Trying something new. Uncollecting my collection

[almostdone]

So as a bit of background I collected cards as a kid through mid 80’s to mid 90’s but all modern for the times cards. In other words tons of junk wax. I amassed quite a collection that sat in a closet until around 1999 when I sold off 5000 count boxes of junk at a yard sale for$5 a box. I did have a few hidden gems but for the most part it wasn’t worth anywhere mean what i put into it.

At this point I realized that I needed be more specific in what I collected and stopped buying packs all together. eBay was a new thing and for the first time I had access to all the vintage cards I loved in magazines but never had gotten. I started by just buying anything of my favorite stars of the golden age and quickly had a nice little random group of stars. Nothing in high grade because honestly I didn’t care about condition. I just loved having a card of these guys. I dabbled in some set building and other types of focused collection like type collecting, HOFers, certain teams etc. In short without realizing i did the same thing I did as a kid and collected quantity for the sake of having them.

About two and a half years ago my wife had a serious medical emergency and ended up having open heart surgery to remove a blood clot in her lung. Her recovery went well but I started thinking that if something ever happened to me this huge collection of mine would be a burden to her and my kids as they don’t know what’s hardly anything is and definitely don’t know what things are worth.

I also came to realize that when I look over my collection there are certain cards I always look at while most I don’t and some even forget I have. I decided at this point to refocus and try to “uncollect” my collection.

I have a few sets which I put together that I love including the 53 Bowman, 54 Red Heart, 56 Topps, 63 Fleer, 71 Topps and 78 Topps. All have some meaning for me for some reason it another.

I also have my player collections. I have all my Griffey’s I collected in the early 90’s, all Topps of Clemente and Koufax, and playing days cards of Pee Wee Reese, Stan Musial and Carl Erskine ( another story for another day).

Outside of what’s sited above Ive decided to get rid of everything else and limit myself to only 100 cards. I sold a chunk off about a year and a half ago, before the boom (sigh) and have gotten rid of a few other things along the way. This post is not to try and elicit offers or sales on anything but rather maybe start a dialogue with this community which supports each other and is the real reason I love this hobby so much.

So how about you? Could you ever come to a point to challenge yourself to a limit of a certain amount of cards? If so what would your number be? Could you keep it to 50, 100, maybe 1000? I’m looking forward to see my collection shrink in volume but grow in stories. Cards I wouldn’t ever get rid of because of the story behind it, the esthetics of it, the player on it or what have you.

Anyway, thanks for your time if your still reading. I’d love to hear thoughts about this as a way to collect and see what else is out there in the meantime.

Drew

[John1941]

Good luck with your plan. There's no way I could limit myself to any # lower than 100,000 cards. There's so much I want to collect - Zeenuts and vintage Topps and minor league cards from the 1980s and Yankees. I have close to 20,000 cards and I'm 15.

[bnorth]

Been doing the same for several years very slowly. For me I have been trying to make it smaller by selling/trading several cards for one card or a few. I also sold off all my graded cards and several ungraded and bought baseball bats with that cash.

My biggest problem is I am lazy and not a big fan of selling even though I really need to.

[DHogan]

I told my wife that I would sell my entire collection to pay her medical bills. She said no right away. Because I like my collection too much. Even though it's not worth much. She was the greatest.

[almostdone]

Originally Posted by John1941

Good luck with your plan. There's no way I could limit myself to any # lower than 100,000 cards. There's so much I want to collect - Zeenuts and vintage Topps and minor league cards from the 1980s and Yankees. I have close to 20,000 cards and I'm 15.

I get it and I’ve been there. For me though when I got to a point I couldn’t remember what I had in some cases or had to dig through boxes to find one thing my focus what off.

To me part of collecting is accepting a challenge and I think this may be one of the hardest. Not finding and affording but limiting myself.

Drew

[almostdone]

Originally Posted by DHogan

I told my wife that I would sell my entire collection to pay her medical bills. She said no right away. Because I like my collection too much. Even though it's not worth much. She was the greatest.

My wife is the same. She has been my biggest cheerleader in everything in life. The only reason she would allow me to sharing my collection is if its what I really want to do.

