Why do you collect what you do?

[Exhibitman]

I've collected cards since I was 6.

I got into 'classic' Topps and Bowman after my uncle gave me The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book when I was 8.

I became interested in prewar cards when I got The Complete Book of Baseball Cards by Steve Clark in 1976.

I became interested in exhibit cards due to my conversations at card shows with John Spalding, who was a NoCal collector and writer who used to come down to SoCal to do shows. He sold me my first batches of prewar exhibit cards and graciously spent many hours BSing about them with me at those shows.

I became interested in boxing cards when I saw my first 1948 Leaf cards, bought two, showed them to my father, and he said about one of them [Barney Ross] "I think my cousin Ray fought him." The revelation of a previously non-disclosed pro athlete in the family will get you interested in that sport's cards PDQ.

All that is besides the point, though, if the cards weren't so darned interesting to look at!