Were you a NEWB or a NOOB when you joined this board?

[frankbmd]

Thumbing through my urban dictionary recently, I learned that noob and newb are indeed homophones, but are hardly synonymous.

To characterize the difference I would offer the following.

A newb is the guy walking down down the street who reaches a crosswalk and without stopping or looking proceeds across the road and doesn’t realize he is in the road until he gets hit by a truck.

A noob on the other hand is slightly more sophisticated and goes to the intersection with a Walk/Don’t Walk signal. He then goes to the control box and switches the signal so that the Walk sign is lit when the traffic light is green.
The truck still hits the newb, but the noob is the nefarious hacker of the controls.

Think back now to your discovery of Net54 and to your initial contributions (?) to the forum. Consult your urban dictionary if necessary. If you can cite an example of early post to prove you were a noob or a newb, do so.

To clarify if you were essentially an ignorant “fumb duck”, you were a newb.

But if you stumbled onto this forum and realized an opportunity to profit, or to at least cause chaos, you were more of a noob.

I purchased my first prewar card in 2006. By 2011 when I stumbled in the door, I had a modest collection of several hundred cards. I realized though that I had a lot to learn. Within six weeks of joining the forum, I mustered up enough courage to start a little thread to the dismay of some, but lo and behold that thread is on the first page of the main board today. My mind set in starting the thread was that of a “newb”, but the unintended consequences after 493,000+ views would seem to make me more of a “noob”.

[Leon]

I knew I was a noob on the hobby when, about 20 yrs ago now, I purchased this E97 Black and White Cy Young (raw) from Terry Knouse SR. I was so proud until someone told my it was Irv. I said "oh, I know"......as my nose grew. It sold in my first collection sale. It's still a cool card just not the Cy Young the pitcher.

As for the forum, it goes back to our predecessor board over 20 yrs ago. I am sure I said even more stupid stuff back then than I do today.

,

[Pilot172000]

I am a newb. I grew up in the mid 80s to mid 90s and thought I was gonna retire on my 1991 Donruss Baseball card collection. I read all about the big three T206 cards and obsessed about one day owning a few. When I got old enough I bought too many for too much, sold them, then did it again. The hobby certainly has hit me like a bus more than once and I have learned slowly.

[ramram]

I was a newb about 20-25 years ago, going back to the earliest days of this forum. About that same time I also became familiar with Barry S. either through the forum or through his auctions (insert head scratch here as I can't remember). He was extremely patient with me as I went through my learning curve and would run items by him that I found. There were a few "glossy" posters, etc. that he very politely educated me on but I also recall finding a HOF N167 here locally that had the corner missing. He educated me about it's rarity in spite of the condition so I went back and bought it and later consigned it to Barry for one of his auctions. On the other hand, I also remember, in those early days, inquiring into an ad in one of the sports collector magazines that turned out to be from the notorious Brucii. That guy (later to become "those guys") embarrassed me to death with his response. Thank goodness I ran across Barry first or I probably would have never continued in this hobby.

Rob M

[bn2cardz]

I am a Neub