Drew

[Casey2296]

When I got back into the hobby I started with a 300 card wish list covering 100 years of baseball, its expanded to 500 not including my E98 Master Set. I'm closer to the end of that list than I am to the middle and I could see myself stopping at that point.

[Smarti5051]

I have a similar goal and similar path and thought process as the OP. I collected baseball throughout the 80s and basketball in the mid-90s, almost exclusively opening packs. In the late-90's, as a Lakers fan, I focused on collecting Kobe and Shaq (and to a lesser extent Magic), and gave up on opening packs altogether. Since the late 90s, I have slowly added special PC cards for major events like childs' births, my birthday, Xmas. Thanks to Covid, I dove back into my collection. I sent about 150 of my most valuable cards to PSA, sent another box full of $4-100 cards to COMC to covert into cards for my PC, and then went through everything to see if anything from the 80s-90s was suddenly valuable today. My ultimate goal is to slowly consolidate my collection to fit into one box. The contents (in a perfect world), will be: (1) 1996 Chrome BB Set with key cards in PSA 9 (98% done); (2) 1984 Fleer Update set (done); (3) 1986 Fleer BB set in PSA9 (not even close to done); and (4) PSA graded cards of Orlando's "Top 200 Sportscards of All Time" (20% complete). Somehow, I have to find a way to unload/trade away about 40-50K commons/minor stars from the 80s and 90s (I cannot bring myself to just throw them away), trade away a bunch of 90s PSA Kobe/Shaq/Duncan rookies (if/when they ever get back to me from PSA - going on month 13), and find about $400K to fill out my four goals above so I can focus on the 10 super-expensive ones. Like the OP, I find myself enjoying the hobby more by consolidating and simplifying my PC.

[almostdone]

Originally Posted by Smarti5051

I have a similar goal and similar path and thought process as the OP. I collected baseball throughout the 80s and basketball in the mid-90s, almost exclusively opening packs. In the late-90's, as a Lakers fan, I focused on collecting Kobe and Shaq (and to a lesser extent Magic), and gave up on opening packs altogether. Since the late 90s, I have slowly added special PC cards for major events like childs' births, my birthday, Xmas. Thanks to Covid, I dove back into my collection. I sent about 150 of my most valuable cards to PSA, sent another box full of $4-100 cards to COMC to covert into cards for my PC, and then went through everything to see if anything from the 80s-90s was suddenly valuable today. My ultimate goal is to slowly consolidate my collection to fit into one box. The contents (in a perfect world), will be: (1) 1996 Chrome BB Set with key cards in PSA 9 (98% done); (2) 1984 Fleer Update set (done); (3) 1986 Fleer BB set in PSA9 (not even close to done); and (4) PSA graded cards of Orlando's "Top 200 Sportscards of All Time" (20% complete). Somehow, I have to find a way to unload/trade away about 40-50K commons/minor stars from the 80s and 90s (I cannot bring myself to just throw them away), trade away a bunch of 90s PSA Kobe/Shaq/Duncan rookies (if/when they ever get back to me from PSA - going on month 13), and find about $400K to fill out my four goals above so I can focus on the 10 super-expensive ones. Like the OP, I find myself enjoying the hobby more by consolidating and simplifying my PC.

It does sound similar. I guess as far as my early accumulation it was basically worthless crap minus my Griffey’s and a few random cards so selling them for less than pennies was the wake up call I needed.

Good luck on your quest as it seems a bit more ambitious than mine.

Btw, welcome to the boards and thank you for your input.

Drew

[ALR-bishop]

Smart +1 on welcome

John— at your current pace you will not hit 100,000 until you are 65. You need to pick up the pace

[bbcard1]

If I ever sell off my collection, I don't have a specific number of cards I would keep, but I do have a specific era. I collected in the 1970s as a boy. I would keep everything from 1970-1979. As they were all collector sets, the wouldn't bring very big money and it would allow me to play around the margins and pick up things like Milk Duds and Topps candy lids without returning to the rabbit hole.

