Thinking of Packing Up the Shoebox...

The fact that I haven't posted here in a week and a half is pretty telling. I'm in a bit of a rut when it comes to collecting. After 3+ years back in the hobby, quite frankly I am getting bored with modern cards. There are too many sets, too many variations and gimmicks and parallels. 95% of what I buy ends up boxed in the closet, never to be looked at again, at least not for a very long time. Rather than being a hobby that I enjoy, it has felt more like a burden or a chore to keep up with recently. Even sets I wanted to collect at one point feel like they are just boxes wasting space in my card closet. The time and energy involved in my job, home ownership, family and an upcoming wedding have made it difficult for me to find more than a few minutes to read other blogs or even so much as look at a card. I am constantly behind in mailing out packages despite the very limited amount of trading that I do.

On top of all of this, my hobby is starting to clash with my personality. In almost every aspect of my life I'm a well-organized minimalist. I like to keep things basic. When I open the door to my card closet though, I feel like I need to make an appearance on TLC's "Hoarders: Buried Alive" (has anyone else even seen this show). Lately the cards have even been creeping out of my card closet, into my office and other areas of the house. What is the point of this ridiculous rant you ask? Well, I'm thinking about packing it up. Lately I've entertained the idea of ending (or at least drastically changing) the Shoebox Legends blog. I am tempted to part with 90% of my collection, either through eBay or fellow bloggers/traders. I'm not 100% sure yet, but at this point I am leaning towards keeping my vintage (pre-1980) baseball, a handful of hockey sets that have meaning to me, my Krejci collection and all of my graded cards and dumping the rest. Going forward I would collect just Krejci and graded vintage baseball and hockey hall-of-famers. I guess my point is that 10% of my collection probably brings me 99% of my enjoyment. The other 90% is wasting space, energy and giving me a generally uneasy feeling.

I will probably take another day or two to think about things. I may continue the blog, but use it to feature items I'm looking to dump before I put them on eBay, in case anyone is interested. I may cancel the blog altogether. After all, when I started out a couple of years back there weren't a ton of card blogs out there, and I was motivated and interested. Since I started Shoebox Legends there have been literally hundreds if not thousands of card blogs started, most of which all have something more interesting or entertaining to say than I do.

Have you ever felt a drastic drop in motivation or a desire for a mass purge like this? If so I'd be interested in hearing how you dealt with it if at all...