When you have no money....

[Archive]

Posted By: Jimi

Do you find yourself spending it, even though you don't have it? Do you wait until cash is available? Do you trade?

Fortunately for me (and partly because of my wife), I tend to sell in order to buy, so I usually recycle my funds that way. I can't ever collect one project for too long before I grow impatient or find something cooler to get. So after I get bored with it, and sell it. I know that I am in the minority in this as most of you don't sell what you take in unless you are more of an investor. I'm not a dealer, I'm a collector who changes the look of my collection for my own enjoyment.

So what do you do when cash is not really available?

Jimi

[Archive]

Posted By: joe

Drool over the recent pick up threads

[Archive]

Posted By: Jimi

That just makes me want to spend money I don't have!

Jimi

[Archive]

Posted By: Wesley

Some auctionhouses allow payment with credit card. Most ebay auctions also allow paypal payments with credit card. So what if my Visa charges 17 1/2 percent interest? At least I get to enjoy new cards.

[Archive]

Posted By: Charlie O'Neal

I just sit on my hands until my card fund grows back a little. I have my credit cards locked from being able to be placed in my Paypal account, so I don't get a wild hair and max out my credit card for a piece of card board.

[Archive]

Posted By: Darren J. Duet

It's all paper or cardboard or plastic anyway.

[Archive]

Posted By: steve yawitz

I find myself recycling more and more. Usually it's because I'm selling a bunch of commons or lower-value cards to fund something big - or at least big by my standards. Plus there are times when something else simply catches my eye or I realize that I'll never have the wherewithal to complete some project.

I guess I do have my keepers, but I like that a chunk of my collection is fairly dynamic. Heck, I've been thinking all day about what I could expect my T205's to get and what I could buy with the money. It keeps it interesting for me. Plus if you have a good sense of timing or just good luck, you can kinda work your way up the cardboard food chain a bit.

[Archive]

Posted By: Richard

When you have no money....

Well, I find myself in this situation a lot. I have been trying to sell all of my modern shiny stuff to fund this darn pre-war habit of mine, but when you get to the point where it takes the sale of 25 decent modern cards to buy a run of the mill pre-war card, it gets discouraging.

Also running out of modern . . .

[Archive]

Posted By: warshawlaw

I still spend like a drunken sailor

[Archive]

Posted By: Brian C Daniels

therefore I owe!

or as Wilma nd betty say

" da da da dat dah dahhh...

CHHHHHAAAAARRRRGGGGE! IT! "

[Archive]

Posted By: Anson

I just click on Hal's T206 Wagner thread.

Actually, I laugh that I haven't become desperate enough to buy reprints.

[Archive]

Posted By: Jimi

Anson! I'm right there with you!

Jimi

[Archive]

Posted By: jay behrens

When I run out of money I generally have to sit around and wait until I get some money saved up. If something appears that really have to have, I will sell of other collectibles I have to pay for the stuff I really want. Otherwise, when I'm broke, I don't even look at eBay. It's just way too tempting to spend a few dollars here and there never get teh moeny saved up for the big dollar cards I am currently looking to buy.

Jay

If you can sue a band for making you want to commit suicide, can I sue Barry Manilow for turning me into a wuss in the 70s?

[Archive]

Posted By: Bill Kasel

I jump in my truck and I visit my clients all over the state. With the $.485/mile reimbursement I can cover my gas, make some sales, prospect for new clients and still make out big on the reimbursement check I get back from the company. I figure this way EVERYONE wins!

That, and I sell off a few of less desireable cards or duplicates. The problem is, just as I get to the point of nearing enough for an E95 Cobb I see other cards that I like.

Note the example I should be getting from Rhys next week:



IMO a VERY cool looking Horizontal that I'd never seen before. Now if I could just find that HALLA!!!

Bill

"The beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad, so I had one more for dessert"

[Archive]

Posted By: identify7

When I have no money, I have my cards. Which is why I have no money. So I spend more time with them ... appreciating, figuring, planning, prioritizing, researching, etc. for when the money comes back.

