Has your hobby ever been a negative?

[HRBAKER]

Positive - I have made great friends, had a great time and learned a lot. The only minor downside is that my wife will occasionally complain about how excited I get looking forward to The National as opposed to the way I always dreaded taking the kids to Disney.

[Exhibitman]

Dreading taking the family to the Evil Empire is just good common sense.

Collecting has been a source of friction with my wife at times but the positives vastly outweigh the negatives.

[HRBAKER]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Dreading taking the family to the Evil Empire is just good common sense.

Collecting has been a source of friction with my wife at times but the positives vastly outweigh the negatives.

+100 on Disney

[cardaholic]

I have slides and press photos, but no negatives.

[packs]

Always been positive for me, but I have experienced a lot of negativity in the hobby. Particularly when it comes to people wanting to be the King of a subject.

[Bocabirdman]

As a married guy, who is lucky enough to have a wife who enjoys the hobby as an outsider lookin' in, there is no negative side.
As a single guy before, meeting her, it didn't do much for my success rate pickin' up women. Given the size of the collection back then, it did even less for repeat visits

[margoaepi]

Originally Posted by Bocabirdman

As a married guy, who is lucky enough to have a wife who enjoys the hobby as an outsider lookin' in, there is no negative side.
As a single guy before, meeting her, it didn't do much for my success rate pickin' up women. Given the size of the collection back then, it did even less for repeat visits

You sure it was the size of the collection that was the problem? ;

[Bocabirdman]

Originally Posted by margoaepi

You sure it was the size of the collection that was the problem? ;

No, it might have been the SIZE of my bankroll after amassing the collection.

[DerekMichael]

I love this hobby and an awful lot, and it is my favorite, and it has brought me and my Dad closer together.

However, when I was about 17, I found a nice block of cards from the 50's on Ebay, or so I thought. The seller told me he could give me a slight price break if I paid via check. Being the complete moron kid that I was, I happily agreed.

I had been working since I was 16, so I had saved about $2k, maybe a little more actually, and I sent him close to every penny of that. I am sure you all know where I am going with this ... no cards, and because I did not pay directly through Ebay, no restitution. The seller (who was in Canada) disappeared, but actually began selling under a different Ebay name. I told Ebay about him and what happened, but it made no difference, and he continued to sell. I was a stupid teenager, and learned never to trust someone whom you do not know, or have not done business with in the past.

Other than this one massively shitty experience ... NO REGRETS!!!!

Derek

[g_vezina_c55]

Originally Posted by DerekMichael

I love this hobby and an awful lot, and it is my favorite, and it has brought me and my Dad closer together.

However, when I was about 17, I found a nice block of cards from the 50's on Ebay, or so I thought. The seller told me he could give me a slight price break if I paid via check. Being the complete moron kid that I was, I happily agreed.

I had been working since I was 16, so I had saved about $2k, maybe a little more actually, and I sent him close to every penny of that. I am sure you all know where I am going with this ... no cards, and because I did not pay directly through Ebay, no restitution. The seller (who was in Canada) disappeared, but actually began selling under a different Ebay name. I told Ebay about him and what happened, but it made no difference, and he continued to sell. I was a stupid teenager, and learned never to trust someone whom you do not know, or have not done business with in the past.

Other than this one massively shitty experience ... NO REGRETS!!!!

Derek

hey arround 2003 i had the same situation with a canadian ebayer... i bought from this guy a C55 george vezina card and i paid with money order out of ebay.. i never received any Vezina card... The user ID was Crazy cannuck and his Name Jason bobbit... i will reme,ber his name for the rest of my life... at that time the price i paid for the vezina was a lot of money for me 800$..

After a lot of inquiries and menace i called the RCMP ( FBI for canada ) and after that Jason bobbit agree to send a refund to me..

I know this guy steal a lot of money from several collector....

It is probably my only Bad experience with this hobby

[RedlegsFan]

The hobby has been mostly positive for me. I read more, and have something to keep me occupied when I am not at work. Though I must admit, it can get tough when I think about having funds for other activities. On a smaller budget with a family of four, I just have to stay disciplined.

