My Greatest Hobby Accomplishment- Contest Entry

[bwsdaddy08]

My name is Larry and my collection didn't start out as most normal collectors, in that I didn't just go and buy a box of cards and go from there. As a child I would help my father clean out houses that were foreclosed on and the award was keeping what we found. One day we were in a house in Texas cleaning it out when I noticed that there was a desk built into the wall in a back bedroom. Of course being a kid my curiosity was peeked and I started opening some of the many drawers that it had. To my amazement i had just stumbled into a mini store of trading cards from comic cards to hockey cards. My dad was amazed there were thousands of cards in those drawers and he started telling me that hey these are collectibles and this is something you should really try and preserve. So we loaded them up and he bought me binders, inserts and boxes and we started going threw them seeing what we had found. Now I am a big football fan and love the Green Bay Packers and to my amazement I found my all time favorite player's rookie card in mint condition. So I tried my best to get this monster of a collection tamed. I tried to sort them, and I tried to break them down by years. I would jump all over the wall trying to figure out what to do with this insurmountable task of taming this huge collection and then I soon fell of the horse and let them be for awhile. I needed a mental break because not helping the situation was my Dad trying to build the collection more by buying complete sets or packs. It would drive me crazy. Then 3 years ago I was blessed with a little cheese head of my own and the importance of having something waiting for him when he got old enough ignited this passion of setting this goal of getting that mess organized . So I started of by baby stepping it. First I setup the binders that was my first goal. Each team (finally realizing this was the best option) had their own binder and would be marked. Then I knew the hard part was coming, sorting through those boxes. The next goal was to get those that are sorted into their respective binders. Easy enough in writing, yet grueling in doing. Thank God for Coffee. I am proud to say that while still working on the collection my cards are broken down by teams and their are binders for each team some with two. My other accomplishment is working a program to database these cards so i can keep an accurate account of what all I have because it has been over a decade since finding these cards and yet I still get a surprise every now and again when opening a box and finding a favorite player or a card that might be worth twenty dollars. I cannot wait for my son to get older and hope he can see the work and the enjoyment his father had in wanting to share this with him. Each night i sit at my table going through one of the many boxes that I have tirelessly sorting to the point that I don't have to look at the team I know by color. I try to spend an hour to two hours a night going through these cards looking for anything that is that unique card or something that just amazes me that I have all the while using the passion that knowing my son will enjoy these and maybe pass them to his son. These cards may not be all that valuable to some but they give me joy knowing that i own a piece of a great player or reliving memories of games that my father and I would watch and root our team on. http://www.flickr.com/photos/36473172@N05/5331675596/ this is my collection right now with my binders labeled as to what team they are. As you can see there are still some inserts on the bottom shelf that are not in binders as these are cards not sorted by team and that is the next project on the list. Imagine that this started with drawers over a decade ago. So as I am writing this story I am sitting at my table looking through cards and sorting them I happen to have found a few cards that while are only maybe 10 bucks if that they are my treasures all because I have a goal and I am accomplishing
it.http://www.flickr.com/photos/36473172@N05/5331084937/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/36473172@N05/5331084927/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/36473172@N05/5331084929/

My accomplishment is doing something for not myself but for my son and hoping that hey even he don't like the cards maybe by the time he gets them they will be able to bring him a little finanacial gain. I know I dont have any Bronko Nagurski rookie card in these boxes but he has enough to save for a rainy day.

[Pheebs888]

Hi Larry,

I'm afraid this is too short to be an article. The minimum number of words required for the contest is 800 and for submission as an article, a minimum of 500 words is required. Your piece currently stands at 389, if you want to enter the contest, please add some flesh to this :)

Thanks
Karine

[SteakNchop]

Just letting you know, like Pheebs, that while this article is too short I am sure you can pretty easily extend it way past the 500 word mark if you do a little work to it. Good luck.