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Stages of of my Collecting Life
Mantlefan
Posts: 1,079 ✭✭
[1] Collected Baseball and Football cards as a kid. Had to "complete the set" before any other kid on the block. Rode my bike to different stores to find the new series of cards when they first came out [In the 60's, cards were released in series approximately every 4 weeks...there was no way to tell when the new series appeared, so you kept buying packs until you found the new guys].
[2] Mom tossed cards.
[3] Years later "re-discovered" cards of my youth. Bought poor condition cards just for the "memories".
[4] Then realized I wanted nicer examples of my "memories"
[5] Tossed poor "memories"; bought higher grade "memories".
[6] Sent "higher grade" cards to PSA....got lousy grades.
[7] Bought higher grade PSA cards.
[8] Discovered Set Registry....entered sets....got lousy rankings.
[9] Now over-pay on EBAY to improve rankings!
Was it like that for anybody else??
[2] Mom tossed cards.
[3] Years later "re-discovered" cards of my youth. Bought poor condition cards just for the "memories".
[4] Then realized I wanted nicer examples of my "memories"
[5] Tossed poor "memories"; bought higher grade "memories".
[6] Sent "higher grade" cards to PSA....got lousy grades.
[7] Bought higher grade PSA cards.
[8] Discovered Set Registry....entered sets....got lousy rankings.
[9] Now over-pay on EBAY to improve rankings!
Was it like that for anybody else??
Frank
Always looking for 1957 Topps BB in PSA 9!
Always looking for 1957 Topps BB in PSA 9!
0
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Mantlefan - You've been reading my memoirs ...
"How about a little fire Scarecrow ?"
As luck would have it, our UPS driver was a part-time dealer, and had an incredible selection of wax and singles. I still remember going to his house in 1982 and my dad buying the last card he needed for his 1981 football set, #216, which he paid the huge sum of $0.75 for. For the next ten years until I left for college, UPS driver John was our best source for wax. I think he still does shows in Cleveland.
Starting in 1983 I started collecting baseball too, and by the time the 1984 Tigers won the series, baseball had surpassed football in my collection. We would basically just amass cards, halfheatedly trying to make sets. They were our primary reference for pictures and stats. In the mid-80's the Strongsville show came to town, and '84 Donruss started to take off. The local coin/stamp place started carrying cards, and a local sporting goods store opened a card booth in the back. Baseball cards were all we thought about in the summer
In 1985 I started middle school, and all of the older kids had these cool new cards called Garbage Pail Kids. Those immediately became my obsession, and I stopped buying sports cards for a few months. GPK was hot at shows, and my dad started collecting them too. Sometime around 1986, I traded my entire baseball card collection for my dad's entire GPK collection. It was a fair trade at the time
In 1989, before the football cards for that year were released, I decided all of the money was in baseball, and football was a waste of time. I tried to no avail to trade or sell my football card collection. I couldn't get a pack of Upper Deck for the thing
Rumors started to circulate that there were two new companies that were going to produce football cards that year, and that old football was beginning to gain popularity. At the Strongsville show, dealers were buying football, but very few were selling. I bought a copy of Dellaferas' football card price guide (Beckett was baseball only back then), and realized I had some decent stuff. Basketball and Hockey were picking up steam, so I started buying those too. But by the time 1989 Pro Set football was released, I was full into football again. No one wanted mundane old Topps, and no one wanted Score, whose baseball set the year prior had tanked, so Pro Set was the hottest thing around. Again, the errors were what everyone wanted. That year, I bought about 15 boxes of Pro Set, 2 of Topps, and 1 of Score. Luckily John hooked us up with factory sets of Score for $12. We started doing shows later that year, and a dealer offered me a mint Walter Payton RCfor my coveted Murphy error. My dad convinced me to take the deal
Most people burned out in 1989. When 1990 Upper Deck baseball came out, everyone assumed it would be "the" set again, so no one bought newcomer Leaf. I continued to collect through the rest of high school as my friends lost interest. I discovered music, cars, and girls around 1990, so most of my money went to CD's and stuff. I still collected, but by 1992 the market was crashing and I almost completely lost interest when I left for college later that year. From 1992 to 1994 I was a poor college student, and bought very very little. I started buying one pack of each product and keeping it unopened instead of trying to build every set. As a freshman in college I got heavy into hockey, and even brought a SuperMonster box to my dorm, stored under my desk. Our radiator leaked and socked everything on the floor. Their insurance company asked me to get three estimates for the cards, and three dealer friends of mine hooked me up with pretty - ahem - generous estimates
In 1995 I got a co-op engineering job, and started to have some spending money again. I bought tons and tons of modern product in 1995 and 96. I started buying up my friends' childhood collections. I got Internet access in 1994 and discovered UseNet with newsgroups such as alt.collecting.cards, and later alt.collecting.sport.football. I fell in love
In 1996 I decided my collection needed some focus. Single-player collecting appealed to me, so naturally I started focusing on anything and everything I could find featuring my favorite football player, Marcus Allen. I was still buying one pack of every product, but other than that it was solely Allen. I also got into Magic the Gathering cards late in college, and stopped buying packs of baseball, basketball, and hockey.
