Hello from Choo Choo !!

[CompleteGibberish]

Ok,second revisions here :)
I do not want to come off too "off the wall" but I am a long-winded southerner. I have firm views in life, one being people like you for who you are and people buy from you for what you have and a mixture of both makes for a great relationship.
This is long so if you want,skip to the bottom and reply with a welcome and save yourself the eye strain :)

I started collecting in 1990 and after the entire Sub-set revolution had flooded the market and people were throwing away thousands of cards from pack pulls, searching only for the insert, I threw my hands up in disgust and quit in 1994. Fleer had,at the time, single handedly destroyed Baseball collecting for me.I dumped all of my cards onto a dealer as a bulk common price just to have them gone.In hindsight I should have kept several key cards such as Kilabrew rookie,Ted Williams rookie and all of the mantels I had acquired,but that is how life is. We all wish we had that hindsight :) I had purchased many collections and even 2 ball cards shop inventory as they were going out of business,so I had a substantial amount of cards.I enjoyed collecting and doing shows. I loved meeting kids and being a true enthusist more than a retailer and giving them $100 worth of Frank Thomas or Griffey for a $10 card,seeing their smile get so big it seemed like their face was going to split, made me smile,happy and feel good. My boys had no interest in cards at the time,so it was a small thing to someone else,but a big thing to me.

A month ago an aunt passed and my father was executor of the will. My cousins went from normal people to trashy,greedy people. Fighting over nonsense items and money,property. Sad in the passing of their mother,blind in their obsession at free money. It is shameful how fast many people degrade at the mere mentioning of "free stuff".

2 weeks ago my father called me and told me he was worried after having to endure what he did with my cousins,what may happen in his time of passing. A will only carries so much weight. See, I am the oldest of 4. My loss in the passing would be my father,nothing material would matter. He was worried a similar issue may happen when he passed.I told him to let the others deal with his material needs. Give me his favorite pocket knife and pictures of our Christmas times and I would have no other want.He was not content with this and asked me to come over as he wanted to part with some items that day. I assumed it was the brush with mortality more so than the fear of greed, but as a good son, I indulged my fathers wishes.

Me and my father never shared much as father/son. He had no interest in baseball and was not a fan of wrestling,which was where my interests were. My mother's side were wrestlers and I aspired to be great as well. With a cousin who metaled in the Olympics and another who metaled in multiple pan-am games,I was more enamored with that than any other sport.

Anyway,I digress ( long winded,see?) so, even with a grandfather whom had a baseball card/coin shop and a grandmother with a book shop and a massive comic book selection,we never shared any sports or collectibles interests. So when I got into baseball cards as an adult, my father took an interest and we began being trade buddies more than father/son :)

My father, let's get it out in the open,suffered from that most undesirable of collectible diseases......pack fever.

I tell you,he would drop $500 on the table and begin opening box after box. Now, he was sub-set chasing as well, but unlike most, he would stop at a Terry pendalton card and smile or a Dave winfield and mutter " Too bad we aren't playing home run". He enjoyed the cards for the player,the sub-sets were just incentive to buy more.

Ok,let me get this train back on track.

I go over to my dad's house ( yes you all know where this is going) and he tells me he wants me to have his ballcards.I think too myself, this is going to be scary as my dad collected....everything. I just gave my youngest son 4 boxes of valliant Wax and a 5000 count box of non-sport,comic book related cards :)

So,I say ok after much posturing. I felt this was unnecessary but he felt it was. So I make 2 trips, load it all,take it home and stare at it. Now my dad didn't have a massive collection, but there was easily 1.25-1.5 million cards. A fair amount to go through. granted he got addicted to the 92 leaf gold set, so it is fair to say close to 200k of those cards were 92 leaf haha.

Anyway,I started going through them and you all know that feeling. Your a child again, excited, looking at each card,face lighting up when you see one that brings back memories. Too bad my wife didn't have the whole "lit face" action going on.....I am sure MOST of you know how she felt at seeing rows of boxes,stacked in the dining room :) She was more tolerant than I expected, but I had some work cut out for me before she would resolve herself with our new massive acquisition of large boxes,filled with more cardboard :)

So, by......oh...box 12 or so, I was feeling that excitement again. I thought maybe things are different. Maybe, just maybe it would be fun again. I see that the entire game seems to be revolved around subsets now. Makes sense though. More rare than a base card and some more personal than a basecard could ever be. I know I have purchased 2 Delgado Autographs and 3 patch cards jsut this week and I do not have a Beckett and did not care about the "book value" ( A dirty collection of words if there ever was one) I saw a player I had picked as one of the ones "Going all the way" back in 92 and was glad too see he was succeeding.

So,here I am. Back into it, going slow, going 1 toe into the pool.

I discovered this site while searching for a Leaf Delgado patch card and figured I would give this form of market a chance. Try it out and see how it works for me :)

Thank you to those who read.

To those who didn't, who can blame ya ?

[CompleteGibberish]

See, I knew it. I wrote a long one and everyone is just staring in amazement :P

[htwheelz01]

Welcome to SCF!

[CompleteGibberish]

Well thank you :)
Hopefully I can wash some of these cards I have no interest in for items I do :)

[JesRey]

Welcome to SCF and i hope you have fun

[CompleteGibberish]

TY and I am trying.
Seems my offers aren't of much interest so far :(

[gordon24]

Welcome!

[Oxxon]

Hello and welcome to SCF!! Umm....1.25-1.5 million cards I would consider massive.

[CompleteGibberish]

Well, maybe in context to what you have.
I had several million when I was into it. Lot of Ball card shops were going under so I was able to pick up large bulk really inexpensively. Granted the mass got to the ex eventually :)

[patriotsguy]

Robert,
Welcome to SCF!

Enjoy the site, should you have any questions etc. please feel free to pm any staff member

Please do me one favor and take the time to update your profile. Please make sure that your Full Name, Complete address, Phone Number (only avail. to staff), check off the boxes for your collecting interests, and choose your state/province from the drop down menu.

How to update your profile: Go to your User CP located at the top of the screen on the 2nd toolbar. Under “Your Profile” click on Edit Your Details. Fix the appropriate info and then scroll down and click save.

Check MY PROFILE and click on the About me tab to see how info should look like.

Roger