What is your Hobby "evolution''?

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Kariyakid

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Hello All, I was thinking about this today as I mowed the lawn...



so, the question is simple: How has the hobby evolved for you? I'll explain by saying my example:

Elementary School: anything and everything.
Grade 7-Grade 12: Paul Kariya base and inserts.
First Year out of school: Anything and Everything, I started to hoard Alexander Vasyunov Rookie Contenders (RIP)
middle of the year: attempted to buy cards to flip. (never worked as I got too attached)
end of first year out of school: Started the 2009-2010 The Cup Enshrinements, Singles, Duals and Triples.
Second year out: Started collecting Sergei Bobrovsky Cup Singles (I regret selling them)
and now, where I am now: 3 Triple Enshrinements left and slowly starting to pick up cut autos. I have a Tim Horton Currently and am in negations for a Bill Barilko.


What about you? how has your collection evolved over the years?
 
when i was younger i collected gretzky inserts, UD holograms, leafs, and fedorov
when i started working and had some disposable income, it was the game used boon so i just grabbed as much as i could

i then focused on lecavalier, HOFer (including leafs autos), trilogy custom and personal scripts, fedorov autos, SPA FW auto sets, and the odd rookie

then i quit and sold off almost everything..

these days i am still working on the custom and personal scripts sets, letang autos, fedorov autos, HOFer autos, and picking up cup/ultimate rookies here and there.
 
Elementary School (grade 1-4): anything and everything, just liked opening packs, even Pro Set haha :)

Elementary School (grade 5-6) and high school: Focus on Curtis Joseph and set building, opened boxes with my Dad, kept pretty much everything we ever opened. Always liked other (non-Cujo) goalie cards as well.

1st, 2nd year university: Focus on Cujo cards and memorabilia (non-game used), anything I could get my hands on. More of my own money to put towards collecting and started picking up a greater number of higher end Cujo cards.

2007/2008 (3rd year university): Still picking up lots of Cujo cards, hoarding certain cards and picking up anything and everything Cujo but started getting into game used memorabilia, got my first game jersey 07/08 Cujo Flames Jersey.

4th and 5th year university 2008- May 2010 (yes 5 years for me, I changed schools and programs after my first year): Everything Cujo that I could get my hands on, cards, memorabilia (game used and non game used).

First year out of school May 2010 - May 2011: Same as above but more focus/more money spent on game used items. Also started collecting Jonathan Quick cards + a few pieces of his game used memorabilia.

Second Year out of school May 2011 - May 2012: Still collecting Cujo heavily. Sold a chunk of my Jonathan Quick collection leading up to and during the Cup run, his cards became too expensive and there were too many of them. Started collecting cards of players that I currently play hockey with (ex. Rene Corbet, Jeff Shantz, Ray Schultz etc.)

Third Year out of school May 2012 - Present: slowed WAY down on collecting Joseph cards and memorabilia, only focusing on cards from his active playing years and then odd card that I find interesting/unique from newer products. Too many cards were being produced (3 card companies making Joseph cards) and I was finding it hard to keep up (completionist mentality) and was losing the fun of collecting. I also found a new hobby in Fly Fishing and diverted card funds to something I found "new" fun in. Still looking for Curtis Joseph game used equipment although it rarely comes up and still collecting cards of players I currently play with.

Cheers
Connie
 
Oh man, my collecting has gone through so many phases I'll probably forget some of them.

- Got interested in the hobby in the early 2000's when jersey cards were going mainstream, however being a poor high school student I had no money and didn't know about eBay so aside from a couple of jersey cards from friends and whatnot I had no collection. I kind of went dormant for a while while I finished school and took my trade.

- Once I was into the workforce for a couple of years I signed up for eBay and realized how easy it was to get cards and how cheap jersey cards had become since the early 2000's and started picking up a bunch. My first real drive at collecting was the 2007-08 UD Game Jersey set and I picked up around 60-70 or so of them. I had a huge appreciation for jersey cards (still do today) and had a pretty good stash going.

- I started leaning towards one player in particular, Marian Gaborik, so I sold my stash of Game Jerseys in one shot and picked up my first high-end Cup card which was a Gaborik 2006-07 Signature Patch /75. I picked up a couple other high-end Gaborik cards and when 2007-08 The Cup came out I feverishly refreshed eBay waiting for new singles to appear on release day. This was the first product release I was looking forward to and I had fun watching new cards appear on eBay. This was also around the time I began chatting with Curt (GabbyGuy) and the other "Gabby Mafia" members. Thankfully Gaborik prices have come down a lot since then.

- I put together a stash of Gaborik cards but ended up selling pretty much all of them when 2008-09 Between The Pipes came out. That was when I started really getting into ITG products and I busted a couple of cases worth of BTP that year. After getting some Pelle Lindbergh singles from that product I started collecting him full time and proceeded to spend a fortune on high-priced Lindbergh cards. After a while I got away from the Lindbergh cards and ended up selling them for a significant loss, but I learned a lesson about getting caught up in high priced players.

- I finally came around and went back to one of my original collecting focuses which was Marian Gaborik. Ever since I've been using my "quality over quantity" approach to pick up the cards I really like and keep spending down by not picking up everything and everything.


I think that's it, and I'm sure it'll change again someday, but for now I'm still doing what I always have and that's have fun!
 