When I graduated college and got a real job, I continued collecting Allen and football packs. Beckett Buy/Sell/Trade and alt.collecting.sport.football were my main resources. I also started looking for older packs. In 1998 I was so excited about the rookie class that I started buying tons of new product again. A kid at the local shop turned me on to eBay
In 2000 I was finally over my huge loss ($1200 was like 6 months card budget at the time, I was planning to break the cases to make money). I started seriously collecting vintage football packs and Japanese baseball packs, and my anti-grading stance came to an end. Until then, I was of the opinion that I had been collecting for 20 years and could darn well grade a card myself, darnit. When I started going back and collecting 10,000 yard rusher RC's, I soon realized PSA was the only way to go. I finished up buying all of my friends' collections, and started getting interested in other vintage PSA cards. My dad decided to concentrate on 19th century stuff and 1968 Tigers stuff, and gave me a significant portion of his collection.
Through 2002 I kept up with my Marcus Allen and modern football pack collections, but really started building my PSA and vintage football pack collections. In late 2002 I discovered the registry, and the wallet REALLY started to bleed
I dabbled in many other unmentioned things throughout the years, and have the monster boxes to prove it
Today, my football pack collection stands at over 1200 different packs, and I have probably the most complete raw Marcus Allen collection around. My 10,000 rushers set is complete, awaiting upgrades. I still have 3000+ Garbage Pail Kids cards, 100,000+ non-football cards, and a few hundred non-football packs, none of which I've been interested in for years. Who knows how much football, but definitely many more than that
I'll continue to keep up on Marcus Allen cards, modern football packs, Japanese baseball packs, and Magic packs. I'm only dabbling in vintage packs now; most of my money is going into PSA. I really want to finish 1962 Fleer, then I'll move on to (most likely) the HOF RC set in a serious way, then maybe another vintage set... 1958 Topps maybe, or 1970 Topps, or 1967 Philly, or 1957 Topps, who knows
Here's a pic of about 1/3 of my collection in my tiny apartment (picture taken today):
I haven't updated those commons boxes in about 8 years, everything since then is just wherever.
My wife completely supports my hobby, altough she stopped going to shows with me when she stopped collecting Beanie Babies. I've met some incredible people over the years through collecting, and my fair share of slimeballs. Most of the people I've met are just like me, passionate about The Hobby.
Holy cow, I wrote a novel
Joe
Dang, Joe! What do you do for fun?
Joe
Wow...your life sounds just like mine....except I was born in 1971 rather than 1974. You mentioned the Strongsville show...heck..if you are from Ohio...I may have run into you at a show, mtg tourney, or the poker table at some time over the years.
Great post!
John
I was planning on getting to bed early tonight, but your post changed that.
I never realized you were so young (28-29 if I'm not mistaken - you too John - I was born in '71 also).
Very interesting reading, though. Maybe everyone here should post their collecting history. Let's limit it to one a day though - we all need to sleep sometime.
JEB.
1) My dad bought me my first pack of baseball cards in 1972 and I thought they were pretty cool. I spent as much of my allowance that was left, after buying important things like ice cream and candy, on baseball cards that year.
2) Dad took me to see an Angels game in 72' when we were on vaction in California. Nolan Ryan pitched that game, and I swear to god, to this day I can still hear the sound of his pitches smacking the catchers mitt. He told me that he was going to give me something when we got home and that it was the rookie card of the guy we had just watched pitch.
3) I collected cards from 72 through 81, when I thought at the time there were just to many choices to make and not enough money to buy everything. I stopped collecting at that point.
4) All of my cards were put in a box and stowed on the top shelf of the closet, with the one exception being the 68 Ryan card. It was put in an empty check box with tissue paper lining the bottom.
