Cards for Christmas?
 

A holiday gift question for the board members.

How many of you expect to get cards for Christmas?

If your spouse/family buys cards for you for Christmas, are they knowledgeable enough about cards to pick ones you need/want out on their own?

Do you just give them some years/#'s/names and let them go at it?

Do you give them links to eBay auctions/BINs to choose from?

This is the first year I've asked for vintage cards simply because my wife doesn't have a clue about cards and she doesn't really do eBay either. So, I've found some online stores that have some reasonably priced T206's, Goudeys, and 1950's Topps cards. I bookmarked them all, so she can browse through them and pick one or two. This way it's at least a small surprise. The old way would be she'd just give me a giftcard or cash and I'd go spend it on what I wanted.

Thoughts?

Happy Holidays!
Donny Muth

It beats tube socks or a pair of gloves!:)

Donny,

Good question. I specifically ask my family not to buy me sports cards for Christmas. They usually would have no idea how to find them. Plus, it's just nice to get stuff other than old baseball cards sometimes :) I always ask for a new suit or Orioles tickets :)

Blasphemer! Burn him!!

Matt,

If you worked non-stop with old sportscards, you'd definitely understand!

Perfect card related Xmas gift
 

I'm getting the 20 back issues of Old Cardboard magazine special as a gift from a loved one. It is a perfect gift to request since she doesn't know anything about vintage cards and thinks all the guys pictured on my cards are just plain ugly (I tried to show her some of my Mathewson cards, but still the same opinion). I also have never read any of the Old Cardboards (which is surprising since I have all the VCBC's and loved them). They also have one or two year subscriptions available for those with tighter budgets. It's not cards, but it probably is a better gift than just a card or two, and the giver doesn't have to know a single thing about vintage baseball cards.

Brian

The perfect wife
 

My wife buys me cards just about every year for Christmas and actually knows a few things about what sets I'm working on and what I need. She also has her own ebay id that I'm not suppose to know about. I try every year not to search her activity. ;)

Not sure how I lucked out.

Hey Brian, show you wife ...
 

Brian,
Show your wife a T206 card of Walter Johnson, the portrait version. If your wife thinks this is ugly, there is no hope for her!
Val

My wife tells me how much I can spend on some cards and that is my Christmas and we are both happy! She doesn't know what to buy but knows it makes me happy.:D

My wife says find 'em and buy 'em.
 

I can look at them before Christmas, but I can't put them in the album until after Christmas morning. This year, there should be six.

I just ask my wife to buy me an eBay gift card.

My girlfriend has the link to my PSA registry. For my birthday she went on there, found some cards that I needed, and then went to Ebay and won a couple of auctions. I was pretty surprised to say the least....I didn't even know that she had the link. I've since educated her on what a fair price is so she doesn't end up overpaying. I'm guessing that she might do the same for Christmas. My personal buying of cards comes to a grinding halt around these times so I don't end up with two of the same card....or worst, we bid the price up against one another!

I buy the cards. She wraps them up. I open them. I put in the collecting display room. It's the gift I can look at for years.

Her gift ? She picks out her clothes. I wrap them. She opens them. I look at her for years.

30 years and counting.

It seems like every year I have a few wives/girlfriends contact me through my website and buy things for their significant others. I have found that a few have been given a list of a few items on my website that their spouse/boyfriend had interest in and allowed the giver the final decision as to what will be in the gift--probably so there is still an element of surprise.

Personally, a few years ago my wife (who happens to know all my passwords, etc.) saw that I had won something I had placed a snipe on and before I could do anything about it she went in and erased all record on My Ebay, Gavelsnipe, and paid via check so when I opened the package a month or so later I had recieved an item I had completely forgotten about. It wasn't a high $ item but it was kinda cool.

-Rhett

Cards for Christmas!
 

Yes, this is a cool topic.

Last year my wife finished off my T205 set with the suffering Kaiser Wilhelm. I was bidding on it early, and she had a friend bidding too...It might have driven up the cost some, but overall the price was fair, and it finished a major pre-war set, so I couldn't have been happier!
Plus I was totally surprised as she has taken less interest in my collection in the past few years. She used to buy cards for Valentines' day and birthdays etc in past years...
Oh well, this year could be another baseball card year. She asked me what cards I was interested in, and I pointed her to a couple. I like being surprised, so I gave her many choices.
I also told her some Phillies tickets would be nice...only living 2881 miles from Philly makes the home games hard to attend.
Happy Holidays to all of you...I hope you all get some cardboard too!

Scrooge
 

My wife would probably enjoy burning, rip, tear, use as toiletry, and or toss all of them into the frying pan as my X-Mass gift...lol

David

Interesting story Rhett

My family is not interested at all in cards and therefore they know to not buy me any for Christmas. They dont discourage me however.

F.L.