General Forum

Hi folks, I've been using this website for mostly research purposes for about a year now, but I just discovered that there are message boards here today. I'm a message board fiend, if you will...I love message boards. I don't see a lot of threads here yet but I see the message board is still young. Since every collecting based message board has to have this thread at some point, I figured I would be the one to start it here! :)

I have been collecting since...at least...1988.

My earliest memory of opening packs of cards is the somewhat obscure 1988 Leesley Bigfoot set. At the time, monster trucks were really racing, not the predictable show it is now, and I was a huge fan of it. I remained that way into the 1990s, but no longer. Still, those cards are the earliest I remember. My next earliest memory is of opening 1989 Batman movie cards.

I have been collecting ever since, opening my first box in 1990 (Classic Monster Trucks, also my first complete set. That, and 1988 Leesley Bigfoot are the only monster truck card sets ever issued). I collected non-sports until 1993, at Christmas of 1992 I discovered the sport of NASCAR, and discovered in 1993 sometime that they had cards, which I began collecting. I collected NASCAR and non-sport until about 1996. It was at that time I discovered NBA basketball cards, and for the next decade I would spend most of my collecting with the NBA. I theorize two reasons for that: 1, it was my only connection to the sport. NASCAR, my main connection is 1/64 diecast replicas and 2. the basketball cards at that time were of super high quality- the golden age, in my opinion, of NBA basketball cards. I essentially stopped non-sports cards in 1996, and just barely hung on to NASCAR cards after 1996, when my favorite company went out of buisness. (Maxx). In 2003 I got back into NASCAR cards in a big way, and they have been my main aspect of the card hobby since then. I eventually stopped collecting basketball cards in 2006...I was not enjoying the games anymore at that time, and the cards were also not thrilling me. It was too much gimmick of the week/fancy stuff, and not a whole lot of actually documenting the game itself. I want to see un-modified game photos, and I want each player to get a card in the main sets. So, after collecting over 73,000 (!) cards, The other big factor is that funds were running out. I was essentially forced out of the hobby in 2007 because I simply couldn't afford it at that time. I was mostly out in 2007 and 2008, though I did manage to pick up a few packs from my local Target. The desire was there, but the funds weren't. In 2009 I got back into it, but I can't afford to partake as much as I once did...during my heydey of the mid-2000s I did 2 boxes of pretty much every NBA and NASCAR issue. But I get as much as I can, and I enjoy every card I can hunt down. When I got back into it in 2009, I also got back into non-sports cards. I found some Star Wars cards at my local Target, and I've been a huge fan of Star Wars my whole life- my first memory, of ANYTHING, is watching Star Wars. I purchased every pack I found of the currently available set, and that led me to investigate what I was missing. Even though I had Star Wars cars previously, for some reason it didn't connect with me that I should be collecting them. What can I say, other than, the last time I had gotten Star Wars cards before 2009 was 1993 and I was not yet 10 years old? I pulled out my old collection, what I could find anyway, that I built in the 80s and early 90s, and realized how much I was missing. Since I got back into the hobby in 2009, I have spent more time and effort on non-sports cards than anything else. I also started getting back into basketball again last year.

I'm also majorly OCD about my collection. I have been keeping a paper listing since 1998, and I eventually started keeping track of what day I got each card, although I don't always remember to write it down. It's even created a pen collector out of me because I use different colors for each insert and paralell, I also use a different color for each day I get cards- I've got over 50 different colors to choose from. I also only trade duplicates. I've literally been called crazy for this, (on the Beckett board circa 2002) but it's who I am...

I have been working on scanning my entire collection since 2009. I finished NASCAR, (it took a year and a half, and I have roughly 50,000 more NBA than NASCAR!) and what I can find of non-sports cards. I've scanned a few thousand NBA cards, but still a long, long way to go. I am slowly going to import these scans onto this website, but it's going to take years to do, I believe. I'm also going to keep on scanning, as well...I just scanned 220 NBA cards last night, and am getting ready to scan again momentarily. I won't be done any time soon, but I enjoy doing it. 

Thanks for reading, Billy 

I've been collecting since about 1986. I started collecting baseball as a kid and even without a lot of money from my paper route, I still would manage to spend most of what I could on wax packs from the local card shop. I got into hockey in 1991 and have been doing that ever since. I took a break from collecting both in my sophomore year of highschool (as one can imagine, my mind was on other things). I picked up again about 2 years after graduating and kept mostly to hockey. I try for mainly base sets. One thing that made me like hockey more is that the sets were smaller. Once the parallel craze hit it kinda made me shy away from baseball even more. I still do collect baseball. Nothing high end, but I especially like "throwback" sets. Seeing the designs I grew up with coming back is kind of nostalgic for me. I also only trade duplicates, and have just begun using this site as my primary checklist for my sets. It will take quite a while, but I'll get there. I enjoy trying to scan cards and add to the completion of the sets, and I also like adding a card to a set that nobody has added to yet. Sometimes seeing the card's front and back can help collectors identify what they have. I know it has helped me.

I have collected from 1964 to 1979, then from 1990 to 1992, and now from 2003 to present. 

 Off and on since around 1991-92.  Don't buy things too often now, but still get a kick out of the hobby.

I started collecting when I was 12 or 13.  This kid in class did a project on card collecting and the whole class got to go to a card shop.  Can you say best field trip in the history of field trips?  I started collecting after that, going pretty hard at it for the next few years, but then lost interest.  I started casually collecting again in the last 5 years.

