Why do you collect what you collect? (+ Introduction)

[egri]

I got started collecting in late 2005, when I was in 5th grade. A collector in who lived nearby gave me Bobby Doerr's address, so I wrote to him and that got me hooked on autographs. I collected both modern and vintage (mostly modern; one of my regrets from that time is not writing to more of the guys from the 1930s and '40s when they were still around). I stopped after about my freshman year of high school. Wasn't sure what the girls would think. I got back in towards the end of my freshman year of college. What brought me back was a signing that Jon Lester was doing with Steiner; since 2008 I had been trying to put together a signed 2007 Dunkin Donuts PawSox set. They were given away as a promotion at one of the games that year. There are probably only about 10,000 sets in existence, and mine is the only one I know of that is signed. At the time, I had 24/30 (all TTM), and Lester made 25. I overpaid horrendously for it ($150 plus shipping), but it got me back in to collecting.





I sent out a few more TTM requests that spring, and by the summer I realized that I wanted to focus on vintage, and complete a signed set. I wasn't sure what year, so I picked up a few cards from the years I was looking in to (1953, 1956, and 1957) and sent them out. I was blown away by the artwork on the 53s, which is why I focused on it, and by the graciousness of the players in the set. At the time (summer 2014) there were roughly 50 players still alive, the handful who didn't sign were either in poor health or Willie Mays. I wrote to 44 of them, and all wrote back. They mostly signed for free, or for very low fees ($5-10). A lot of them were happy to be remembered, and would write notes or include signed photos with my request. Like Pilot172000 said, history is a big part of it as well: almost everyone in the set was in either World War II or Korea, and many of them saw combat.