The Dreaded Lull

[Kawika]

Methadone gets me through the rough patches.

[Oldtix]

To paraphrase the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers: "Cards will get you through periods of no money better than money will get you through periods of no cards."

[Doug]

I usually just try to focus my attention elsewhere. If you have some other hobby or interest, just devote more time to those to distract you until your budget is replenished. You should probably avoid looking at ebay and auction catalogs. Window shopping with no money is basically like dangling a steak in front of a caged animal.

[Exhibitman]

Porn. Lots of porn.

J/K. Try a different avenue of collecting. There are lots of fun nonsports or other sports cards that are a heck of a lot cheaper.

[Jason Carota]

Try researching the players from the cards in your collection. Focus on the more obscure players, if possible.

[tinkertoeverstochance]

I switched set interests and started set collecting. Instead of bidding on a whole bunch of OJ's and t206 rare backs that I seem to no longer be able to afford, I started collecting equally appealing sets (to me, anyway) that are cheaper (still pre-war baseball). The set hunt makes it challenging, but easier on the budget. I still pickup t206 rare backs and nice n172's when I can, though.

Lee

[paulcarek]

Exhibitman, your post reminded me of a sort of "baseball card porn" I recently discovered. YouTube has many videos of vintage-ish wax being busted. It's pretty riveting, albeit in a very sad way.

[Ladder7]

Take your show on the road. The folks at the local nursing home were thrilled the day the Missus and I put on a little memorabilia show in their rec hall. Okay, some fell asleep. But several recalled collecting in their youth. We heard many enthusiastic stories. Some are from out of state, get few visitors and lonely and they love getting visitors and the nursing staff enjoyed the break as well. They work their butts off 24/7 and I could never do that job.
We brought out a stack of repro W517s to hand out at the end. It was a howl -they didn't want to believe they were fakes and a few had $$ in their eyes. A full two hours of laughs and we both felt good for breaking the routine. It was a very rewarding day.




(;

[Al C.risafulli]

Paul, a few years ago I started collecting items documenting the history of baseball in my home state. Provided that you're not from New Jersey, you can do this, too. If you're from New Jersey, unfortunately, I can't permit you to do this.

It's pretty cheap, and there are a million postcards, photos, newspaper articles, banners, autographed balls, etc. from amateur and minor-league teams out there.

I have a pretty fun collection that's pretty small - there are only three items in it that I paid more than a hundred dollars for, and all three are beautiful display pieces.

For me, it was definitely worth doing. I've learned a good deal about baseball in New Jersey (and also learned how much more I need to learn), accumulated some beautiful pieces, and didn't spend a ton of cash.

-Al