I started collecting around 1989-90 mostly baseball and football cards. I loved going to cards stores and buying packs. Remember those days when you could get a pack for 25 or 50 cents? Man, I miss those days. We were young and so excited to get a favorite player (mine is Frank Thomas) or a cool insert. I collected as much as my allowance would take me back in those days but then once college rolled around I didn't collect much because I was busy with football and girls... oh and school LOL. A few years after college, around 2006, I really starting collecting big time due to a full time job and an actual income. I am a huge Chicago White Sox and Wisconsin Badgers fan so I mainly started a monster collection of those cards. I still love to open boxes of cards and I will purchase a reasonably priced box of cards every other month or so. My wife and I just had a baby girl and I hope that someday she will get into collecting and we can have some great fun collecting together. If not, then I can sell my massive collection to pay for her college HAHA!

Cool stories...thank you for sharing them!

My brother was able to remember that he gave me his Star Wars duplicates in 1989, so the 1988 Bigfoot cards were definitly my introduction to the hobby...meaning next year is truly my 25th year collecting! My goal for 2013 is to complete the set...I've got half of them already...56 out of 100.

I always wondered if they were the first or if his Star Wars duplicates that he gave me were first...and now I know! I was only 4 years old at the time so it's not easy to remember much...

I started collecting cards when I was a kid. At first I collected mostly non-sports cards. When I was about eight or nine years old I loved the band KISS and started collecting KISS cards. This was about 1977-78. I can also remember buying Star Wars and other movie/TV show cards back then. Being that I grew up in the suburbs of Pittsburgh in the late 70's I got all caught up in the Steelers and Pirates and this changed the direction of my collecting to sports cards. I collected both football and baseball heavily starting in 1979 and one of my uncles gave me a bunch of baseball cards from the earlier 70's. I kept this up until 1984. Then in 1988 I made a horrible mistake. It was my senior year in high school and one of my teachers was a big collector. He offered me $25.00 for my shoe box full of cards and I took it. I'm sure I probably spent it on a bag of weed or something stupid like that. It makes me sick to think of the cards I gave up for that small amount of money. I know for sure that I had Joe Montana's and George Brett's rookie cards and maybe even doubles along with any of the other good cards that I can't remember. I kind of made up for it in 1989. By this time card collected exploded and I realized how stupid I was. I started all over with the 1988 Topps baseball and luckily I found a box in my attic of some cards that for some reason weren't with the one's that I had sold. They were mostly baseball with a few good ones. Don Mattingly's and Wade Boggs' rookies were in there. At about that same time I found a couple of suckers like I was and did the same thing to them as my teacher had done to me. I had asked around at the grocery store I worked at if anybody had any sports cards they would want to sell. I found a guy who sold me his collection for $20.00. His collection consisted of Topps 1986 football and Fleer 1986 basketball. Jackpot!!! Although the Jordan rookie wasn't there, I got a lot of good cards from that buy. Rice's and Ewing's rookies to name a few. I did the same deal with another guy that turned out better for me but not as good as the first deal. From that point on I was hooked again and  I started collecting hockey as well and kept collecting until about 1993 when there were just too many cards and I got fed up. Now I will buy a couple of packs from time to time but I think I am going to focus on trying to collect older cards and probably hockey since it has now become my favorite sport. I stumbled across this website a few weeks ago while searching for sites that would have checklists so that I could inventory my cards. I really love this site. I love how you can just check off your cards and it does everything else. I was just looking for a site that would have a checklist so that I could make my own spread sheet but this site does all that for you and then some. I have gone through my baseball, the small amount of basketball, and just started the football cards that I have. Still have hockey yet to add to my collection on the site. I am on just about every day uploading what I can to help out.

 Hi,

I'm new to this site and started collecting hockey in the 89-90 season. Always looking to trade.  My focus is on insert sets mostly.  I do have a question.  How do you contact people on this site to trade.  

Happy trading,

Hockeydog

Bill

 Good stories people! I enjoyed reading it.

I started collecting basketball cards around 1996. Since almost everybody wanted Jordan cards, I gladly traded mines for Kobe's. My whole family used to collect even sold cards in their stores. This was in Europe so we didn't get any exposure from baseball or football, just NBA basketball, and a little NHL back then. Although my first contact with the hobby was when my oldest brother who was an exchange student came home from Boston and brought back one or two baseball cards. I still have one of them. The collecting craze here stopped around 2000, and that's when I traded my last card up until recently. I moved from Europe to Florida for my high school and college days (from 2002), and other than a few packs and boxes a year, I haven't been collecting. The last pack I bought was in 2008. Then I moved back to Europe and a few months ago, I began selling my collection. It listed 10,000+ basketball, few hundred soccer, less baseball, football, NASCAR and a few hundred Dragon Ball and other non-sports. I sold almost all of the basketball, and Dragon Ball cards.
My little nephew started to collect soccer cards, so I'm going to give him mines.
For the few football, baseball and non sports I have left, I think I will never find a buyer over here, so they will stay in my collection I guess.
 

I kept my Kobe cards, and my brother's Shaq cards, which I would like to expand. I'm focusing on the times they spent with the Lakers together. I also kept my parent's basketball cards collection which is not added here yet. I will keep scanning Kobe and Shaq cards after that, KG, Admiral and Potapenko cards, and that's about it. Oh, and I kept my error cards too.