I showed an unbelievable amount of restraint.
As I stood at the register of my neighborhood dollar store, and the cashier was ringing up my items—a few snacks for my wife and daughter — I felt something calling to me from over my shoulder.
It was the dreaded impulse purchase that speaks to most consumers — you know those strategically placed items you don’t need but can’t resist picking up at the register. So what was calling my name? Was it candy bars? A car charger for my phone? Maybe half-priced DVDs? Nope.
It was baseball and football cards.
Yes, a 46-year-old grown man had to talk himself out of spending a few bucks on sports cards. How did I get here and do I need professional help? The first question is easier to answer than the latter.
Like many a young boy, collecting baseball cards was an obsession.
There was nothing like opening up a pack of cards, pulling a card of your favorite player, and then placing your cards in your oversized plastic binders.
Suppose you didn’t get one of your personal favorites. In that case, you may pull a valuable card like a 1987 Topps Future Stars Bo Jackson card (the 1987 Topps series with the wood frame designs is my personal favorite of all time), and of course, you had to have the latest issue of Beckett Baseball Card Price Guide.
Of course, growing up in the “junk wax” era of card collecting, there was the one card that every kid wanted – the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card – the holy grail of my childhood baseball cards.
The first set I ever tried to complete was the Fleer 1990 set. I still remember how the border colors (designed like flags) were bright and generally matched the player’s team colors. I adored that set.
My love for card collecting even became a small business. My parents and I opened a baseball card and comic shop in the little town of Casey, Illinois, where we were living at the time.
Less than a block off of the main street intersection, was R & S Baseball Cards and Comics. R for Raymond and S for mom Suzanne. We would make trips to St. Louis to buy stock, and we had the classic two-level glass cases in the shop that had the individual valuable cards priced and ready to sell.
Unfortunately for us, the card and comic book crash occurred in 1994 — less than a year after we opened the shop. The business venture didn’t last and my fever for collecting died as well. The cards were packed up in boxes and forgotten about, as my focus turned to saving money for a car and, of course, girls.
I did end up using my cards as office decor. I have some of my favorite childhood sports cards displayed in a hard plastic display in my office at work. The oft-mentioned Jackson rookie card is there, as well as a few of my other favorites like 1993 Fleer Pro Visions Shawn Kemp, 1992 Donruss Diamond Kings Dwight Gooden, 1990 NFL Pro Set Deion Sanders card, 1992 Topps Stadium Club Members Choice Jeff Bagwell and a 1992 Fleer Ultra Tony Gwynn Commemorative Series card with green marble border.
Over the decades, I would often pick up a pack here and there but would never start collecting again. The purchase was more of an excuse to take a dose of nostalgia than anything else.
That changed about a year ago when I was standing in line at that same little neighborhood store. There in front of me was a display for the Panini’s NFL 2023 Sticker Book. With the season already in full swing, the store was selling the book for a dollar and the packs of stickers for only 50 cents.
So I bought a book and a few packs, and I was hooked yet again. It was alive and it was hungry.
I quickly transitioned from stickers to buying packs of cards and it started with Panini’s Prestige 2023 football cards. The packs were super affordable and so every time I went to the store for something, I scooped up a pack or two or three.
After a few months of this, I decided it was time to see how many cards I had stored in my drawer. I purchased 42 five-card packs and a few 30-card packs with specialty inserts like the Living Legends card of Barry Sanders or Any Given Sunday cards of Taysom Hill and Justin Jefferson.
All in all, I had piled up 270 cards and only 63 duplicates. For some reason, I had three of the same Marco Wilson and Von Miller cards and four of Sam Ehlinger. No offense to Sam but I don’t need four of his cards.
Thankfully my wife was and is super cool about me spending couch cushion money on cards. She even offered to get me a few binders to store them, but of course, my buying cards didn’t stop with the football cards.
That’s because after I cleaned out my local store for those cards, I simply started buying Topps 2023 Baseball Series One cards, which are very clean-looking and colorful.
Once again, I got excited opening up packs and pulling a Ronald Acuna Jr. or Juan Soto card, or the Shohei Ohtani Stars of the MLB card insert or Carlos Rodon All-Aces insert.
During this time of rekindling my passion for card collecting, I have stumbled across just how intense card collecting is these days. Cards are being inserted that are actual pieces of jerseys (which is super cool), limited edition autographed cards and people are so frenzied about it all that they spend hundreds if not thousands on boxes of cards and then open them up while filming it all for YouTube. That way their immense joy or pain is documented for all to see.
Will I be dropping thousands of dollars on buying unopened boxes or cases of cards? Of course not. As I stated before, I have shown immense restraint when it comes to my newfound card collecting but it is being tested.
There are the Panini’s Prestige 2024 football cards and of course, I have already bought several packs (love the look of them) and pulled rookie cards for both Jayden Daniels and Keon Coleman. But then I finally found a pack of Topps’ Allen & Ginter in the store. I have been obsessing about these cards. Modern cards are made to look like the famed company’s tobacco cards from the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Even though I told my wife and daughter that the only thing I wanted for Christmas was a box of said cards, I couldn’t stop myself from buying a pack, and the first card in it was Spencer Strider of my Atlanta Braves! There was also a card with a yellow jacket which is a little weird and cool at the same time.
Will I be able to restrain and regulate my collecting habit? Yes. I am not ready to spend my daughter’s future college tuition to increase my chances of pulling an autographed hologram card thingy.
For one that would be highly irresponsible of me to do and two, I would permanently be sleeping on the couch. For now, my hobby will be to whether or not I throw a pack or two into the bag of my wife’s snacks at my local dollar store… at least for now.
Raymond Partsch III is the co-host of “RP3 & Meche” which is broadcast weekdays (11-1) on ESPN 103.7 Lafayette and 104.1 Lake Charles — Southwest Louisiana’s Sports Station.
