For me it was how I started collecting. I was a teenager who couldn't have cared less about sports cards. My younger brother stopped at my house and was showing me all his cards he had started collecting and had a Beckett showing me prices.
I had around a couple hundred mostly NrMint 60s cards I was given as a little kid in the mid 70s that I put in a drawer and never touched. So I pulled them out and was amazed at how much all the Mantles and other cards cost. Over the last 40 years I have done a ton of buying, selling, and trading. In that time I have owned countless high end vintage cards and insanely rare junk era cards. My collection at this point takes up most of one room and has 40+ Wade Boggs Louisville Slugger bats that range from a little kids Tee-Ball model to one of his 1/1 AllStar bats.
In that entire 40+ years I have not spent a single penny out of pocket for any of it. It has all come from selling/trading the original cards I had given to me as a very little kid. I also like to "rent" high end and silly rare cards. Meaning I will get a cool expensive card and later sell/trade it/them for another card(s) I decide I want more at that time.
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