5) Now fast foward to 2000 and I have just quit my job and I am enjoying all the free time that was made available, when oops! I got bored. I started watching TV late at night and low and behold, what comes on but "Shop At Home" collectibles (arghh!!!). Well I see what some of these cards are going for and the next day I immediately begin scouring the house for my baseball cards. I'll be honest here and say that life for those cards had been pretty tough after they had been through two moves and those rubber bands had dug pretty deep into the edges over the years. Can you say PSA 4 or worse.
6) Well I sad to say I was hooked on that show (just watching of course :=) ) until the Tiger Woods card fiasco, but the show got me to check the internet for the auctions they were always talking about. So I found eBay, and signed up in late 2000. My god! There were tons of baseball cards to be had and I had money to blow. I grabbed a Beckett Mag and I was off.
7) After a few months I had quite a few Hobby boxes and Wax boxes stocked up. I was having a blast opening packs, it was just like it had been all those years ago, except 20+ year old gum doesn't taste to good. Now according to the Beckett guide I had quite a few cards that might be worth some money, the question now was what to do with them.
8) At the time the only grading companies that seemed to be reputable were PSA, Beckett, and SGC. So I broke open two 1990 Bowman Tiffany sets and sent 20 cards to PSA and 20 cards to Beckett, SGC I was a little pissed with from the Tiger Woods card fiasco so they didn't even rate a consideration. The grades came back almost identical, 1 gem mint, a bunch of mints, and a few near-mint-mints. The beckett submission had a few 8.5's instead of nines. At the time Beckett cards were garnering better prices so future submissions went to them, instead of PSA.
9) Eventually I decided to start focusing my collecting on the players that I liked the most. When I put some thought into that only Nolan Ryan, Pete Rose, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente came to mind. These were great players that I got to watch play, when I was growing up. Now I left Mike Schmidt off the list because, I am and always will be a Cub fan, and he KILLED them when they played, so he is the anti-Christ as far as I am concerned.
10) Well needless to say a amassed a few pretty good cards both Beckett and PSA graded of these players. When one day the winner of an auction of mine for a 72 Nolan Ryan PSA 8 starts telling me about the PSA Set Registry and how the Ryan's that I have would probably make a pretty good start in the Nolan Ryan Player set. Well I load the PSA graded cards I have in there, and I am in 6th place in Set Ranking. Well needless to say, I wanted to be in 1st. It took a while, but I got there, now staying there will be the challenge and I am also branching out into some of my other favorite sets of the 70's as well.
11) Now in my late night wanderings I have found these message forums and I enjoy reading the posts and contributing when I can.
The long and expensive road to collecting quality,
sjeanblanc
<< <i>[1] Collected Baseball and Football cards as a kid. Had to "complete the set" before any other kid on the block. Rode my bike to different stores to find the new series of cards when they first came out [In the 60's, cards were released in series approximately every 4 weeks...there was no way to tell when the new series appeared, so you kept buying packs until you found the new guys].
[2] Mom tossed cards.
[3] Years later "re-discovered" cards of my youth. Bought poor condition cards just for the "memories".
[4] Then realized I wanted nicer examples of my "memories"
[5] Tossed poor "memories"; bought higher grade "memories".
[6] Sent "higher grade" cards to PSA....got lousy grades.
[7] Bought higher grade PSA cards.
[8] Discovered Set Registry....entered sets....got lousy rankings.
[9] Now over-pay on EBAY to improve rankings!
Was it like that for anybody else?? >>
That is the BEST analogy I have seen in awhile.
1971- Born August 11th....why did I have to be born in a year where the issue is so darn condition sensitive.
1977- My father bought me my first pack of cards...1977 Topps Baseball.
1978-1981 - Bought Rack Packs of Topps Baseball and Football from either the grocery store or Kay-Bee (remember the big bins). Kept my collection seperated by team with rubber bands in a those bright orange Nike shoe boxes
1982-1989 - Collected the usual Topps Baseball and Football. Note: during the early 80's I was really into collecting the Topps stickers and trying to complete my "sticker album".
1989-1990 - Finally!....hockey cards were widely available in NE Ohio....I bought a bunch!!
1989-1993 - College (did not collect much..opted for $0.25 beer nights instead)
1995-1999 - Quit collecting sports cards....rather played Magic the Gathering and traveled to tournaments across the midwest. At one point in 1996 was one of the top 50 players (ranking wise) in the country.