[deadballfreaK]

Positive for sure. I never made vast amounts of money, but we had a decent middle class life for years and I had some extra to spend on cards when they were cheap. We had some savings, but my wife got sick and despite having "100% coverage" we lost all our savings. Things were tough for several years, but I held on to my collection. We came through it and the last few years I have been able to sell and trade and make a fair supplemental income. Retired now, but the cards I held on to stubbornly have appreciated enough to give us a retirement cushion. VERY good investment even though it was always a hobby and I never cared much about the money.

[ls7plus]

It has been a huge positive from the perspective of a guy who has always loved baseball and its history. When I was a kid, I learned the basics of dice and probability just for the purpose of creating my own tabletop game, and any players I wanted to put in it, before discovering Stratomatic in the early to mid-sixties. I played in high school, summer leagues, and most recently in the over 30, fast-pitch hardball league when in my early to mid-forties. My objective, I guess, was to "capture the game" to the fullest extent possible--sort of what Bill Mastro referred to as the "collecting gene." I always felt that the cards connected me to the player, and took me back to that time--the very history of the game I could hold right in my hands: Ruth, Cobb, Gehrig, Williams, Aaron, Mays and Mantle, and the like. An instant of those players' lives (I collect HOF'ers and stars) captured for decades or even centuries, and of course, the rarer the better!

The only downside is when I've been forced by economic circumstances to sell some of my collection--that can be tough, depending on how hard the card is or will be to replace (examples include '59 Bazooka Mantle, cut outside the dotted lines, and graded NRMT; '25 Exhibit Gehrig rookie; 1916 M 101 Sisler rookie). Should such circumstances befall any of you guys, I would recommend Bill Goodwin without hesitation to handle the sale through his auctions--top-flight, honest and reliable in all respects!

Good thread,

Larry

[deadballfreaK]

Originally Posted by ls7plus

It has been a huge positive from the perspective of a guy who has always loved baseball and its history. When I was a kid, I learned the basics of dice and probability just for the purpose of creating my own tabletop game, and any players I wanted to put in it, before discovering Stratomatic in the early to mid-sixties. I played in high school, summer leagues, and most recently in the over 30, fast-pitch hardball league when in my early to mid-forties. My objective, I guess, was to "capture the game" to the fullest extent possible--sort of what Bill Mastro referred to as the "collecting gene." I always felt that the cards connected me to the player, and took me back to that time--the very history of the game I could hold right in my hands: Ruth, Cobb, Gehrig, Williams, Aaron, Mays and Mantle, and the like. An instant of those players' lives (I collect HOF'ers and stars) captured for decades or even centuries, and of course, the rarer the better!

The only downside is when I've been forced by economic circumstances to sell some of my collection--that can be tough, depending on how hard the card is or will be to replace (examples include '59 Bazooka Mantle, cut outside the dotted lines, and graded NRMT; '25 Exhibit Gehrig rookie; 1916 M 101 Sisler rookie). Should such circumstances befall any of you guys, I would recommend Bill Goodwin without hesitation to handle the sale through his auctions--top-flight, honest and reliable in all respects!

Good thread,

Larry

Larry, I played Stratomatic, APBA, and the old Cadaco game with the spinner for hours on end with a few friends. I never saw Larry Doby or Al Rosen play a single game, but I KNEW them. I had their cards and they were the backbone of my team. I remember winning the pennant in one 60 game season. Doby hit 15 HR tying Babe Ruth for the title and Al Rosen chipped in 14. This was about 1968.

[ls7plus]

Yeah, those were the days, Ken. If we weren't actually playing ball, we were playing Stratomatic for hours on end, picking teams from a mixture of current player cards, old time teams, and Strato's special hall-of-famers cards. We had 4 guys in my neighborhood who regularly participated, and we must have played a few hundred 50-game seasons, after which we'd have a whole new draft and restocking of players!

Great days!

Larry

[zljones]

It's disappointing when you loose your job or other issues come up and are forced to sell them to pay bills, especially when some of those bills were created from collecting .

[timn1]

When you started talking about a Canadian guy (I thought they were all so honest) ripping you off, I thought "Crazy Canuck" right away. That guy was nothing more or less than a crook and a cancer. I was really lucky to get reimbursed (in one of his above-board moments) for the $1500 he tried to stiff me on.... also about ten years ago. I wonder if the RMCP ever got him.

But that's almost the only neg I can come up with in my collecting since I resumed in 1999. Back in the 80s it truly was the wild west-- people are saints compared to those bad old days. But now I have (almost) nothing but good experiences to remember.

Tim