Into the Abyss : A Collector Sifts Through the Darkness

 

You remember being young, right?

            A young collector?

            If you weren’t a young collector, don’t worry, this blog post will probably relate to you too.

            But do you remember? Being young? Being a young collector. Finding packs of cards nearly everywhere you went. Racing into your local LCS. The card shows that seemed to happen almost weekly. Ripping endless packs of wax. Even if you didn’t have much in the way of money, you could still build a collection because the cards were so damned cheap back then.

            Try and remember.

As I’m getting older, I feel like I remember more about being young. Like time is more elastic now than it’s ever been. It could be the fact that I’m starting to look back more than I am looking ahead. Which isn’t necessarily healthy, mind you. Or it could be the fact that I’ve spent the last three years of my life reengaging with a hobby that was very, very important to me from the ages of 6-18.

            6-18 seems a long time.

            But it isn’t.

            36-48 is the same span of time.

            36 feels like it happened yesterday.

            Ugh…enough staring into the abyss!

            There’s a point here and the point is…I’m confused. Or the kid collector in me has finally confounded the more responsible adult collector. The kid has taken control of the collecting, and has run amuck. The kid is ripping wax left and right, old wax, new wax, while the adult collector is standing in the doorway saying, um, um, um…something has to be done about all of this!

            It’s like there’s a great divide that takes place between the past and present.

            Something split that exists inside of me.

            First, I present the card area.

            Then I present my case.

            Yes, on the surface, this just looks like a part of somebody’s collection. Some sets he’s put together. Some sets he’s working on. Some sets he's bought. But look deeper. 1991 Fleer? 1988 Donruss? 1988 Fleer? 1989 Score? WTFF?

            I promise I’m not here to slag off Junk Wax.

            I frickin’ love Junk Wax.

           (is 1986 Junk Wax.? The eternal question)

            (and notice I didn't say book about 1989 Donruss)

             But…

            You see, when I was a kid, I collected three ways. One, I had the star cards and the cards of the players I liked. Two, I had my Pittsburgh Pirates cards. Three, everything else that went into some random boxes, placed in the closet in my room, not to be seen again until next baseball season when I began the process of sorting that year’s product.

            I was not a set builder as a kid.

            I only ever put together 1988 Topps.

            As an adult, at times, I feel like a reluctant set builder.

            That’s because adult collector in me feels that I have to be more responsible. Sure, I found a wax box of 1991 Fleer for ten bucks. Sure, I found a rack box of 1989 Score for twenty bucks. Good deals for some cheap thrills, right? And boy were they fun to sit there and rip through! But the adult collector in me says that something has to be done about this fun. The adult collector is the conscience to the kid collector’s ego and ID. Can’t just rip this stuff, grab the cards I want, grab my Pirates, and then shove all of the rest into a random box.

            I can’t.

            Can I?

            So, I build sets.

            Or I put these cards into set order, in boxes, and then don’t think about them again.

            I’m 20 cards away from finishing 1988 Score

            I’m 54 cards away from finishing 1988 Fleer.

            I’m 63 cards away from finishing 1989 Score.

            …And I don’t know if I even want to.

            That’s not to say as an adult collector that I’m not a set builder. Or I’ve grown into one, happily, if it’s the right product. I’ve built Topps set from 1984-1992 since I’ve been back in The Hobby. 

I’m one card (Damn you John Elway rookie) away from finishing the 1984 Topps football set. 

            I’ve built the 1987 Donruss set, and I can wait to finish the 1987 Fleer baseball set. I’m still a bit away from finishing 1980 and 1981 Topps baseball, but somewhere down the road I know I’ll be putting the finishing touches on them as well.

            I even bought a 1982 and 1983 Topps baseball set.

            But these other sets?

            I guess 1991 Fleer is...nice?

            I don’t feel a pleasure in putting them together. I feel a responsibility. I’m like the guy at the end of a party who feels like he has to clean up the room, when I think about completing some of those sets. The person with intense guilt over a one-night stand. Ripping wax can’t just be about the fun. It has to be functional now as well. Christ…I wish the kid collector would take over with these sets at times. Take those white boxes. Pull the star cards. Pull the Pirates. Be done with the rest of them.

            The kid collector in me wouldn’t worry about building 1989 Score.

            But alas.

            Do any of you feel this way?

            I’ve gotten better. I don’t buy nearly as much, old or new, wax like I did three years ago. I’m starting to visualize the collection I really want (which we’ll discuss in some detail next Friday), and it’s been nice to start off in that direction. But those boxes of uncompleted sets. They’re just sitting there, taunting adult collector me. They’re with me when I’m sorting cards. They’re staring over my shoulder when I’m making a purchase on SportLots. They’ll be with me when I go to a few familiar spots in my upcoming Buffalo/Pittsburgh trip, where I’ll visit some LCS and be sure to run into their brethren.

            They’ll be waiting on me when I get back.

            Truth is, I don’t know what I’m going to do with them. It seems silly not to buy the 60+ common cards I need to complete the 1989 Score set. It seems silly to complete the 1989 Score set. Of course, the true humor in this is that it’ll ultimately cost me more to hand-collate these sets then it would’ve been to just have bought them outright.

            But that wouldn’t have been fun, right?

            The kid collector in me is still in it for the fun!

            The kid collector just wants to buy a $10 wax box of Junk Wax and rip away to his heart’s contentment, without the worries over set building and being responsible for what’ll happen to the rest of the cards.

            But the adult collector has to worry about shelf space.

            The adult collector looks at $10 differently than the kid collector.

            The adult collector is ultimately the one who’s making the decisions here.

            It…it would just be nice, sometimes at least, for someone to come along and pull the adult collector out of the room.

            Let the kid have some fun!

Thanks for reading! Happy Collecting!

 

NEXT FRIDAY: Coming out of the abyss: A collector begins to see the light.