2000-2002 - Collected (ie. gambled) heavily on new, expensive modern stuff. Spent a ton of money on new wax and played the eBay game to try to recoup my expenses. There were times I would go to a card shop and easily spend $400-700 in an hour or two busting packs. To compensate for my hobby expenses....I would play Texas Hold'em (poker) to help fund my modern card fix.
Feb. 14, 2002 - Joined the PSA Forums and bought my first graded vintage PSA card....1965 Topps Joe Azcue PSA 8 from "theBobs". Since then I have never looked back and am officially addicted to vintage, these forums, and the registry. I still on ocassion play Magic Online (the online version of MTG) so that I can sell my "virtual cards" on eBay to help fund my vintage collecting efforts.
Thanks for reading!
John
1975- born on September in Cincinnati OH. While I was still in the hospital my Grandfather put a Reds baseball cap on my bald head (Anyone know what else happened in the fall of 75?)
Fast forward to 1986- My family lives in Kentucky and my dad travels home to his parents house in No. Ohio and brings back a large box with his baseball cards. When he returns he begins looking the prices up in one of those miniature baseball price guides that are real thick (can't remember the name). He gets me involved with the process. His cards were a few 1955s, 1956s (but he has a Mantle), a few more 1957s, then a bunch of 58s 59s, 60s, then a few 61s. He also has a ton of 64s including 4 Pete Rose 2nd years.
1987- I begin collecting 1987 Topps wax at the local drug store. For .40 cents a pack it was a bargain. My favorite card was 1987 Topps Eric Davis where he is wearing that Reds pullover. A great non-action shot.
One day when we were in Cincinnati OH visiting my great grandmother, my mom takes me to half a dozen card shops looking for the last card I need to finish my set-- #71 Mike Aldratre. I willingly fork over .75 for it. Set complete.
1988- My dad had lost interest and had given me all his cards from the 50s and 60s (all of them expect that 1956 Mantle!). I enjoyed looking them up in Beckett, but really had no real interest in them since I knew nothing about the players. I just couldn't wait until the 1988 Topps set came out. That was what I really concentrated on. My mom bought me my first whole wax box after my confirmation ceremony at church. It was a thrill like no other. I easily completed that set. So I moved on to 1988 Donruss and Fleer. The Donruss took a whole lot more wax boxes to complete a set, and I have thousands of commons to prove it.
1989- By 1989 I began picking up a lot of the stars of the day in singles at the local card shows. My mom and I also found a drug store that seemed to have a direct line to Upper Deck, so 'we' started buying packs after packs after packs. I ended up with 12 Griffey rookies. 11 of which I sold to one dealer for $11.00 each. What a lot of money that was to me at that age. I also began to branch out to football and basketball, trying to get as many of the new packs as I could. Equally important at this point was going to the local card shows and flea markets and picking up HOF players from the 60s and 70s in any condition. The history of sport became clearer and more important to me.
I still had all my dad's old cards but was eager to begin accumulating a collection that was mine, so I traded off a lot of my Dads collection to feed my hunger for the cards of the moment. Gone was the 1958 Roger Maris rookie...sold for practically nothing (though it would have been a PSA 1 at the most). Gone was a 1960 Willie McCovey rookie- traded for a 1986 Donruss Canseco. Gone were all the Yankees from all the years thanks to a wise dealer who saw a kid wanting to buy the latest wax. Gone was a 1958 Topps Aaron.
From 1990-1995 I collected everything I could get my hands on. And attended a few nationals- one in Houston with my Dad (on the flight to Houston we made an emergency stop in New Orleans-- I relived that moment last weekend when I traveled there for the first time since.), and one in Chicago with a buddy (you have to love cheap Southwest flights).
During that national in Chicago, with my sister’s boyfriend, I decided to pick up some of those 1954 Topps cards. I liked the look of them so much and could never understand why my pop didn't collect them as a kid. I picked up a nice Ted Williams, Jackie Robinson, Warren Spahn and some nice commons. I also picked up some 1951 Bowmans that I really liked. I had no real hope to ever complete the sets.
From 1995 or until 2000 I didn't collect at all. Everything was stored in top-loaders and tucked away in my closet at my mom's house but I wanted to spend more time on girls and my career. And that is what I did.
Then in 2000, I was living in DC and saw in the Post that there was going to be a show out in Falls Church VA or one of those VA suburbs. I went one Saturday morning and felt like I was in a time warp. What a overwhelming experience. It was like reliving my youth.
