Balancing card fever with real life
 

I promised my wife a new living room floor (much needed). I bit the bullet and sold over $2k in cards which should be sufficient. That extra money has been weighing on me and I have weakened. She would kill me if she knew I've won $800+ in auctions the last week. I gotta make some more money. Is there a Card Collectors Anonymous?

I'm in touch with that emotion...Don't let it bother you. Just remember:

http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...e/franklin.jpg
http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...us%20cards.jpg

Do what I do and buy the furniture first....put yourself in the red and force yourself to have to sell cards within the month that the credit card bill is due. :)

I just bought the kids new bikes and an outdoor basketball hoop....all which wouldn't have happened without selling cards....and all things that will bring joy to the family, and not just me. In the end, it's worth it to me.

Tell her isnt an investment for your future and your retirement!!!:D

+1

Hello Ken! I have found great solitude and comfort in Net54. I now know that I am not alone in my journey to collect cards. To bring back fond memories of my childhood, as I would pull out my cards almost every night to look at them, study them, and know that they belonged to me. Does my wife understand my card collecting? No. She thinks I am nuts pulling out my small ( but nice ) collection to look at almost every night. Card collecting gives me peace of mind. And that is a small price to pay in a crazy world. So Ken, I have found that I am among friends who share the same symptoms as I. I hope I can speak for all, we are here for you Ken.

Advice is free, so here is mine. Find a Lumber Liquidators, and buy laminate flooring on close out. That should get you a new floor, AND free up about $200 MORE for you to spend for cards. Problem SOLVED! Wife gets a new floor ( happy wife, happy life ), and you can still buy cards.

Again Ken, we are here for you.

In the past 6 weeks or so, I've ponied funds up for extensive exhaust work on my car for it to pass inspection and a new water heater for the house. Both of which impacted my "fun budget"...and just in time for the flood of spring auctions too, it seems all the auction houses have had auctions end over the past 6 weeks!

I did liquidate some of my collection, but only to necessitate the procurement of new items as my collection focus seems to be in a constant state of flux. And the thrill of the chase is 3/4 of the fun for me.

I hear ya!!
 

my car sucks, and the rest, but i'm to addicted to t206 freaks:o

i'm in the same boat:D

Wow! You guys actually have cars?

Yes, I have a car. It's a 1996 Honda Civic with 337,000 miles on it, and yet I'm saving all my money to put towards the next REA auction. :(

Hahahaha

Well, now I know how you guys manage it.

For me the cards always have to come second to the real life stuff. Letting the house or car go in bad shape to buy cards just isn't smart on the long run.

I sold a bike recently, nice profit but almost all of the money will go to house repairs.

I haven't sold many cards that would make a difference. The few I have sold I've turned into other cards.

Steve B

For me when I am put in a position to decide between cards and the house or other family related matters, this has crossed over the line from being a hobby.

Fascinating
 

I'm hoping to hear more about this topic (we have multiple hundreds of members here)
Doesn't have to get too personal:D

I am hooked big time on baseball cards.
This site gets a peek 5-6 times a day just so I can look at more cards.

I will admit to getting "grouchy" when unexpected stuff comes up that takes money from my hobby fund. It is easy for me to prioritize, but that mood is evident to all in my house hahaha.

Two weeks ago, One of our cats needed to go to the vet because he wasn't acting right.
$100 later, he felt better but I could only think about the extra bids I could have placed. Poor kitty!!:o

I guess I have been blessed with the ability to maintain a separate hobby account, which ebbs and flows when kitties are sick or healthy. That makes me laugh!
I asked all four of them, (and our puppy) this morning "how are you all feeling??" :p

Looks like I am headed to BST to look for more cards today!! No complaints from the zoo this AM!

I believe most, if not all, of us will put first things first and give priority to the things that matter most in life to us. Of course family, shelter, food, ect will all come before our beloved hobby. My original post was purely sarcastic, as I am sure some of the other light hearted posts.

It is worse for me as I am a hedonist when it comes to all things baseball. I collect pre and post war cards, autographs, stadium pieces, news photos, memorabilia, and anything else I can hide from the wife. We have been together for 34 years and she has never understood my obsession but knows when to look the other way and not ask questions. She says that I have a paramour named sheBay. I explained that I could be searching for online porn rather than searching eBay for a baseball fix. She says that porn would be cheaper and would require 15 minutes of my time rather than the hours spent with sheBay:rolleyes:

15 minutes? Man, you have endurance!

Hahahahahahaha

I think that about sums it up for me.

I'm only attached to maybe 20% of my collection... If I were ever in a situation where I needed the money I'd dump the rest in a heartbeat.

Sean....
 

1994 corolla here!! 170,000 miles young:)....house in need o repairs....but scrap rules:D

We live in a van down by the river, but my collection stays!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nhgfjrKi0o




.

Leon!
 

That was grrrrrreat!!:)

Leon,

Best Chris Farley bit ever!!!

Funniest line I have heard on here in a looooooong time :D

Hi, my name is Eric, and I'm addicted to cardboard...

Oh, wait. I thought this was Card Collectors Anonymous:D

I have a different problem, opposite of most on his forum. I'm kind of sick of the hobby, at least certain aspects of it. I'd like to sell a large part of my collection and I don't really like having six figures tied up in it. Though I don't really have any pressing need for the money, I'm just too damn lazy to take steps to sell. So doing nothing is easier.

