10 facts as a collector

Seven Facts about me as a collector

- Fact 1. As a kid, I Started Collecting baseball cards in 1977.

In 1982, I was making a habit of collecting cards.

In 1989, I started purchasing cards in bulk.

In the mid 90s I stopped for a while and picked it backup up in 2007.

I'm not the usual collector.

- Fact 2. I buy locally, don't do much anymore with eBay.
  Why?
  I have two nice card shops where I live.
  Plus there are many private sellers around.
  Normally I see better prices, no shipping, I see the product. I just enjoy it more going in person to shows and shops.

  So like most collectors today, I don't have "mail day"

- Fact 3. I only have 15 K cards.  Most collectors who have been collecting as long as I have, well have many more.
  In fact, I'm looking at getting rid of many of my excess cards so that I can stay in that range.


- Fact 4. I don't use binders.
  Why?
  I don't trust them.  When I was a teenager, I used them.
  But they hang, bend, and are heavy. Plus they don't really protect the cards.

- Fact 5. I don't slab any of my cards.
  Why?
  It's not important to me.  I have never been into this hobby for investment or profit.

- Fact 6. I catalog and file all cards.  If they are not filed, they are hanging on walls on display
  Why?
  I want to enjoy my cards.  I want to know exactly what I have and be able to find them, view them,
  why have them.  I simply want to be able to enjoy them.

- Fact 7.  I'm not a very focused collector.   Other than collecting Cubs, HoFs, certain sets, years,
Cardinals, White Sox, Red Sox, All-Stars .... well you get the picture.

- Fact 8.  I was a huge Cardinals fan until Andre Dawson and Ryne Sandberg played together on the Cubs.  I was forever converted.  As a cardinals fan in the 70s, I was even trading many of my Cubs baseball cards to other kids.

- Fact 9.  No one else in my family like baseball or baseball cards like I do.

- Fact 10. I wrote all my collecting software myself.  Why, so I could have a product that could do what I wanted, display data in a way I wanted.

Revisiting my baseball card room

Another short post on my card room. I do have my new card cabinet in full use now. Still wish I had a better one, but for the money it is much better than many of the other options. 99% of everything on display is still Cubs based. I made this new video on YouTube for the blog to show what the room looks like as of today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=357zh_zMCYQ

Cubs and Cardinals autographed

I made a video today re-highlighting my Cubs and Cardinals autographed photos and baseball cards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riUwZT_JLN8

Here is a photo I did not put into my video:


Bill Buckner signing group Cubs photo.

took all 36 packs

I had to open all 36 packs of Topps 1988 Big Series 1 cards to obtain every card in the series. Have a ton of extra cards I don't need now. And even though I have not cataloged 100% of the cards of Series 1 (all 252 of them), I have started on Series 2.

I have made another video blog here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpoDFepruTQ

My cataloging effort of this set can be found here:
here http://mrgibson.com/baseball4.php?year=1988&seri=Big&bran=Topps

Despite all my complaining, if I get the full set for $5, I will be pleased. I will be up for trading my excess cards from this set for other holes in my collection.

Still working on 88 Big cards

Yes, I'm still opening and cataloging Topps 1988 Big cards. I have a long way to go.

How is the set so far? Probably the worst distribution of cards that I have ever seen. For example, I opened an entire case of Series 1. Some players kept coming up, over, and over, and over. Some players did not show in the entire case. Of the whole case, I only opened one Ryne Sandberg. If I had not at least got that card, I was going to be horribly upset. The worst part is that after opening all these cards, not a single #2 Milt Thompson card. But I need 8 Cal Ripkens?

New bulk packs purchased

Made another bulk purchase for $5 again. Although I did not get as many cards for $5....(for example, more than 2400 cards), I did get 756 Topps 1988 "Big" unopened cards for $5. Still a good deal in my humble opinion. I also did something different, I made a video of me opening some of this cards. 

Watch video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oH-2pu1l34

Once again, not a very good video, but I'm going to give this a shot with video blogs. Hopefully my video will get better. :)


As for the 1988 Topps Big cards, I love them.  I never knew these cards existed in 1988.  I did know of the 1989 Topps Big cards though.  I purchased many packs of them because I loved them.  That said, I think I like the 88`s more than the 89`s.  So I'm glad I made this purchase.

I have given dealing shout-outs before when I have like purchases, so I'm giving Busted Wax a shout-out for the good deal.