I was hooked again even though I walked out of that show empty handed. Next time I was at my mother’s house I cherry picked some of my favorite cards and took them back with me. I was at the stage of my life where I made a little money and could afford to drop some of it on cards. This was a nice feeling.
It is now 2003. I have come darn near close to completing my 1954 set, though I haven't plunked down the cash for the Aaron or the Banks yet. I have also begun working on sets this year for 1960 and 1970. I think I am working on 1960, because I wanted to find a place for some on my dads commons in a set of mine. He died in 1999.
Just within the last few months my reading has taken me back to the very early days of baseball. Hence my collection of 1911 T-205s.
Lastly there is one story I must tell. If you have read this far then bear with me:
Sometime in 1988 or 1989 when my dad gave me his cards I decided that I wanted to display them—especially the Cincinnati Reds players. In my bathroom there was a mirror that went the length of the wall. Above the mirror there is a small place just about the size of a top loader. One day I decided that I could display a bunch of cards there. Wouldn't it be great to be able to look at them all the time as I walk past my mirror.
So I proceed to take one of my 1964 Pete Rose cards and place it on top of this wall-to-wall mirror. As soon as I get it up there...whoops...it slips behind the back of the mirror. So there he sits for the last 12+ years in a top-loader behind a mirror in my mothers house. I have a sense of humor about that card now...but at the time it was devastating. Poor Pete!
One last thing: When my dad died I looked for that 1956 Mantle. I haven't found it yet...but I hope more than anything that I do-- for the memory and my father and so I can display it as I tribute to him beginning me in this hobby.
1975 Opened first packs of cards and was hooked for life.
1976 Built my first complete set with my $0.25/week allowance
1977 Bought my first complete set from a card company (Renatta Galasso), a 1977 Topps football set
1978 Bought my first cello box from the local wholesaler, a 1978 Topps baseball box
1978-81 Continued collecting every baseball and football set
1982 Quit building modern sets and started focusing on a 1969 Topps baseball set after purchasing my first lot of '69s at a Philly show. The lot was in EX to EX-MT condition and included Stargell and Clemente
1983-86 Continued to build and upgrade the '69 set.
1987-90 Returned to completing newer sets and backfilled my collection to complete the baseball sets from '82-'90
1991-97 Got disenchanted with all the new sets coming out and returned to focus solely on my vintage collection. Decided to raise the standard of my 1969 set to NM-MT or better.
1998 Graded my first cards with PSA sending in my '69 Clemente, Ryan, Mantle and Jackson. Received grades of 9, 8, 8 and 8 respectively.
1999-2002 Continued grading out my 1969 set as well as upgrade the 7s. Also managed to partially grade out several of my other sets.
2003-? Continue building my collection prior to 1969 with the ultimate goal of building as many PSA 8+ sets as time and funds will allow.
1987- first pack of cards (87 donruss, wally joyner was my best card)
1990-98- buying cards like crazy, stange obsession with collecting florida marlins stuff (5000 diff and counting
1998-2000- discovered alcohol and girls, cards few and far between
2001- hit the jackpot....01 donruss classics ruth/gehrig dual jersey/bat card, #'d 4/50 (gehrigs number). sold it for $2000, said screw the jersey/rookie/newer stuff and promptly blew it all on graded cards
2002-now- juggling college, girls alcohol and psa hockey cards.......anyone who says alcohol is addictive? just get yourself addicted to buying psa cards, youll slow down on drinking big time. one 30 pack= one 70s psa 9 HOFer.....and cards dont give you hangovers.....
Will
Here's mine:
(1) Never knew what the hell I was doing and thought that condition meant nothing. Mom didn't throw them out, but she should have.
(2) Rediscovered hobby after many years but realized that condition meant everything. Didn't matter since I was buying high grade trimmed examples. Still don't know what the hell I'm doing.
(3) Focus on sets that are ignored, receive mediocre grades on submissions, and regularly overpay for plastic because I want the best set. Think I know what I'm doing, but I really don't.
(4) Looking for the next bull run in vintage cards, will dump everything, but I'll probably miss it because I figure I still won't know what the hell I'm doing.
Always looking for 1957 Topps BB in PSA 9!
Basilone----Priceless
72-Born
81-Did my first set with my father (81 Donruss)...Sorted through numerous cases of 81' topps making
sets for my dad...Making a whole whopping 50 cents a 500 count.
