy and graduated from the same high school as my Mom and from NC State where my Aunt graduated. Probably no collector would want that card, but I'll never get rid of it anyway.

The 2nd card does have value ($24 BV in its condition). It's a 1971 Topps Joe Namath card. I don't collect Namath or the Jets AT ALL. But I traded for that card while I was in middle school. I ONLY wanted it b/c it was older than me and the first one I ever saw in-person. The attachment is partly that trade, but mostly b/c it was the 1st vintage card I ever owned. It's pretty beat up, but it's still listed as a keeper on here and Beckett. I've owned it for almost 30 years now and it's been in a snap-tite case since shortly after I traded for it. I can't say I'd never sell or trade it, but no one has ever offered anything for it b/c it's not listed as a trader anywhere.

mine would be a 1978 Topps Nolan Ryan my Gram gave to me in 1990 and my 24k gold auto of Nolan Ryan my Dad and Mom got for me in 1993 with COA. 

Both have been in holders since the day I got them

my first game used is Richie Sexton and my first auto I pulled of Eric Chavez. I still have them as well

Welcome to the site!  I enjoy your podcast every week

Mark

For me it's the 1974 Topps. Living in NYC being 10 years old and walking down to the corner store with my father. For the newspaper and a pack of smoke for him and I would get either a candy bar, I could not eat till after lunch or a pack of Topps. That I would open up at the kitchen table. They're a bit beat up now and not worth anything. But there mine. My first cards. when I look at them, They bring back great memories the walk down the street with my father, sitting at the kitchen table. I can hear my dad telling me about the players. To this day I can still smell the gum when I see a pack of Topps. Just the other day I reserved a trade of 91 Topps and I swore the yellow envelope smells like gum.  They also make me think of the times we when to Shea Stadium to watch the games and that one time. I don't know how or who he knew. But we got in and I got to run the bases and run around on the field there one day when there was no game. You don't realise how big a place is watching a game on tv till you stand on the field. But I was around 11 years old so most things where big at that age.  Lov You Dad.

mine is this card

https://www.tradingcarddb.com/ViewCard.cfm/sid/1212/cid/176362/1998-SkyBox-E-X2001-72-Kevin-Brown

It is the first card I ever got. I loved the design so much I started collecting baseball cards and never looked back. It is my most cherished card.

I don't care about perceived"value". It means literally nothing to me. I collect because it's my preferred method of documenting history. 

With that said, 1995-96 Fleer is a set most people hate. The design is bizarre, and some are not great. Yet, it began my interest in the NBA. On Valentine's Day in 1996, my mom, who worked in my school, noticed that all the kids were into basketball but I was the only one collecting NASCAR or non-sports. So, she picked up a pack of Fleer Series 2 at the local grocery store and gave it to me for Valentine's.  Later that night I found the Knicks-Hornets game on TV, and from then until 2006, I went almost all NBA all the time. I even stopped collecting non-sports from circa 1997 to 2009. Eventually, in 2006, I got burned out on the NBA and stopped collecting. I realized later that it was more me than what I had been unhappy with, a large part due to the loss of my Excel collection chart due to a corrupted floppy disk. In 2012 I joined this site and entered in my NBA collection. It brought back so many great memories... especially of an era, early 2000s, that were not a happy time for me and causes me pain still...both physical and mentally...my cards were my only good memories. By then I was watching the NBA again, and Target had 44 card packs of Hoops for $5. I was hooked back in. It all goes back to that single pack of Fleer. 23 years and 93,000 cards later, the NBA and NBA cards are still an ever present part of my life, as are NASCAR, which I've never stopped collecting, and now NHL has joined in and at the moment is my favorite. 

No matter how discouraged I get, and to be honest I'm not enjoying current NBA cards all that much, I will never stop collecting again. I may scale back, and I've already shifted my focus from set completion to my Names Project (getting one of every person to get a card in my three sports) but I will never, ever stop. I have learned that lesson.