Some of you may remember me from....

**Billy Kingsley** · 03-23-2016, 06:32 PM

Way back in the day on Trader Retreat...I was a very active member there in the early 2000s including winning at least two Member of the Month awards that I recall.

For those of you who don't know me...I will try to keep it short, but, as you'll see over the coming years, short for me is usually fairly long :)

I began collecting cards in 1988, when I was 4 years old. From 1988-92 I collected non-sports only, then discovered NASCAR. From Christmas 1992-April 1996 NASCAR was my focus...then I discovered the NBA when my mom gave me a pack of 1995-96 Fleer series 2 for Valentine's day. That changed everything! In very short order the NBA became my main focus and now, 20 years and more than 80,000 cards later, it still is, or, I should say, is again.

I've never stopped collecting cards but I did step away from the NBA in 2006. I was not happy with what was being produced card-wise or the quality of the game itself. Looking back, I realize it was more "me" that had the problem, not the cards, but as they say, hindsight is 20/20. I stepped away from the non-sports world about when I discovered the NBA and stayed mostly away from it until 2009, when I was working on scanning my entire collection, and scanning the non-sports cards got me back into them big time. (I'm still working on scanning my collection, pretty much every day). I always collected NASCAR but that was on the backburner to the NBA. For me basically if it was not NBA I was not really interested, at least card wise, until 2003, when I finally wised up- pulling my favorite driver's autograph in a single pack purchase at Target was the kicker I finally needed- when NASCAR superseded NBA as my main card goal.

Then in 2012 I got back into the NBA. The games were fun again, and I couldn't resist the 44-cards for $2 packs of 2012-13 Hoops available locally, and pretty soon- by the end of the 2012-13 pre-season- the NBA was my main focus again. I think I appreciate it now more than I ever did before!

I joined my first card forum in 2000, when we got our first home computer. (It was Beckett's old forum, I stopped posting there in 2002- I think). From there I found Trader Retreat and that was my most success in trading. It's not an exaggeration to say that I've mailed out more than 10,000 cards in my time on forums. I trailed off TR when I stopped collecting the NBA and was not on any card forums between 2006-2009. I then joined the NUTS forum which is solely NASCAR, and followed that in 2010 with the Non-Sports Card Forum. In 2012 I started posting on the Trading Card Database and that is now my #1 stop on the Internet each day- before my facebook or any of the sports news sites I read on a regular basis, even. I'm proud to say that I am the #1 basketball contributor to the Database, and possibly Racing as well. (Contributing scans, checklists, packaging images, etc). I had been missing TR, and after it came up on the Database a couple of weeks later I put up a post on the Non-Sports Card Forum wondering whatever happened to it, which is where the owner of this site and the NSCF mentioned that this website had essentially taken over where TR had left off. That led me to joining up and that led me to this post!

I run my own blog about trading cards, called Cardboard History. As soon as I can figure out how I'll be getting it Affiliated with Sports Card Forum. It mostly covers the NBA, NASCAR and Non-Sports but there are occasional posts about the other sports as well. Since I joined the Database I've expanded my collection horizons somewhat. I run a couple of regular series, with my most popular being "Sets in my Collection", looking at each set I've been able to add to my collection in the chronological order the sets were released. Right now I'm up to the mid-1930s. I try to post at least one post a week in the series but don't always succeed.

I collect a bit differently from most people, in that I would much rather have a base card than a "hit" although I certainly do like getting them as well. My main goal is to get at least one card from every set ever issued for the NBA and NASCAR into my collection- I am exactly 50 NBA sets and 3 NASCAR sets- (Non-sports is too structurally different to do this with) away from each set being in my collection. I am also working towards a goal of every PERSON who has received an NBA or NASCAR card to be represented in my collection. I am 35 NASCAR away but more than 450 NBA away.

I also will not trade a card I do not have duplicates of under any circumstances, nor will I sell any cards, ever. I'm quite proud of the fact that in my 28 years in the hobby, I've never sold a single card, and I have no plans to change that any time soon. I also have all but one of the cards I've ever had, there is one I traded away when I was in 5th grade and it's been haunting me ever since.

Outside of cards: I'm a big history nut, specializing in Ancient Rome. I also read a lot about World War II. I will read any history book but those are my two favorite subjects. I'm a collector/hoarder of all kinds of things. While cards are my clear favorites, I also collect (to varying degrees) 1/64 diecast cars, coins, currency, stamps, comic books, plastic models, different colored ink pens, and I used to collect action figures although I'm pretty much retired from them now. I do go months or even years without adding to the collections, but I still consider myself a member of that hobby.

As I mentioned above, I also build models. My work has appeared in Scale Auto and Model Cars Magazine. I'm not a particularly good builder, but sometimes I get lucky and something will turn out great. The highlight of my modeling career was when one of my builds was chosen by the model company for use in their official advertisement in Model Cars Magazine.

I'm also a photography nut. I photo-document pretty much everything. I take at least one photo a day, every day. My website, which I have run since 2004, is approaching 300,000 items, the majority of which are my photos- but it also includes my scans including my card collection.

I came literally 5 minutes short of dying in 2013, and the medicine that keeps me alive costs at least $500 per month, which has forced me to pretty much quit all the hobbies I mentioned above other than cards, and has cut down on them too. My health is not that great, (I don't really like to talk about it) but it does give me ample time to read and work on scanning my collections. (It also prevents me from driving, so if I make any trades, I can usually only mail on Saturdays)

I think that pretty much covers it...I'm really actually a pretty boring person but I try to make my post-writing entertaining enough that people read them...and if you've made it this far, thanks for reading!