82-Still in slave labor with pops for I saw more 82 fleer than any 10 yr old in michigan.
83-Still in slave labor.
84-ditto yet this was mattinglys rc dad wen apeshtt on the wax cases. He's a yankee for life.
85-Moved up into the buying ranks at shows that dad would set up at. He'd give me 50 bucks
to run around buying up prospects. I still remember the comment (15 cents is to much for
McGwire) but you can spend a quarter on Cory Snyder. I'm glad I was wright for a bought
over 100 macs.
86-88--Girls were invented and also lost my collection in a arcade playing Gaunlet. Sold the
rest of my collection to my dad to buy golf clubs.
89-91-School
92-College only to fail to make the cut on the golf team. Opted to play Blackjack for the remainder
of my college career which wasn't long.
93-99 Lost somewhere dont remember.
00-Started flipping cards for extra coin.
01-Got a killer deal on a 78 case then soon after met these crazy guys with this thing called the registry.
02-Decided to do 81 topps because I couldn't cope with 81 donruss. And still doing them yet find myself
straying into other parts of the unknown only to ask myself WHY!!!! I did that. Only with the explanation your becoming a collector. Now I dream about cards and is that bad. Not for me for it
brings me back to the day of riding my bike across town with binder in hand to do some tradin with
2 liters of mountain dew.
Matt
We are about the same age......the hot card when I was 10 was the 1981 George Brett #700. That was the coolest card that year.
Also....the line about losing your collection while playing Gauntlet was awesome!!
John
Problem being it wasnt by selling to play I flat out lost it. I was a huge mcovey
fan along with dale murphy and dawson. Something in the line of 5 rc's of each
and they were mint.
Also how did the 65's look.
Oh ps hottest thing up here was raines and baines.
John
Born in 1962
Collected as a child from 70-75.
Traded collection (and 4 shoebox of vintage cards, 40-50's, but that's another sad story) for washing machine size box of comic books.
Got back into collecting in 1986 and haven't looked back.
<< <i>seems I'm the youngest of the bunch here......anyone younger than 22 on the Registry boards? >>
I know Ian is. According to another thread, he just got his driver's license. It's nice to see younger members who really have something to add here. I'd say you (Will) and Ian definitely come to mind.
BTW Ian, nice job on your '74 set. I haven't been actively collecting this set for the past 8 months or so, but I added a card yesterday from one of the player sets that I'm collecting and noticed your set. Keep it up - you could end up being the youngest member with a complete set.
JEB.
<< <i>seems I'm the youngest of the bunch here......anyone younger than 22 on the Registry boards? >>
I got you beat... I'm 20.
Justin
NAXCOM
<< <i>
<< <i>seems I'm the youngest of the bunch here......anyone younger than 22 on the Registry boards? >>
I got you beat... I'm 20.
Justin >>
hey i grew up in austin. small world
Qmayer is only 20....Hmm if your the qmayer on ebay you have the market pretty
well pegged....You've even beat me out on a few auctions I thought were going
to be steals. Only to be denied.
Congrats keep it up it's money well spent
1985-Got into cards for the first time, buying 1985 Topps baseball cards. I still have most of the original cards that I first bought. I use to crease them to make them "look older". Apparently, that was the cool thing to do.
1987-'87 Topps were in vogue. Mike Greenwell rookies were hottie than Nasdaq bubble stocks. I bought tons and tons of packs. Never completed a whole set. The "Future stars" cards were a big deal. So were the Mets.
1989-Starting going to shows for the first time. Bought Danny Ferry skybox rookies for $5. Bought a '34 Goudey Jimmy Foxx from a small show for $30 or so, years later I tried to sell it and alas....it turned out to be a beat up reprint. I also got offered a Jerome Walton '89 UD high number rookie from some guy in a Target Store when I was looking through baseball card magazines. I'm glad I turned down his offer of $20. I sold my garbage pail kid collection in the 6th grade for $10. Time to move onto better things.
1991-Went to the Anaheim national. More hype than substance. It was cool seeing the McNall t 206 wagner card. I pitty the people paying good money for those "promo bags".
1992-95-Got heavily into Star Basketball. They were smokin hot. The majority of the value of my collection was in Star at this time. Oh brother.... I actually had dreams about Star basketball. A major addiction.
1995-2000-Took an extended break
2000-Present-Back into PSA, vintage PSA 8's and 9's in basketball and baseball.