This one's for you

I've had quite a few new pickups to showcase within the last few days.

As a result, my recent posts have been quite self-centric.

Look at my card of the "Big Unit" on the drums! Look at my new dollar store finds! Look at my latest Listia gems! Look at my new sparkly parallels!

While I don't have any type of problem with showing off some "cool" new finds, I don't usually like to cluster them together like that.

Lately, it's been all about me, me, and more me.

It used to be the same way with card shows.

As many of you know, I frequented online trading forums fairly regularly before I decided to start this blog.

Forums really aren't all that personal. Over the few years I spent on them, I have to admit that I really only knew what a couple members actually collected.

Most of the time, someone would contact me for a trade, and I'd agree. Or I'd contact them. That simple.

Either way, my trading forum went out the window when it came to card shows.

The way I saw it, "card show day" was for me, and nobody else.

Whether it was a nice stack of Vlad Guerreros or a new find for my little-known Matt Kata collection, exactly one hundred percent of the cards I'd come away with from a successful show would be for myself.

At the time, I didn't think anything of it.

These days, I still shop mostly for myself at shows.

I still get excited over any new Matt Kata cards I can find, no matter how insignificant they may seem to others. Dime boxes or just card shows in general have easily played the largest part in building my collection over the years.

What I'm just starting to realize is that they can also go a long way in helping out others as well.

Some of you might remember that legendary dime box from a few months ago, one that netted me over 500 cards.

While I absolutely love the ones I scored for myself, I'm just as proud to say that over 70 of those dime cards went towards helping out the collections of a few fellow bloggers. Even though I knew I already had it, I still picked up this neat card of "Campy".

Maybe it'll make another collector happy.

I'll be attending another card show on Saturday. As you might guess, I'm counting down the remaining days until I get to dig through all those dime cards and discounted vintage.

At the same time, though, I'm looking forward to seeing what I can find for the rest of the blogosphere as well.

After all, a blogger can never have too many extra Dodgers. There's certainly enough of those to go around on the blogs. I'll be keeping an eye out for Giants, Padres, and Indians cards as well. And Red Sox, and Orioles...

The list just goes on and on.

After a successful trade, it's hard to describe the fantastic feeling of getting an email saying, "Loved the cards!"

Or the joy I get when I read a trade post on another blog dealing something I sent them. Seeing how much they cherish the cards makes it all worthwhile.

As a result, I get a tremendous rush out of finding a card I know another person will enjoy.

Before I joined the blogosphere, I didn't think that was possible.