Good News for Many of You!

[jb217676]

You'll never have the worst collection, you'll never have the best collection, we all fall somewhere in the middle. Trying to achieve a collection above your income level is foolish and will lead to financial ruin and lost friendships over broken deals. Sounds like you need to diversify. Instead of just buying cards, sell some too. I have a few things I like to do when my $ is tight: sell a card to buy a card, keeps me in the "action". I also look for groups of cards to buy, keep one, sell the rest. If I make a little bit of $ on the deal I put the profit towards new cards. Heck, I'll sell cards in my driveway if the weather's nice!

[DICKTOWLE]

Originally Posted by jb217676

You'll never have the worst collection, you'll never have the best collection, we all fall somewhere in the middle. Trying to achieve a collection above your income level is foolish and will lead to financial ruin and lost friendships over broken deals. Sounds like you need to diversify. Instead of just buying cards, sell some too. I have a few things I like to do when my $ is tight: sell a card to buy a card, keeps me in the "action". I also look for groups of cards to buy, keep one, sell the rest. If I make a little bit of $ on the deal I put the profit towards new cards. Heck, I'll sell cards in my driveway if the weather's nice!

Nice comment, you are right on for Brandon

[jb217676]

Originally Posted by DICKTOWLE

Nice comment, you are right on for Brandon

Thanks! It sounds like Brandon would like to continue collecting, but needs a reality check. When reality sinks in, I'm sure he'll have a collection he's happy with. So, diversify! Buy, sell, trade, flip, whatever is fun for you. To only buy, buy, buy, buy doesn't work. Trust me!

[slidekellyslide]

When I found this forum in 2004 I realized VERY quickly that I was a little fish in a pond full of whales..I found it fun to swim among them, but as far as my collecting goes I decided to move to a much smaller pond where I was the big fish...heck I may be the only fish there, but it's made the hobby a lot more enjoyable and my collection since 2004 has grown immensely.

[dstraate]

Originally Posted by slidekellyslide

When I found this forum in 2004 I realized VERY quickly that I was a little fish in a pond full of whales..I found it fun to swim among them, but as far as my collecting goes I decided to move to a much smaller pond where I was the big fish...heck I may be the only fish there, but it's made the hobby a lot more enjoyable and my collection since 2004 has grown immensely.

That's just it! I haven't posted a card here in months. Finances tightened up and I intensified my work on the extra-sexy and underrated '70 Topps Basketball set. When I get done occupying Wall Street and back to making money, I'm sure I'll be boring all the "whales" with my low grade T206s.

No worries bro, life is good.

[4815162342]

Originally Posted by dstraate

... When I get done occupying Wall Street...

Seriously?

[carrigansghost]

4 months behind in mortgage, worked 2 months this year, have $3.70 to my name. I sold off most of my good stuff. I'm the little fish, but will be back and back soon. Promised to send some cards for free to a couple of people, but will have to wait to get the funds for postage.

Rawn

Don't tell my neighbor that I cracked their code for the internet.

[T206Collector]

Why some people think they have to dramatically announce their departure from a public internet chat board will always mystify me.

[glchen]

Good luck, Brandon. I wouldn't worry too much about what's happened in the past or what not, and as a poster above stated, it's really more important to do what's important for your family than the cardboard stuff. Collecting is fun, and card are always there, but it's easy to get in too deep. I started collecting when I was a kid, and re-started a couple of years ago. One of the things was that I could now afford cards that I wanted to buy that I could never afford when I was a kid. All of those things that I wanted, I now had the wherewithal to actually get. However, this can definitely go too far where you are now spending past your alloted "entertainment" budget, and into your mortgage and "living" budget. There are a lot of people on this board with extremely nice collections. Some of them have the means to put down considerable amount of $$$ on cards. Others have been collecting for eons. They can easily flip there cards for tremendous profit, and use these funds to buy very nice cards. Or they just show the very nice cards that they picked up a long time ago for peanuts. None of this is wrong, and it's really fun to see all of the great cards that people have on this board. Some of the threads like "show of your best card" or "what are your top 3 cards" are some of my favorites since I love seeing those rare valuable cards. Seeing these can definitely make you feel like you really want to own some of these cards that people just love seeing. However, just like in those days when you were a kid, sometimes, you can't afford it. Even as an adult there are cards you simply cannot afford or makes no sense to buy. That's just how it is, but if you want to keep collecting, you can still find that niche that keeps you happy in the hobby. Keeping a budget can be very, very tough sometimes. There are times when I've hit my budget limit for the month, and then I see a card that I want selling for a steal of a price. It's tough to just let it pass by, but that's what you need to do sometimes. There will always be other cards that fit your collection that will come by again.