Ten Things I Really Like In This Hobby

Earlier this week I had some yuks and garnered some good comments with a post called Ten Things I Don't Like In This Hobby. As promised, here's the flip side to all that bellyaching and whinging. Turns out the hobby's actually pretty great, which is why I'm still here. Here are ten reasons why.

Blind Envelopes Arriving in the Mail

I had to ask other bloggers a year ago what a "PWE" was. No one laughed in my (digital) face, and within a month or two of the start of this blog, I was regularly trading plain white envelopes of cards with fellow bloggers and collectors. The generosity and willingness out there to "help a brother or sister out" is totally off the charts, and it's listed first here because it's absolutely my favorite thing about card collecting right now, aside from the cards themselves.

Let me give you an illustrative story. Last year I bought a small batch of the Onyx 2020 Vintage Baseball cards, and one of the cards I pulled was an autographed card of the San Diego Padres' top prospect MacKenzie Gore. I'd just agreed to do a PWE swap with Rod at Padrographs, so I sent him this one along with a few others, figuring that I was mighty generous of me, and that I'd maybe even get something better in return. Our envelopes crossed in the mail, so he didn't know what I'd sent, and he'd sent me some very serviceable San Francisco Giants cards.

A few months passed. Then in October, out of the blue I got a monster card package from Rod, totally checking all sorts of want list needs - a bunch of 1971 and 1972 Topps; some awesome Giants cards he had; and 53 (!) of the 2020 Topps Heritage Minors cards I needed, allowing me to complete the set almost overnight. I'd never seen anything like it, until two additional similar examples happened right after that. Um, totally worth that MacKenzie Gore card, I think! 

Again, this is an illustrative example to show the generosity and large-heartedness of the card ecosystem. There are several of you reading this post whom I very easily could have named instead.

Topps Heritage Baseball

I know my love for these Heritage sets probably marks me as an older fella, and listen, Topps knew exactly what they were doing with these. Fine. If the shoe fits etc. I have decided to hone my set collecting in on Heritage, and I'm just about done with my 2020/2021 project of grabbing every SF Giants card in the sets from their debut in 2001 to the set that came out last year. 

I love the throwback/tribute designs; many of the inserts are fantastic; the cards - like most cards these days - are crisp, sharp and durable - and, well, they remind me of the vintage cards I worshipped in my youth and still worship now. That's what they're supposed to do. I'm all-in. 

Both Allen & Ginter + Gypsy Queen Cards

Controversial sets for many, but not for me. I don't like the olde-tyme cigarette card thing when it's overdone - like on Topps T206 and similar sets - but these sets look really cool to me, just about every year they've come out. I only really buy my guys from them, but I think they're fun and worth accumulating. Allen & Ginter sets are particularly wacky, with cards of rocks, cities, celebrities and other miscellaneous weirdness thrown in each year. Someone's having a ball over there at Topps.

Minor League Cards

This is probably as speculative as I'm willing to get, but as I'm the sort of guy who religiously ingests Keith Law's Top 100 Prospects or Baseball America's Top 100 every year, I'm also keeping a close eye on these prospects as they rise through the minor leagues. The explosion in minor league cards means that long before anyone reaches the majors, it's easy to build up a great collection of certain prospects that just might become stars one day.

It's not really about the eventual worth of some of the cards, because that's not really how I roll - but I'd be lying if I didn't admit to some hope that the guys I'm collecting now - Joey Bart, Jo Adell, Heliot Ramos and a couple others - don't make me a bazillionaire three times over during the next decade. 

Local Card Shops

As a longtime music-buyer and record collector (and childhood comic nerd), I've been attracted to obsessive collecting-type behavior my whole life. I'm always excited to meet someone who's even more off the deep end than myself. In the card-collecting world, just as in the record collecting world, it's the dudes - and it's almost always dudes - who run the shops who are among the most interesting folks to talk to about their hobby. 

We don't even have a local card shop in San Francisco - a city of nearly a million people - but there are shops in Burlingame, Belmont and Sunnyvale not all that far from my house. All of them are operated by real menschen who'll talk your ear off about 1975 Topps Minis or the deficiencies in Allen & Ginter or about that Mother's Cookies Giants set from 1993. (All real conversations I've had at these stores in the last 18 months). 

Food-Issued Cards

Pretty simple, actually. It's more fun to get a card made by Wonder Bread or some regional Milwaukee cookie brand than all the Score, Leaf and Donruss cards ever made. I want and need more food cards in my life, and by gum, I'm determined to get them. 

Hobby Boxes That Don't Contain Any Doubles

I didn't even know that was a thing when I returned to card collecting early last year. I know that when I used to buy boxes of hockey and baseball cards in the early/mid 2010s - you know, a box with 12-15 packs in it - those packs would be stuffed with doubles, and I'd find myself with 3 Rougned Odors or doubles of Milan Michalek. No one's ever actually explained to me why that's not a thing any longer. I buy these boxes now, and even though the packs are all sealed, there's no doubles. I love that. How do they know?

Topps 2021 Flagship Series 1

Hey, these aren't even out yet, but last time I complained about Topps' flagship baseball designs over the last five years. They're totally awful, right? Check out 2021. They look fantastic! Welcome back, Topps flagship!

Beckett's Digital-Only Magazines

I'd bought some Beckett baseball magazines every now and again the past few years, but they're enormous and about two-thirds filled up with price guides. Then I discovered Beckett Vintage Collector magazine - there was a Night Owl Cards article about 1972 Topps I totally had to read in there - and realized that this is the best of the mags they put out; not filled with speculative pricing info but just articles about the hobby, filled with great photos and artwork. Then this past holiday season, Beckett was running a promotion where you could get a year's subscription to any of their magazines for $7.99 if you bought them digitally as opposed to print.

I do a bunch of reading on an iPad anyway, so it was a hell of a deal. Now I get the baseball and hockey mags plus Vintage Collector for a big $24 a year. I'll make that sorta deal every year.

Card Blogs

Yeah, I know. Of course. Yet what other corner of the internet is still run and defined by blogs in 2021? "Mommy blogs"? Are those still a thing? While everyone else is off and running on social media, the most interesting card-focused content (and photos, scans, and advice) is all sitting right there on free platforms like Blogger. It's very 2006, and yet it's the first place I go to see what's happening in the hobby. It's truly grass-roots, people-centered, honest and unpretentious content that reflects the real personalities and foibles of those of us who collect cards. There are even interesting tics of this particular community, such as the trading posts as well as those who comment on every blogger's individual posts, that make it different than any other blogging community I've seen before.

Granted, it's nice when someone other than a fellow card blogger makes it known that they read your blog, but even if it's just the 50 or so other card bloggers out there each time I post, I gotta say that is absolutely satisfying enough. 

So that's it - that's what I like in this hobby, among many other things. Thanks to everyone who's traded, encouraged me, read my blather etc. Hey - maybe it's not really about the cards, but instead it's all about the friends we made along the way?