[slidekellyslide]

I never had a hobby mentor...the hobby was so small in my neck of the woods. I got my first prewar cards from my dad who found some Old Judges in a scrapbook..he removed them and gave them to me with the advice that I should stop spending my money on the new cards and focus on the old stuff. I modified that and bought the crap out of new stuff, hoarding rookie cards of McGwire, Canseco, Mattingly, etc and then trading them to the local card shop for 1950s-60s stars and rookie cards. I traded 3 Mark McGwire 85 Topps cards for an Ernie Banks rookie card...I was doing that constantly...the card shop couldn't move old stuff, but it could move hot rookies with no problem.

I'm much more of a minor league memorabilia collector today than a card collector, and I owe much of my transformation to guys like Clint Hromek and Dave Eskenazi. Both of whom have amazing minor league collections.