For about a year I’ve had six 500-count boxes sitting on my card desk. The boxes contained partial baseball and football Topps sets from 1980-1985.
They were partial/starter sets I acquired with the intent to either 1) complete the sets, or 2) sell them to someone who needed them.
Well, they sat … and sat … and sat.
The mere sight of them often sent me into a tailspin as I could not muster the idea of spending an hour to determine what was there so I could post it on eBay with hopes that someone would take them off my hands. The resell value wasn’t nearly as good as I had hoped.
And then yesterday, after dropping off my kids at school, something clicked. Just get them out of the house, and reduce that stress.
So I spent 30 minutes counting the cards that we’re within and then offered the lots for sale on Twitter, which is sometimes hit and miss for sales on items that are not presently hot in our hobby.
For about 10 minutes the post sat. Then a follower of mine hit the DM and said he was interested.
This sale was confirmed and I was happy to hear the cards were going to a good home. What’s even better is the buyer advised they would essentially replace cards he lost in a flood some 30-plus years ago.
The economic value of the starter sets isn’t high — and the buyer understood that. The lots were void of the big star rookies and even the stars. But this also reset the notion of “value” for me a bit.
I had approached this the wrong way. I was looking at “value” based on what I saw on eBay, and the lack of “big payday” actually was hindering my process. Hell, at one point I was even regretting the purchase I made when I acquired these … because in some ways I had placed no value in the cards themselves because they no longer fit my collecting style.
But this transaction is a win-win for Scott (the buyer) and myself. Not only did I get the items out of my house and into a collector’s hands, but it was humbling and served a reminder that the value of our cards — while often tied to money — is often a personal experience.
One could look at these boxes as stacks of commons and donate them or toss them in the trash. Another could look at these partial sets and see potential, but then sit on then for years and gain stress from not moving them. And yet another person could look at the lot and see items representing a piece of their childhood.
The sale didn’t make me rich or even net me a profit; but it made me feel like I had made a giant sale as I had lightened my load and recouped a portion of what I spent on these cards and others.
cardboardicons.com 
Twitter again impacting my hobby, blogging experience
Posted in Commentary with tags baseball, baseball cards, experience, hobby, twitter on November 18, 2022 by Cardboard IconsWhen I’ve logged into Twitter in recent days there has been a constant theme popping up: Hobbyists fearing that this may the end of Twitter, and thereby the end of some of their relationships with dozens, hundreds or even thousands of fellow card fiends.
There is a certain familiarity with this situation.
First off, it reminds me of Y2K, where folks at the turn of the century were afraid what would happen to computers at the turn of the calendar from 1999 to 2000 because when computers were programmed in the 1900s – man that is weird to say – calendar functionality was programmed to the end of the century. But we survived. Computers survived.
And secondly, this situation somewhat reminds be of the late 2000s when Beckett decided that it was going to overhaul it’s entire site, thereby killing the Beckett Message Boards, which at the time was home to some of the best hobby chatter 24/7.
That said, the death of the Beckett Message Boards led to me starting this Blog on July 3, 2008. So clearly I benefited from change.
I digress. Over the last 12-15 years, Twitter has become a big part of our hobby, my hobby, experience. Hell, Twitter is a major reason why you may even know who the hell I am or that this blog exists, and is the reason I’ve connected with thousands of hobbyists over the years. And over my 13 years on Twitter, the microblogging platform has consequently led to me using Twitter more and actually sitting down to write here less.
So, as you can tell, change impacts us all on different levels.
Blogging in today’s hobby is old school. Hell, even Twitter is old school to some. Many folks prefer visual mediums like Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitch, and other platforms to share their maildays, their pulls, and so on. I am on some of those platforms as well, under the same handle ‘@cardboardicons”, but all are secondary to Twitter for me.
Writing is my preferred method of communication, followed by still images. Videos can be entertaining, but I’ve never latched onto the content creation part of videos. Maybe one day, but I still prefer written word paired with images.
Anyhow, no one really knows what is going on with Twitter at this point. I don’t think even Elon Musk really knows what the hell he’s doing with the platform. But all of this uncertainly has in fact piqued my interest in returning to blogging as I get to control what happens to my content.
I’ve said this several times over the years – I still have a desire to be active on this blog. Afterall, I am still paying annually for the domain name. The issue I’ve had over the years is that Twitter has been so easy to use and simple to reach thousands of people all in one place without having to wait for someone to find these writings, which have been so infrequent in recent years.
But I am in a different place as a hobbyists today than I have been over much of the last seven years or so. I’ve actually been less active on Twitter this year than in the past, and my desires in the hobby are also evolving, or devolving in some people’s mind.
When I sat down in July 2008 to start this blog, I really started it to document MY experience with the hobby, and share them with whomever found the words and felt like interacting. Over the years I also included product reviews, breaks, maildays, opinions and really whatever I felt like sharing. I do regret not maintaining this site as I abandoned it for ease of access and reach.
But here we are.
The itch to get back to basics is there, maybe I’ll actually scratch it this time, all thanks again to change that Twitter is or may be creating for us.
Anyhow, thanks for reading. Perhaps I’ll even write again soon.
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