Matt Gilman – Giantsphan
There are a lot of rules I keep for myself when it comes to the hobby. It’s how I keep my hobby flowing, growing and organized. Without these rules in place, it could mess with the makeup of how my collecting goes. Here are few of my rules for consideration:
1. Don’t overpay for a card. I know you really want that card right now, but just be patient. The product just released, the price will go down, just wait.
2. Reuse and recycle. Any toploaders, penny sleeves or card pages that come in, use them again unless they are absolutely unusable. Why spend money on things that you can just use again. Such a waste if you are throwing them out.
3. If a card has a dent, crease, bad corners, keep it until it can be replaced. Make a list of those cards so you know which ones need to be replaced. Once replaced, it goes into the dupes box or used for other purposes.
4. Don’t keep any dupes unless they are numbered. So toss them into a box to be used for trading or for giving away.
5. Don’t overtrade for a card. Just like with number one on this list with overpaying, don’t just give up too much because a card you want fits your PC more than the ones you are giving up. It took me awhile to learn this lesson. Now I am very stingy, if I feel that a trader is asking for too much in return, I back out. Because unless that card is a 1/1, you will find another one somewhere else for a better/fairer deal. Even if it is a 1/1, just give that person time. They will go down once they realize they can’t move it anywhere else.
6. To go along with that trading rule, I always make sure to add freebies in with my trades. It cleans out extra cards, hence that box of dupes, while also makes the other person happy to receive free bonuses of their team or player.
And this is just a few of the concrete rules I have. Along with those ones, there are some oddball ones that sometimes have other collectors scratching their heads. One of those has to do with 90’s Finest:
As I refuse to peel off the protective coating. Topps had started putting these coatings on their Topps Finest products in 1995 and it carried on until 2000 across multiple sports. The coating was designed to keep the card from scratching and to maintain its original condition. Which is why I keep mine on, besides the fact I think it looks cool and I like to keep the cards how they come even though they say peel and remove coating.
I know a few of my rules may sound a little quirky, especially the one on Finest, but it’s the way I collect. We all collect a different way and I am sure you have your quirky rules to go along with some similar to mine, but everyone collecting different is what makes the hobby so great.
Bio: Matt has been a long time hobbyist and old school collector since 1993. He has written many blogs including Sport Card Collectors, Big Blue Cardboard and Cards Over Coffee and is very passionate about the hobby.