If you really have a six figure collection you are wanting to part with, something tells me you'd have no problem finding a consignor/AH to come to your front door and pick it all up and sell it for you.

I'm kind of sick of the hobby, at least certain aspects of it.

There's probably more of us than you think.

The aspect I like the least are the grading companies. I buy raw before I buy graded, and I trust my eyes over theirs. Repeated all of the time on this site, buy the card not the holder.

I started this thread mostly as a joke. I would never put cards above family, but I am often tempted to go crazy and I am over budget this month. Gonna have to thin some things out that I don't really NEED.

what is this "real life" that everyone keeps talking about?

I think it's a new tv show on MTV. Not sure how it gets in the way of cards though. :D

I'm not quite sure how it works, but there seems to be an alternate universe that occasionally intersects with my cardboard universe and generally causes problems and disasters. Very annoying really.

Balance is key
 

I've always felt blessed to have a healthy income to support my card collecting needs on top of the usual house/wife/life expenditures. I've always tried to keep my card desires in check and not purchase certain cards or wade into dangerous territory, even if I could afford it. Balance is key, especially when you're married, own a home and like to do other things like take vacations. With that said, every now and then I get caught up in auction fever and buy too much in a month. When that happens, I feel guilty, even if I'm not breaking the bank. So, I severely retrict myself during the next month so I don't blow through our funds.

My wife and I went home shopping today after we spent a couple of hours at the Chantilly show. Good thing I didn't buy much at the show, because what my wife wants for a home will set me back quite a bit. I'll more than likely have to sell a good portion if not most of my collection to help with a portion of the downpayment. Will it suck and be painful at times? Sure. But I find building a new home with my wife to be more important and more rewarding than hoarding cards. So, I'll probably be spending more time selling in the B/S/T and on eBay this summer than buying or attending shows. And that's okay by me.

Can't say that I'm not looking forward to someone with "T206 518/518" after their name saying they'll be heavy on the B/S/T this summer :D

I went over my puny budget today at the Chantilly show. :(

Was it the unexpected parking that did it? :)

lol

Johnny, at least you have a house. :D

I had a 95 Corolla with about 165,000 on it. A tree fell in my yard and smashed it flat. I couldn't seem to convince the insurance company that I couldn't drive it to get estimates because it was about 1 foot tall. Finally got my money and then a letter arrived from the city of Chicago. My license number was tied to about a hundred parking tickets. Lots of threats including confiscation of the vehicle. I've never been to Chicago in my life. I sent them a letter telling them to please come and confiscate as it was under a tree and I would love to have it removed. Funny thing, never heard from Chicago again. I had to clean up the mess myself. I'd rather have the car. It had another 100,000 in it for sure.

I've been driving company cars and gasing up on company cards for the past 10+ years. Before that my only cars were an '85 Honda Civic with 200K miles, a hole in the back door, front and rear bumpers held on by duct tape/bailing wire/and a shoelace. It died on the last day of my senior year, a block from the last party of our high school lives and we just pushed it into a parking lot and left it there. I followed this up with an '86 Prelude that took me through college and early adulthood (also 200K+ miles). It overlapped my first company car by a couple years, until it was eventually stolen and found a month later wrecked in Oakland. I signed it over to the tow yard to help offset towing fees and the many parking tickets it had accrued while derelict. All in all I think I've spent about $8K on cars and all the savings on cards. It's been a good run ;). If and when I ever take a normal desk job and they stop letting me drive their cars around, I may need to adjust my habits accordingly.. van full of cards by the river maybe???

As some of you may know, I recently completed a 23 year purge (1948-1970) from my collection over on the BST. Thanks go out to all who bought my collection. It took a month of non-stop work. Surprisingly, the seller's remorse that I fully expected is nowhere to be found, probably because the cards are readily available. It only takes money. :D

Outwardly, I told myself that I would top off a retirement account with 75% of the proceeds and use the remainder to slay the Monster. That was the original game plan. However, my job of 18 years is in danger of going bye-bye as my company is on the verge of re-locating their main facility to Philly from South Florida. My lack of typing skills prevent me from going into all of the details but the situation could get ugly. In sort of the reverse to being a problem, my cardboard hoard might be my saving grace. Oh, this is not carved in stone as yet and maybe, just maybe, my original 75/25 plan can come back into play. Even with this uncertainty looming, I bought a small handful of T206 commons this month to ease my bones. All in all, the purge money could keep me afloat for a while.

Time will tell. By the All-Star Break, I will either be un-employed or kicking the snot out of the T206 Monster:D

Wow. Good Luck Mike. I hope everything works out ok for you.

Thanks Lou, I will be OK. It's just a bump in the road.:)

I once owned Lionel Carter's T206 Eddie Plank. Sold it about a year ago when I got an offer I couldn't refuse. The Plank was originally purchased with funds from a sale of about 400 T206 cards that I amassed over a 10 year period. So pure card money. Most of the Plank cash sponsored the addition of a half bath and other home improvements. I have never missed Eddie.

I consider just about everything other than my signed T206 collection as a slightly less liquid than cash form of savings. I dip into it whenever appropriate. As somone said already, all of my Sgc 60 T206s are right there on ebay, so not hard to get them back.

I've considered selling some cards so that I could make my real life a bit easier, but whenever I go to sell, I have trouble letting go. Perhaps I just prefer the fantasy world of 19th century baseball and Old Judge than I do reality. Reality is going to be messy, anyways, you might as well go through life with a decent collection.