What I miss about collecting.....

[newfiecomicguy1]

1. I miss sticking cards to my bulletin board with thumbtacks
2. I miss handling my cards...actually touching them. I miss stacking them all in team lots with an elastic band around them.
3. I miss paying .25-.75cents a pack and loving every single card.
4. I miss sitting on the grass bank next to the corner store opening packs with my buddies and trading players for who we like not by book value.
5. I miss actually getting excited about seeing a leaf player
6. I miss reading the back of the cards for those little comments EX: on Howes 79 opc card " Gordie is a grand father"...or Hull works on a farm in the summers.
7. I miss playing knock downs a winning piles of cards.
8. I miss buying my OPC sticker book and working like a dog to trade stickers to try and finish it.
9. I miss getting the gum that you chew for 28 seconds before it turns hard as a rock.
10. I miss collecting for fun instead of investment.

Even though I like GU and auto's I hate what it has done for the hobby. I see people opening packs and zipping through them without even looking at the base cards looking only for the GU or auto. Then leaving the packs on the counter because there is nothing in them. Packs now cost way to much for younger collectors, and even for some of the older ones. I understand that its my choice what I collect but how many people on here trade common cards???NONE or maybe a small few.
I do know that I love the hobby and how it makes me think of my youth. There are so many great collectors out there, I have made so many great friends. I really belive that out of all collectibles(comics, stamps, money and all cards) that the hockey collectors are the best. They are funny, very kind and most times very generous.

 

[Nick2317]

yea I can hear ya ...I miss when I was 8 walking down to our local store and buying a bottle of pop and hockey cards with my friend just hoping to get a Penguins player card ....

 

[He-Man]

I miss the smell of the cards that had the gum inside. They smelled like gum for days. Those were the good ole days. Great post sure brings me back to when I was a kid collecting just common players on the team I liked and if you pulled an insert that was the best thing that could happen. To be honest to this day I still take my time opening backs and looking at each card and when I am done I will go back through and look at them again.

 

[newfiecomicguy1]

OHHH the smell I forgot that thanks...yep that bebatiful smell of the gum, card board and the wax ack.

I miss the smell of the cards that had the gum inside. They smelled like gum for days. Those were the good ole days. Great post sure brings me back to when I was a kid collecting just common players on the team I liked and if you pulled an insert that was the best thing that could happen. To be honest to this day I still take my time opening backs and looking at each card and when I am done I will go back through and look at them again.

 

[Nick2317]

I just remember in 1991 the first box of upper deck I got had the real foil packs and I remember opening them and getting the Penguins team checklist and going through the cards and actually marking off the players I had

 

[He-Man]

You can still smell it. Nothing better than the five minute gum but the smell last forever. Wax packs were so easy to open as well. Just peel the flaps in the back.

 

[jaywings19]

Very well put.

I also enjoyed doing the Panini stickers (baseball) when I was younger. I never could get them in my area. So my parents used to take me to Lancaster PA on a few mini vacations and they always had the album and packs in the grocery stores. I used to save up my money for weeks before the trip to buy the new album and a box or three of the sticker packs. Panini (or Topps) even used to allow you to send in 5 pack wrappers to fill your sticker set wantlist! Can you imagine any manufacturer doing that now?

Waiting for the final period school bell to ring was the best. Immediately after school, I'd make the trip past 3 stores that sold wax/cello/rack packs and use my lunch money to buy some. Ahh the good old days of $0.25-0.50 packs. It didn't matter who the players were. . . or the print run. . . or the wax stains. . . or centering. Sometimes ignorance is bliss!

 

[He-Man]

yea I can hear ya ...I miss when I was 8 walking down to our local store and buying a bottle of pop and hockey cards with my friend just hoping to get a Penguins player card ....

Back when pop was in a long neck bottle and you could take it back and get .10. I used to save the bottles and go to the store and cash them in to buy more packs of baseball cards.

 

[newfiecomicguy1]

popshop cola or that what they were called here.

 

[Nick2317]

they had 16 ounce bottles here looked like a grenade ...and tasted better than normal

 

[newfiecomicguy1]

Yeah i think those are the ones...you need a opener to get them open and they were stored in red crates.

 

[TanguayFan]

Mmmmmm... the Pop Shoppe........mmmmmmm

 

[Fritz]

popshop cola or that what they were called here.

I remember popshop

I think theres still a couple old bottles in my dads garage.

I miss being able to find enough change in the ash tray of my parents car to buy a couple packs of cards. When we'd go to the store instead of getting a pop or a bag of chips as a treat my sister and I always got a pack of cards. Those were the days!

 

[Plumbob13]

I also miss writing in the stats for the next year on the previous year's cards (I did this for baseball when I was growing up). I can't even begin to tell you how many pop bottles my sister and I cleaned up and turned in. I still have about 200 of the topps baseball stickers from the late 80s in one my various boxes at home (I had pretty much covered my closet door with them when I was much younger). Finally, I miss most of all how many cards I got for my $1 a week allowance-remember when the companies would put more than 6 cards in a pack?
Thanks for the question and the memories it has brought up.

 

[The Big M]

Oh boy... did a flood of memories come back with this thread...
Back in the early 60's when I first started getting allowance, and bought hockey cards, we'd play closies or leaners every day before school, during recess, at lunch, after school, really anytime we had a free minute or two.

I shudder to think how many Orr rookie cards we flung against the school's brick wall just to win as many cards as we could. The heroes' cards meant something; rookies meant nothing to us. They were "no-names".

Can you imagine if Orr was a rookie now? There'd be polls on HI on how much we'd bet the card would sell for on e-bay. There's likely not a Crosby card out there that has a fingerprint on it, let alone a dinged corner or gravel scratches its face.

Unfortunately, Sidney is missing out... he'll never know how wonderful it must have felt to have bicycle spokes banging your face for miles on end. That made a true hockey card.

Thanks for the wonderful trip into the past.

Michael.

 

[newfiecomicguy1]

How true Michael. Rookies were guys who appeared on cards that were throw ins in trades or the first ones you would throw in knock downs. Orr rookies was before my time but I tell ya I threw a good many Gretzky, Bourques, Messier, Coffeys at the wall. One of my best friends collected Oilers stuff and we would trade card for card(I made out like a bandit trading those stupid 1979-82 oilers cards for Leafs cards. My buddy(Corey) and I get together and admire all his Gretzky rookies and we laugh) while I wonder how many of them once belonged to me.

 

[TigerWing]

I still collect for fun. If I want to invest in something, it isn't going to be something as unstable as sportscards.

IMO, anyone collecting as an investment is in for a serious disappointment when they sell their collection for exactly what they paid for it, if not less. That's why I collect my favorite players, not necessarily the best players.

 

[odjickfan]

I also miss those little facts about having 3 brothers or "owns a dry-cleaning shop" or something like that.

Yeah, it was cool.

It's also nice to see some non-hockey pictures on cards, like a few players on the UD Choice 98-99 set