does anybody really connect with what they collect??

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Posted By: Jimmy Scott Elkins

As for what I collected as a kid, my favorites were my "Elvis" cards - I also started around 77-78. The Wacky Packages from 1982 are also cherished by me. However, I only have one of those Elvis cards and a stack of "extras" from the Wacky Packages - when I came back from Basic Training, my Wacky Packages album was gone! I also started collecting Baseball cards in 78 as well, though I really started in 81-82 seriously. The only way I could buy "older" cards was to go to a flea market, since nobody in my family before me had ever collected cards.

I can still remember the day at a flea market when my mother told me that I wasted my money paying $16 for a NM 1956 Sandy Koufax! Another vivid memory was having to pass on EX/MT 1915 Cracker Jacks - Cobb, Mathewson and Wagner. I had to pass at the time because I only had $30 with me and the dealer wanted a WHOPPING $100 each for those. When I went back a few weeks later (after saving $ I had worked out), the Cobb was gone! I also had to pass on a NM Wilson Franks Ted Williams that day, because another dealer wouldn't take less than $35 for it - OUCH! I guess that is why, when I started back collecting, after selling my boyhood collection years ago, I started collecting only Cobbs. I then went to the rare backs and got out of the Hobby a couple years back.

I couldn't stand being "out" of the Hobby any longer and started back last Autumn collecting again. As to Scott B.'s posting - I do relate to what is in my personal collection (the ones not for sale). They are not PSA 8's and 9's of vintage cards, but the players and cards I simply LIKE. They range from caramel Cobbs, Matty's (the Horizontal ones of course) and Cy Youngs to one of my all-time favorite non-vintage cards - 54 Wilson Franks Ted Williams. Heck, I even plan on getting another Johnny Bench rookie and other non-vintage cards for my personal collection - kinda, cards I once had and thought were cool!