I've posted about myself on a couple of threads in the past, but I like this kind of thing, so I'll go along with this one too.
1. Name- David Kathman
2. Age- 49
3. Day job- Mutual fund analyst. Basically, I talk to a lot of money managers, crunch some numbers, and write about mutual funds and investing, trying to make it all understandable for ordinary people.
4. Location- Chicago, Illinois
5. Collecting interest- Very eclectic, including some of just about everything. Pre-war sets I have at least 50 of include T206 (300+, with many tough backs), T205, T212, T210, and N172, plus some of just about every T and E card set except a few of the real toughies. Also representative samples of most major sets from 1920 on, and Topps sets or near-sets from 1967-1991. I also collect non-sport tobacco cards, including several non-sport T-card sets and a pretty good type collection (N and T cards), plus advertising trade cards from the late 1800s, of which I have around 5,000 (17 albums worth).
6. Family- Not married, but I have a girlfriend with a 7 year old daughter. Parents, two brothers, two sisters, all with spouses and kids (8 nieces and nephews).
7. How long in hobby- Started in 1975, the year I became interested in baseball, when I collected the Topps MVP subset because I liked the pictures of old cards. Started more seriously the following year, when I went to my first card shop and paid $2.95 to a mail-order dealer to get one card from each Topps set from 1952 through 1975. Took a break from 1983 to 1991, then got back in and have never been totally back out, though there were some stretches of several years when I wasn't actively collecting much.
8. Other interests- Shakespeare and Elizabethan theater history (I've published many scholarly papers and go to the Shakespeare Association of America meeting every year); medieval history (I go to the International Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo every year and sometimes give a paper there); theater (I go to many, many plays and used to perform improv comedy); the U.S. Supreme Court; popular culture of the 20th century (especially popular music); politics; and lots of other stuff. I have over 5,000 books.
9. Do you attend shows? This year's National was the first card show I had been to in many years, and it was a lot of fun. I went to numerous card shows in the early 80s and then again in the early-to-mid-90s, but after that other things got in the way, and then eBay came along.
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