Are your cards ===mint=== ???

[dabigyankeeman]

I am so tired of when I tell people I collect old Yankee baseball cards of having them ask me "Are all your cards MINT?"

I explain to them that to have a collection of old Yankees with cards of guys like Ruth, Gehrig, DiMag, Mantle, etc, to own as many as I have in MINT condition, I would have to be Bill Gates. I tell them I have so many, and then I take the time to try to explain the monstrous difference in value from mint cards to lessor condition cards, but they can't or won't understand, and its like they make a face and look down on me and my collection because its not in mint condition, and that horror of horrors, a lot of my cards would grade only a 1 on a scale of 1 to 10. Even when I tell them I have cards that go back to the very early 1900's it makes no difference to them.

Thats usually the end of the conversation, they don't even want to talk about my cards because they are not mint.

I realize people outside the hobby just don't understand, but I really do try to explain the whole situation, but at least with the people I know, its like talking to a wall.

Oh well, I am a COLLECTOR, not an INVESTOR, and I will go on loving my collection, but it would be nice if once in a blue moon someone in my life could appreciate or understand what I have even though most are not mint!