How to Choose?

Sande Haziran 24, 2022

I've been back in the game of cardboard accumulation for about 7 months now, and one of the things that has really held my interest is the variety and depth of just how specific a collection can get.

It took me some time to decide on what kinds of things I would collect, and then building those sets started to get a bit easier.

Where to begin?

I have to thank the blogging community for being so vibrant and having so many unique voices. I can't remember how I found it, but it was this post from GCRL that convinced me to take a closer look at what I wanted to collect. I had been poking around online (mostly just checking listings on eBay) for several weeks before finding out that there were several places in the Twin Cities where I could find cards and buy them in person. Aimlessly looking online was not really cutting it.

The 1957 Topps Elmer Valo from the GCRL post was a key to unlocking several things in my collecting: I realized that the story of the player, and the composition of the card's photo was often more important to me than how valuable the card might be.

The first show I went to in the Twin Cities I got the opportunity to look up close at and hold a 1963 Pete Rose rookie. I didn't have the money to purchase the card (even though the card had some serious paper loss on the back and was highly discounted). I found after spending some time looking at the various table's offerings, that the Pete Rose Rookie was not really for me - it's iconic, yes, and has a an interesting history (the scandal of the fakes in the 1980s), but the card itself didn't really do it for me.

I did end up getting the 57 Valo, and now I am building a small PC of Elmer Valo cards.

I also got a chance to look at Rose's 2nd year card, which was more in my price range (on the higher end), and really liked the trophy associated with it. So, I ended up starting a collection of all the Topps All-Star Rookie cards, which has been a ton of fun to chase.