Scaling Back

As the calendar rolled over from 2015 to 2016, I had a little freak-out over the state of my collection.  I decided to take a step back and though I continued posting regularly here on the blog, I didn't purchase a single card for over three weeks.  Not a pack, not a loose single, nothing on eBay, no trips to the hobby shop, just completely stopped.  Doesn't sound like much, but when was the last time you went three weeks without a card purchase?  I'll bet it was even longer ago than you realize!

During those weeks I spent a lot of time thinking about what I want from the hobby, and from my blog.  I pretty much ran the spectrum of possibilities, from "change nothing and keep charging on" to "maybe it's time to wrap it up after nine years, and eight plus years of blogging" and just about every shade of grey in between.

In the end, at least for now, the break was a nice refresher and stepping back actually helped me to realize that I do still enjoy the hobby.  I think what was bothering me the most was that the stacks and stacks of cards I had lying around waiting to be scanned, sorted and posted were starting to feel more like a chore than a hobby.  Once you cross that line, it makes sense to find yourself asking "what am I doing here?".

My plan for this year is to scale back on the sheer amount of incoming cardboard.  Let's face it, the best part about collecting anything at all is often the thrill of the hunt; the acquisition of a prized new piece for the collection.  I don't want to deprive myself of that, I just want to be smarter about it than I was last year.  So, I've begun to dip my toes back into the water, and this weekend my first purchase in quite some time arrived in the mail:

This beautiful '54 Topps Warren Spahn set me back $19.99, the exact cost down to the penny of a blaster from a retail store.  While it may not offer the same excitement as ripping into a few packs, it gives me more pleasure in the long run for a couple of reasons.

First and foremost, it's doubtful I'd have pulled any single card I'd enjoy this much from a blaster.  Secondly, and most importantly, I don't have 40-60 cards laying around after the dust settles that I don't really want or need.  For me, deciding what to do with all that excess was in large part what was making me begin to dislike the hobby I think.

So for now, this is my approach.  There are some drawbacks to it of course.  I will miss the excitement of pack ripping for sure.  I also fear that my trading activity will be reduced significantly since I won't have nearly so much unwanted cardboard lying around.  At the end of the day though, this is a change I need to make to keep the hobby enjoyable for me.  Maybe I'll feel differently in the future, but for the time being I'm set on this approach.

So there you have it, a very long-winded way of showing off my latest vintage pick-up!  I doubt you'll notice much of a difference with the blog going forward, but if you're someone I shipped dozens of trade packages or PWEs off to last year then I apologize in advance for most likely coming nowhere near that number in 2016.  Then again, the second part of this whole thing is to purge out much of the cardboard I have now that I don't appreciate as much, so maybe there won't be that big a drop-off after all...