simple question? why do you collect;?

[yanksfan09]

I've been collecting since I was 7 or 8 and never stopped! The longest break I had was maybe a year or slightly less than a year. It's been a major part of my life as long as I can remember. Every penny I got when I worked as a kid all went to cards. Not much has changed now that I'm 30 but I have bills to pay first, but also still more money to buy cards! I love baseball. I love the artwork on the old cards. I love the smell of the old cards and the history you get when holding one.

As a kid I always dreamed of owning old cards and "A" Babe Ruth card. None of the card shops near me carried anything pre 1948 ever. I bought a few beater Goudey commons at a show as a kid and thought they were the best things ever. I was always under the impression as a kid that the real old 1930's and earlier cards were just far to rare and expensive to collect and never came up for sale. I wasn't until later on when I started using ebay more in the 2000's that pre-war really opened up for me. I'm still amazed and get a magical feeling like I did when I was a kid when I hold great old cards of hall of famers like Babe Ruth, Ty cobb, Walter Johnson etc... You just can't beat it!

[WillowGrove]

I grew up with parents who liked to spend weekends going to flea markets, auctions and antique shops. So unless I wanted to be bored out of my mind I needed to collect something. I chose baseball cards because when Topps came out with the MVP cards in 1975 I noticed Ernie Banks and realized I have a card of his. I found it and realized I own a card of a guy who hit 512 Homeruns!

Added to this was my dad getting me the book the 50 Greatest Players of All time - and I was hooked.

Always went for HOFers. I knew about the more common players but chose to put my folks' money into players I knew.

And now all these years later - after leaving the hobby because I didn't like when TPG companies came into it - and coming back to it in '09 when I had to clean out my dad's house of my collection - I collect now because it reminds me of all those weekends with my parents from age 9 to about 14.

To this day, my mother reminds me that when Seaver's rookie card went from $3.50 to 5 to $7.50, I was still holding out to find one for that $3.50 I had seen.

I guess I shouldn't have been so diligent to spend their money so wisely.

[Rickyy]

Since I completed my first Topps set in 1973...I've been seduced by wafting of those pink gum and the pictures of our summer time heroes... I guess now a days...collecting cards brings back joys of childhood combined with panacea from the daily stress of real life...

Ricky Y

[steve B]

When I started it was just a typical thing for someone my age. We all collected at least a bit, and traded, and played games with the cards.

I collect a number of things, I guess I'm just the collecting sort.

After the collecting as a kid, I went through a few phases, Wanting to complete every set, wanting at least one from every set, Collecting variations, Small time dealing/ investing. Took a few partial vacations from really going after cards to chase other stuff. Not quitting exactly, but backing off to maybe one or two older cards a year, and a few packs.

Now I see them as part of the overall collection that covers a lot of history both sports and other, with a lean towards the history of various technologies. Looking at cards from any era says a lot about that time. And now I can lay out 125 years of cards and see sort of a panorama of US history.

Steve B