The thrill of the hunt is fine, good, and dandy. However, if you don't reach your destination, where is the thrill? What good was all that time in pursuing the cards and coins you really wanted, if you came up empty?
Aside from my childhood, when I collected the penny ante gum cards, I have not pursued large Topps sets. I gravitated to players I really wanted, or small sets that had eye appeal, a fascinating background story, and a promotion that made the cards challenging to collect even in the year they were issued. I realize this mode of collecting is not done that much today. Collecting cards has morphed into concentrating on 1-3 sets due to the sheer expense of collecting them. The value of the cards has made getting them more futile as the years go by.
My own cherished memories are when I came upon something I really wanted, and often did not expect to find, or even did not know existed, and seized that moment, and bought the card or coin, or won it in an auction. Though I did not internalize each occasion as "a chance of a lifetime", in the ensuing years I have come to the understanding those moments were THE opportunity for me to get that particular item.
We all have missed chances, and some can be very discouraging or irritating, and not easily shrugged off, but hopefully in the long run our prized pieces have a conversation story that at least makes us very happy.
God has been very good to me, and graciously helped me get some dream pieces, even before I was aware of His help. This concept is where I believe the late Bruce Dorskind was coming from when he habitually referred to his collecting efforts as "we". Hence, he and Almighty God were a collecting dynamo, but all of us would only know the tandem as "we". It was almost as if God's help was Bruce's exclusive relationship. Soon it got extremely annoying to many on the boards, but he never would explain his use of the first person plural pronoun. I believe what was actually getting under everyone's skin was his intense arrogance and equally intense rude, crude, and insulting remarks to everyone else. It was all about Bruce, and everybody else can eat hog manure. I may be wrong about the explanation of Bruce's use of "we", but I doubt it.
One thing is for sure, God is by no means exclusive. He wants to reach out to any and all of us, if we would let Him into our heart. The choice is up to us. However, this forum is not a platform for theology and evangelism, and I shall stop now.
Suffice to say, our prized pieces almost always have a great sea story of how we came to own them. The journey is part of the juice of the destination, and its aftertaste continually pleases our collecting palate. So, ultimately, the answer is both are very important, with the primary emphasis going to the destination.
Good topic. ---Brian Powell
Last edited by brian1961; 03-23-2017 at 12:44 PM.
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03-20-2017, 12:04 PM
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