You see? I don't want money, I want cards. So when I have no money - I celebrate my success and revel in my plunder.

[Archive]

Posted By: Jimi

Gil, that's what I do, too. The problem is....due to me reveling, and enjoying, and plundering, and all that jazz is the reason I end up spending.....or at least wanting to spend. I've done a good job holding off and not dipping into "our" funds. It's hard sometimes!!

Jimi

[Archive]

Posted By: warshawlaw

better than money will get you through times of no cards.

[Archive]

Posted By: identify7

I had to subdivide the "our" funds into the your, mine and ours. Because the "our" funds were never mine.

It still ain't much, but it is a start + the established ratio stays true for all increases in available funds.

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

It's good to keep some money and some cards. Besides the obvious necessities of life, if all your expendable cash is in cards, then when the unexpected and great card opportunity arises, you have no money to pursue it, and perhaps not enough time to raise it. Always good to have some free cash available. If it's all in cards, find a few you can live without and sell them. That cash might get you something much better down the road.

[Archive]

Posted By: Julie Vognar

When I just have no money temporarily, I contuinue to spend it. When I have no money permanently...I sell my cards (being the only valuable thing I own).

[Archive]

Posted By: warshawlaw

Someone finally got one of my FFFB references I am proud to say I own an original issue of Feds 'n' Heads as well as a full run of the boys' later solo magazine.

For those of you not in the know, the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers are a hilarious underground comic from the 60s and 70s by Gilbert Shelton. Sex, drugs, rock n roll, politics (and religion when they can work it in) are all skewered by Fat Freddie, Freewheelin' Franklin and Phineas (three brothers from other mothers) and Fat Freddie's Cat (a government agent code named F. Fredrick Skitty), who is smarter than all of them combined. Plus, the supporting characters, Norbert the Narc, Governor Rodney Richpigge, President Nignew, etc.

Shelton did stuff like have Norbert plant a smell-transmitting bug in the boys' apartment to catch them smoking pot--of course, they go out for Mexican food and Norbert got a noseful of the after-effects instead, had the gov try to boost his youth vote by handing out all the confiscated drugs to young voters, etc. Their trip to Mexico and their encounter with a CIA smuggling operation is a riot. One I liked had the government lose a canister of plutonium which a hippie found and made into Ronald Reagan medallions that he sold at a swap meet--the joke being that all the FBI types looking for the plutonium ended up buying the medallions and taking them to work the next day where they were confiscated as non-conforming clothing. Lest you think it was just a hippie slam on the establishment, Shelton also craps all over the pie in the sky dreams of the counter-culture. The boys find a year's supply of coke in one episode, move to the country and build an amazing commune. Once the coke runs out, of course (in a few days), they find it is all a drug-induced mirage. In another one a crank vegetarian car mechanic fixes Franklin's car with beans and guacamole. Their trip to Mexico takes a big, well aimed shot at the hippie-dippie Don Juan and Timothy Leary books with their hallucenageic-extolling stories.

It is really funny, funny stuff and holds up very well 30 years later.

[Archive]

Posted By: nbrazil

gil...i would do the same thing...and i did at one point...but then i looked around and i realized that i had no heat, electricity and only ramen for food.

so, i had to sell a few of my cards just so i can i can remain warm.

i do still eat ramen. hey...i need to take a hit somewhere to feed my addicition....errrr, i mean hobby.

[Archive]

Posted By: identify7

That is Top Ramen you are talking about, I am sure.

You really haven't hit bottom until you get by on stolen black market Bottom Ramen.

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

Adam- I have a pretty big underground comic collection, including several pieces signed by R. Crumb. My favorite was S. Clay Wilson. Furry Freak Bros were funny, for sure.

[Archive]

Posted By: nbrazil

true. i may be reaching that point soon...i just bought a t206 mathewson..and with a grad student budget...that means time to hit the underground asian markets to find those second tier ramen products.