[Exhibitman]

I've already started chopping down the collection, somewhat. I am limiting my postwar collecting to certain years and certain stars from other years, and player collections for Aaron, Koufax and Rosen. Gotta have some balance somewhere in this. Surprisingly, the process of selling does not hurt like I thought it would, likely because I have no fond memories tied to the cards I am selling. Of course, my rule is that I don't sell what I will really miss.

[gustomania]

I am on a similar path and have been collecting Koufax since late 2019 and aside from upgrading and selling a couple everything has stayed in the PC.
I had a modest collection on junk wave that I sold off about 10 years ago that I wish I still had, just to look through but in many ways glad I paired it down.

Each and every year I have a weakness and pick up 3-4K of stuff and then sell it right away as it always comes back to Koufax for me (or at least it has until this point. So, to answer your question, I could have tons of fun with 50 Koufax cards from 55-67 and then maybe a modest PC of my childhood favorites from about 75 - 85.

So in my eyes, 100 cards or less I could enjoy and tell my kids a great story. And no, they dont have to be 51 and 52 Mantles to tell that story either.

Chad

[thatkidfromjerrymaguire]

Originally Posted by Smarti5051

Somehow, I have to find a way to unload/trade away about 40-50K commons/minor stars from the 80s and 90s (I cannot bring myself to just throw them away),

I will say once I decided that it was OK to throw out cards I didn't enjoy, it really helped my collecting focus immensely.

I stored, and sorted, and moved my boxes of commons for YEARS out of fear that maybe there's something valuable in there, maybe I'll want to go through them later and sell them in bundles, maybe I overlooked a key rookie that might make it to the Hall of Fame.

But once I realized how much time it would take to dig through them, how much time it would take to sort, list, and ship them if I wanted to sell them, and how little money I would likely get in return, the light went off that my time and storage organization is worth WAY more than what those cards were worth. So out they went.

So now I recycle cards on a regular basis. If I buy a modern box of cards (yes even 2021 cards) I'll sort through them, pull out the rookies and any inserts, and then recycle the rest. Then after a few years I'll double check the rookies, and if none of them are on track for the HOF, I recycle those as well. It feels great to collect this way!

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by gustomania

I am on a similar path and have been collecting Koufax since late 2019 and aside from upgrading and selling a couple everything has stayed in the PC.
I had a modest collection on junk wave that I sold off about 10 years ago that I wish I still had, just to look through but in many ways glad I paired it down.

Each and every year I have a weakness and pick up 3-4K of stuff and then sell it right away as it always comes back to Koufax for me (or at least it has until this point. So, to answer your question, I could have tons of fun with 50 Koufax cards from 55-67 and then maybe a modest PC of my childhood favorites from about 75 - 85.

So in my eyes, 100 cards or less I could enjoy and tell my kids a great story. And no, they dont have to be 51 and 52 Mantles to tell that story either.

Chad

Gotta love Sandy; I collect him too.

[gustomania]

Cool piece my man!!

Love seeing the non card stuff and the history of it!!

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Gotta love Sandy; I collect him too.

[ASF123]

Originally Posted by thatkidfromjerrymaguire

I will say once I decided that it was OK to throw out cards I didn't enjoy, it really helped my collecting focus immensely.

I stored, and sorted, and moved my boxes of commons for YEARS out of fear that maybe there's something valuable in there, maybe I'll want to go through them later and sell them in bundles, maybe I overlooked a key rookie that might make it to the Hall of Fame.

But once I realized how much time it would take to dig through them, how much time it would take to sort, list, and ship them if I wanted to sell them, and how little money I would likely get in return, the light went off that my time and storage organization is worth WAY more than what those cards were worth. So out they went.

So now I recycle cards on a regular basis. If I buy a modern box of cards (yes even 2021 cards) I'll sort through them, pull out the rookies and any inserts, and then recycle the rest. Then after a few years I'll double check the rookies, and if none of them are on track for the HOF, I recycle those as well. It feels great to collect this way!

Sure, but how did it feel to get burned by not having any Harold Baines rookies?

[gustomania]

He’s surely not a real HOFer right

Originally Posted by ASF123

Sure, but how did it feel to get burned by not having any Harold Baines rookies?