Dime Box Heroes: Patience

2011 Finest #6 Chase Utley

I like to think I've matured as a collector over the years.

I no longer buy 500-count boxes of 1990 Donruss at garage sales, just for the sheer fun of digging through some cards. 

I understand that I don't have to spend every penny I bring to a card show. Having a little leftover cash is always a good thing.

Perhaps most importantly, I've realized that vintage and dime boxes are far more important than little pieces of supposedly game-used fabric, at least for a collector such as myself.

True, all of these epiphanies hit me years ago. I haven't bought any 1990 Donruss in a long, long time. (I even refused a free box full of overproduction era cardboard that one of the flea market vendors offered to me last year.)

However, that doesn't mean that I've completely figured out this hobby.

Until recently, the word "impatient" would've been a good characterization of my collecting style.

Granted, I'm still a bit impatient when it comes to "big" sets like flagship and A&G. I usually take the walk down to Target on the first day of their release to see if they're on the shelves yet.

I don't see that changing anytime soon.

The real problem was my "impatience" towards releases like Finest and Topps Chrome, sets that I'm pretty much indifferent about.

Even if I wasn't going to buy any of the packs, I still had to trade for all the base cards I needed within days of their release. 

Needless to say, my impatience has eaten up a lot of my mailing budget over the years. I don't even like to think about how much sending out all those packages has set me back over the years.

Recently, I started to ask myself a few questions.

Do I really need to have that new Finest Chase Utley card right away? Does it really warrant the time, effort, and money that a trade for it would involve?

Short answer...no.

I can wait. 

That's where dime boxes come into play.

A lot of card vendors open box upon box of the newest "hot product". Because most of them are just looking for that one big "hit", a good chunk of the "worthless" base cards end up in discount boxes.

I love those types of vendors.

They pretty much cured me of my impatience. 

The first card show I ever featured on this blog had a dime box just like that. It's how I managed to nab my copy of Utley's 2011 Finest issue about five or six months after the set was released.

Last year, I immediately went out and traded for all the Topps Chrome cards I needed, even though most of them started popping up in dime boxes during the couple months following.

This year, I haven't even thought about trading for anything Chrome-related. The set barely registered on my radar. 

After all, I've got a card show coming up next month. I'll guarantee you that a big box full of Chrome base cards will pop up at some point during the show.

Until then, I don't mind waiting.