Collecting Focus: Share Your Story

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The first things that I remember collecting were Disney ceramic miniature statues when I was about 5 years old. We lived in Miami at the time and made an annual drive to the Magic Kingdom. When I was about 7, I started to visit the newsstands every month buying the latest Marvel & DC comic books. By 9, I became hooked on sports cards, beginning in 1977 and within a year, I was collecting not only baseball but football, basketball and hockey, buying packs at the local candy store. During the late 70’s and early 80’s, I put the complete sets together each year. By the mid 80’s, I was big into the rookie card craze, which is something that would stick with me as my collection began to grow, eventually morphing into collecting autographs during the 90’s, primarily obtained at minor league games and spring training each year. By the early 2000’s, grading was becoming a big thing and I got into BGS 10 Pristine rookie cards of guys like Bonds, Griffey, Sosa, Kobe, etc. Prices for these were starting to reach 4 figures and one day, while scouring eBay, I noticed a 59 Topps Bob Gibson rookie card for $40. I thought, why spend thousands on these modern cards when the player could have a career ending injury at any time when I can buy a HOF legend for pennys on the dollar. Thus, my transformation to vintage card collector began in 2004.

For the next 10 years, I set out to collect a rookie card of every member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, or as close to a rookie card as I could afford. By 2014, I had something for every one of the 310 individuals and decided to move on to a new challenge so I sold everything I had at auction and put all of those funds into Negro League baseball memorabilia. I did that until 2021 when, once again, I pivoted and started primarily collecting iconic cards from all 4 sports, which is pretty much what I am still doing today, with an increased emphasis on obscure stuff.