Hi, I'm Estil along with my best friend Jamiee the kitty cat!
 

I have been on the PSA Forum though since the early-to-mid 2000s. My specialty is 70s/80s/90s sets (my current projects are 1971-72 and early/mid 90s insert sets) and I also collect NES/SNES and other vintage video games, coins (especially silver ones!), stamps, and vintage reference/coffee table books of certain kinds. Thanks for welcoming me aboard here, Net54!

It was around this time 25 years ago that I not only started college at the University of Kentucky, but also got my start as a true serious collector. What do I mean by that exactly? Well growing up I got my first baseball card packs as a nine year old (1989 Donruss and Topps to be exact) and then got back into it in 1993 and liked getting the $2 Topps jumbo packs my local convenience store had that gave you five gold cards per pack and in 1994 I especially liked the Fleer and Ultra packs as you got an insert in every pack. Sadly I could only afford get a few packs from time to time. Even when I did get my first part time job in high school in the late 90s (local Wendys) I saved most of that money to prepare for college...such as taking classes at the local community college that at the time were affiliated with UK so they counted the same as the ones at UK proper...it was like UK had a farm system in a way!

Anyhow, when I started college I again got a after school/Saturday job at the local Student Center, then Commons Market the next three years after that. And it just so happened there was an amazing baseball card store (which is still open today called Baseball Card Warehouse) where I got my first ever complete sets! Now as you all know, I am very very much the nostalgic type so naturally I started with my child years (late 80s) and got 1987 and 1989 Topps factory sets...I wanted a 1988 factory set too but he only had a hand collated one). And since I was born in 1980, naturally I wanted to first get all the 1980s sets! I mean you hear all the time about people being 80s nostagic for other things so why not baseball cards?

And then shortly after I managed to get a nice group of early 90s sets and wanted to at least get all the Topps sets from the 90s. And then as the years went by (I do have other hobbies such as video games that I collected more in the last two years I was in college rather than cards and my mood typically rotates every year or two as to whether I'm more into cards or games or coins or whatnot) I even managed to get things like 70s sets and even early-mid 90s insert sets! So naturally one of the first master sets I ever got was (surprise!) the 1994 Fleer set I enjoyed getting packs for back in the day. Sadly I never got the chance to make much money (I was a grocery clerk at a local Kroger in the mid-late 2000s and then in 2011 I had to go on SSDI) but over the course of a quarter century it does add up! My current projects are 1971 and 1972 Topps (I haven't yet gotten the latter though) and the early/mid 90s inserts. I sadly don't get much to splurge with (I never did in my whole life) so I can only hope (God willing) I still have time (I'm 44) somewhat on my side in terms of what I want to achieve in terms of my collections.

Later on I might make a short list of the sets I have so far and I might even list some of my "greatest hits" in terms of topics I've made on the PSA forum being all really excited getting (in most cases) a really rare but surprisingly affordable set!

Welcome, I like seeing new members that are real people and not foreign scammers. Seems like we've gotten a good handful recently. That's good. Hopefully you can find some good information and things to buy or sell here 😃.

Sadly I only get SSDI/disablity every month so I don't get much to splurge with sadly...but I have collected all this century (starting with my early 2000s college days at the University of Kentucky; their local Baseball Card Warehouse store was real helpful to me at the time!) so over time it does add up!

Welcome to the party and good luck in your quests!

Come on, scammer. You guys are just training them so good they are starting to fool you.

Estil is not a scammer. He's been a frequent poster on the CU boards for years.

Welcome Estil!
This is a great forum but my advice is to make sure your posting your 1970's and up discussions on the proper board. People are a little more cranky and less forgiving about that here than over at CU.

Enjoy.:)

:cranky:

:(

That quote was not directed at you William, or anyone personally. It was just a personal opinion post as I do feel like people here complain about far more trivial things than I see on other boards.

Estil, welcome!

We have 5 kitties. This is Meri (short for Meriadock, his brother is Pip, short for Pippen - Meri and Pip from Lord of the Rings). We also have Lightning, Storm, and Trixie. They are all rescues, and they are all part of our family.

What is odd is that I visited the PSA boards just last night after visiting only sporadically the last five years and I saw a post you recently made. My immediate reaction was.... "Estil is still here" and smiled a little because it reminded me of all the interesting conversations and cat fights that we had on those boards a long time ago. It was good to see a familiar "Name".

You are going to like it here. Leon is fair with his moderation unlike what we used to see on the PSA boards and the knowledge base is second to none. This is a great place to be.

But I thought this is where you're supposed to introduce yourself as a new member? It does read "...& New Member Introductions" Also I made a post at the PSA forum a few days ago about how around this time marks 25 years since I started college and my true serious collecting (of sets) journey really began that I added to the OP here.

Cat fights? Surely you don't have anything against man's REAL best friend do you? :(

You're good and this is the correct board for new member introductions.

Welcome Estil and Jaimee! Love to see the cat dads out in force, I have a few feline assistants to help hold the other end of the couch down. Love that 71 set, I built one a while back, so fun and some crazy photography on some of them. I look forward to seeing you around the forums!

Estil,
Your username is familiar from the PSA boards. Good to see you here on net54. Welcome, to you and the felines!

I wish so so so much it could be felines, plural but my mean apt won't let me have more than one :(