I am 38 and started collecting in the mid-80s. My dad brought me to some shows, which is where I got my first HOF autographs. Those were mostly on 8x10s with a few baseballs thrown into the mix. I put it all away while in high school and college, and a few years after leaving school I went to work as a baseball editor at Topps. That was fun but got old after a couple of years, so I moved to Europe for a few years, and then came back to the US to get a graduate degree. That was 7 years ago now.
I had a lot of stuff from when I worked at Topps that I didn't really want, so I went to a number of message boards and starting doing some trading. I had no interest in football, basketball, or hockey stuff, so when somebody wanted that I would ask them what baseball they had, and I started focusing on HOFers. You want my Jaromir Jagr autograph? What baseball HOFers do you have for trade? I enjoyed watching my total grow, and it became a bit of an obsession. My father is still into the sport and the hobby, and I have gotten my father-in-law into it a bit, which has helped my collection tremendously.
With the three managers who are to be inducted next year, my total number of different HOF members is at 236, and number 237 is in the mail...
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