Okay folks, it's time for another midnight post.
Today ended up being a basketball day with my friends. (I missed the Cubs game, but they lost anyway.)
Afterwards, we went to a local eatery called Portillo's. (You Chicagoans should know how great that place is.)
I had the Italian beef. I'm usually the guy that always gets a cheeseburger and fries no matter where we are, but I decided to change it up a bit.
But neither of those ended up being the most interesting stop of the night.
I've previously mentioned that my friends are into the Yu-Gi-Oh card game. In between b-ball and our late dinner, we stopped at the local mall. There's a gaming-type store inside that my friends wanted to check out. (Contrary to what I originally thought, Yu-Gi-Oh is still pretty big. There were 20 or so kids my age having a "tournament" inside the place.)
What I was amazed to find is that there was a real, actual Yu-Gi-Oh dime box inside. And my friends were searching through it with a similar intensity as I have with baseball card dime boxes.
I even grabbed a few stacks of cards, even though I had absolutely no idea what I was looking at.
I'm glad my friends know what that drive to collect feels like. It's a rush that has few equivalents, if any.
On that note, I've noticed that a few of our fellow bloggers have recently taken a break from the hobby, most notably Ted of "Crinkly Wrappers". It's gotten me a bit worried, but I haven't been a part of the blogosphere long enough to know if that's a somewhat regular occurrence among bloggers.
That collecting "rush" just isn't happening for Ted and a few others.
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I've never gotten "burnt out" by the hobby in my dozen or so years of collecting. Sure, there's days here and there where I don't do much with my cards, but that little drive to collect is always within me, some times more than others.
Because of this, I'd like to know why the "rush" goes away for some collectors. I understand getting a little bored with recent releases, especially nowadays.
But that's usually another benefit to vintage cards, and the Internet in general. Vintage just doesn't get boring, at least to me.
I will never grow tired of my copy of Al Kaline's final card. I'll always have a deep appreciation of it.
Real life does get in the way sometimes, as I can fully understand. But as I mentioned before, I was drawn to my cards even more in my recent times of change and crisis.
Perhaps there just isn't time to devote to collecting at some stages in life. However, I always thought that the deep "collecting" fire would always burn in all of our bellies, time constraints or not. Once you engross yourself in this hobby, I don't know that you can ever fully get out.
Maybe I'm still a little naive about all this, but I can't really envision a time where collecting baseball cards wouldn't be a part of me.
I hope that never changes.
6 comments:
For me the card lust never goes away but the card cash does go away. Not all of my time away from the blog is cause of cash though. Most of the time I just don't want to write anything.
MMMMmmmmm.....Potillo's. Though, I have to admit that I am more a Buona fan.
Portillo's all the way! Although, since moving away from Chicago, I think I miss Giordano's the most.
I think I understand the burnt-outedness with cards. I've been really into music since I was in high school, but lately, all the bands that I like have stopped recording or touring or have just completely broken up. I have a hard time finding new music that I like, and it's made me disinterested. I feel like an old man, saying that music "back in my day" was better, and I'm only 27.
If you get a run of sets that you're not into, and there's not a lot of the old stuff that you're after, I could see burn-out happening. Don't see it happening to me anytime soon, though.
Guys,getting burnted out is easy in areas with ZERO shows and one card shop that has 95% Comics and only about 5% Sportscards(and most of those are of college football stars from Alabama or Auburn).
You can only do so much thru Ebay.I will say i have been enjoying the blogging community alot making trades and the talk about the cards itself.Its been fun and nice to know about other collectors like Nick,Dimwit,Night Owl,etc,etc.
I'm going to a shop while on vacation during the summer.
Last show I went to was 120 miles away one way in a mall.I get there and there are only 2 people with sportscards,needless to say,no dime boxes,quarter boxes,one guy had 2 dollar boxes that imo had cards that should have been a quarter or less.
Backstop, wait until you're 45! Ironically, though I'm into 80's metal bands and most of them are still going! Though some of them just can't do it like they used to.
I equate the card hobby to music in the sense that both are "in your blood". Cards (and guitar riffs) just feed a psychological and emotional need. My collecting is pretty diverse, with three sports, almost 50 player collections, set building, and one team collection. But it's still possible to have lulls. Like now, I'm really waiting for the National. My great local shop closed up last year, so the only buying I can do is retail and the occasional show. I'm kinda picky about the sets I build, so there are long periods between them sometimes. And product selection has a lot to do with it. I've only built like five football sets since 2007. Except for '08 Score and some of the flagship Topps, most football is the same year after year.
I do trade with people online, and have made deals with an increasing number of bloggers. Trades come in waves with the nice sets that come out. It's just all ebb and flow...
Well, I'm not done with the hobby. It seems that I always get a little burnt out around this time of year. Could be the lack of exciting releases or the fact that I buy way too much series 1 and don't want to look at cards for a few months, ha. Something always pulls me back, usually series 2 or maybe Archives this year. Amusing that you mention Yu-Gi-Oh! though. Watch for a post from me soon explaining a few things.
Post a Comment