Monday, August 3, 2015

The Collector In Me


Last week I received an email from a reader asking me about my collecting history. Things like “How long?”, “What do I look for?”, “Do I have a center piece?’ and “What does collecting mean to me?” I did answer his questions but I decided that maybe I would get something on my blog to kind of open up a bit. 

 

This got me thinking because I have been collecting for decades and why I collect now is very different from why I started buying cards when I was 7 years old

 I started picking up cards in 1979 when I was 7 years old, I wouldn’t say that I was a collector at the time but more just being a kid. My family had just moved to Arizona and I would go up to the local Circle K with friends and we would pick up packs of basketball cards that were at the register. I didn’t have a favorite team or player at the time so we just traded cards for cards we thought looked cool. I still remember pulling a 1979 Topps Jack Sikma so I guess you could say that was the card that started the collector in me.
Over the next few years I would pick up packs here and there. Around this time I started liking the Phoenix Suns and the Seattle Mariners and Seattle Seahawks so I would trade for those teams.

In 1987 the NY Giants won the Super Bowl and they were my dad’s favorite football team so I started picking up 1987 Topps Football rack packs to put together a Giants team set for my dad. I ended up building the entire 1987 Topps football set, my first completed set, and when I presented my dad with the Giants team set he threw the cards in the trash and told me I wasted my money and time and he forbid me from buying sports cards ever again. Needless to say I stopped collecting that day.

In late 1992 when I was 20 years old and living in Seattle a couple of friends got caught up in Shaq mania after he was drafted by the Orlando Magic. They found out that his 1992-93 Stadium Club rookie was the card to get so I went with them to a card shop and ended up purchasing a few packs where I pulled an Alonzo Mourning rookie card. We went back in and I bought a couple of boxes and finally pulled some Shaq rookies which is why I selected that card as my Wallet card.

When the 1993 baseball season rolled around I started working on my Griffey collection when I pulled his card from the 1993 Stadium Club Series 2 before long I made my first major Griffey purchase when I bought a 1989 Upper Deck #1 from my LCS for $40. I lost the 1993 Stadium Club Griffey in "The Purge"  (See the next paragraph) and still have not replaced it.
The next couple of years I went on a major buying spree, running up my credit cards, but by 1997 my marriage was failing and my (now ex) wife took a large portion of my collection and threw it in the trash while I was at work, I call this "The Purge". Afterwards I had no interest in collecting, not to mention my collection was drastically reduced (I figured that she tossed roughly 75% of my Griffey collection away) and I didn’t want to re-purchase cards that I had previously owned, thus was born my collection of Ghost cards.

Between 1997 and 2000 I picked up the occasional pack here or there, at the time my collection was so small that I could easily fit it in to a 5,000-ct box with room to spare. After my son was born in 2000 I began collecting again, this was a fun time because relics and autographs were coming along and with so many different companies the designs were always so unique.
 
Now I focus mainly on my player collections of Ken Griffey Jr., Steve Kerr, Steve Largent and Ryan Bader. I have a secondary player/team collection consisting of Jay Buhner, Randy Couture, Seattle and Phoenix teams plus vintage cards and sketch cards.
 
 
What do I look for?
I look for cards and memorabilia that will fit within my collection, I do not buy anything simply to have it. There were times where I did purchase anything and everything related to Griffey or a favorite team but I like to keep my collection reasonable now so I have to fight the urge to add every action figure of a favorite player or a magazine with Steve Kerr on the cover.


Do I have a center piece?
I have added a number of items to my collection that could easily be considered a centerpiece but the one that has sentimental value to me is my autographed Ken Griffey Jr. bat that my wife gave me for Christmas about 12 years ago. It is a beautiful black Louisville Slugger C271 bat with a strong Griffey signature in silver pen ink.
 

 
What does collecting mean to me?
The reason I collect is because I love sports, growing up I played soccer, football, basketball and ran track. I felt that sports cards and memorabilia was a natural transition for me, I see the athletes on the television and I can hold their cards in my hand while watching. Now that I am a parent I have taught my kids to love sports too, even coaching their soccer teams, so when my son found a fondness for collecting it has bonded us together over something that goes back to my childhood.

3 comments:

  1. Nice read, Corky. Always good to hear the stories of the other collectors. And much sadness over the purge.....

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  2. I can help you with that Buhner PC.

    Now let's never mention the Purge again.

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  3. I recently got a similar email from an online auction company might be the same source. She had the same questions. I was a bit skeptical at first thinking it was a phishing email to get me to join something or buy or sell something. So I asked if I had to sign something, sell, buy, join something yadda yadda yadda. Nope just have to write up a story, blog it, and twit tweet to them about the post. Apparently I don't even have to tweet if I don't wanna. I'm in the drafting process for my story.

    Ugh Purge. Once when I was a kid I did a "purge". Most of the cards I got rid of I think were dupes, some hand cut type hostess cards and some cards I had marked up/defaced.

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