1989: Birth. Obviously collecting cards then would have been amazing.

1993-2000: pretty much any card in any sport I found, I kept thinking it was the coolest stuff ever.

2000-2007: Nothing, did not care for cards whatsoever, completely missed out on a lot of great stuff but did not bother me at the time. Side note that I did pick up my first Irbe cards in 2004.

2007: Irbe collection began to expand. I also began to buy wax boxes and spend more and more on cards.

2008: I began to put together the 2000-01 Black Diamond Game Gear set that has since been completed.

2009: Started to collect Levente Szuper to go side-by-side with my Irbe collection that is still ongoing.

2010: I thought that collecting David Aebischer would be a good idea since I had so much rare stuff of him. Abandoned in early 2011. Also my first foree into the game-used memorabilia market with an Arturs Irbe game-used stick.

2012: Had the idea of collecting one rookie, GU card, and AU card of everyone to ever play for the Hurricanes. Turned out to be a bit overwhelming and was put on the backburner after a few months. Also started the 2003-04 SP Game Used Game Gear set.

2013: Continuously trying to expand my game-worn memorabilia collection, my Irbe and Szuper collections, and trying to finish the 2003-04 SP Game Used Game Gear set.
 
Great topic.

Didn't really do any collecting until I was about 7 when I was buying the 89-90 OPC set with Sakic and Fleury RC (as well as many other solid players) and still have that set today.

1990-1995 just opened anything hockey, football, baseball, basketball...kept all of the junk that was way over produced back then. Mostly I just wanted the Patrick Roy cards so I had all of the different ones in pages.

1996-2001 didn't open or collect anything.

2001-2004 started to open a few packs here and there and picked up a few cards off eBay.

2004-2009 picked up a few cards here and there

2009-2011 bought a lot of cards (especially Roy GU and AU)

2011-Now - Refocused my PC to collecting just Roy GU/AU /10 or higher from BTP set.

I still have all of my base/inserts of Roy and also putting together an AU set of players from 1-99.

Scott
 
In the early years my parents bought me packs of cards and I had a large number of Gretzky rookies and a pile of the top cards from the late 70's and early 80's. As I got into highschool there was an LCS right by my school called Collector's Edge and I would go there every week or so and buy packs of 1990 upperdeck and whatever else I could get my hands on. There was also another small store on the top floor of this building, but the name of that store escapes me. I got a couple of singles from there including a few OPC Premier RCs such as Sundin, Jagr and Fedorov.

In the 1990s was when I was first introduced to card shows and I went to the monthly one at Bridlewood Mall as often as I could since it was located right across the street from where I still live. Lots of good memories there for sure and trading was the thing I usually did and buy wax packs which were a lot more affordable back then. I didn't really have a PC when I strated collecting, I just bought wax and traded whenever I could.

My PC collection started in the 200s which was when I focused on many sets such as Ice Scripts. Ultimate Debut Threads Patches, SPGU Rookie Exclusives autos and that's when I developed my Toronto PC. I also PC'd Corey Perry for a short while.

I continued to bust a lot of wax in the mid 2000s and my biggest spending splurge was from 2005-2009 or so. Currently, I PC anything I pull from the packs and boxes I buy and I don't PC any sets or players since they cost too much and I realize that I would just flip them down the road since sets are filled with a bunch of players I have no interest in.
 
1990-1992 - Collected anything and everything.
1992-1997 - Mainly collected Gretzky base and inserts, as well as base sets of some series
1997-2007 - Mainly collected Vinny Lecavalier, with other stuff mixed in. Still collected some base sets, as well as higher-end sets: 03-04 ITGU SS full set, gold rc's, and limited autos; 04-05 ITG Ultimate scrapbook silver set; 03-04 ITG Ultimate vintage lumber; etc etc
2007-08 - Stopped Vinny for most part, collected other random stuff to fill in time
200-present - Capitals RC's and RC parallels. Doing pretty well so far if I do say so myself :)
 
Early days:
In 1990 I started collecting pro set, UD and Gretzky cards (back when he only had 80-100 different). Picked away on those sets buying packs here & there until 1993 when I got into Leaf then the 2 for a buck Skybox Impact packs. I stopped collecting around then

Middle days:
2002 - I saw Topps Heritage in a store & grabbed a few packs. Then I was re-hooked :D
Opened a bunch of packs as well as Pacific Quest for the Cup. I'm a sucker for horizontal cards. I didn't buy enough packs to complete sets so I began collecting my favorite players Theo Fleury, Gary Roberts & Wendel Clark.

Recent:
Over the past couple of years I decided to stop blowing so much money on so many expensive cards so I sold off a lot of my Wendel cards, cut off my Fleury collection to the end of his Flames days and newer cards that I just like. I branched into game used sticks which is usually cheaper than a card with a piece of said stick :/

I also started picking up goons along the way having decent collections of Lyle Odelein & Dave Manson.
 
I didn't start collecting seriously until the late 80's. At the time I collected everything (it was easy to do). When the industry exploded in the early 90's I tried to collect a variety of sets and star players. That idea slowly but surely died off and I began trying to get every Habs base I could find. That process was slow because of the lack of resources to draw from (basically flea markets and the odd card show). Then I joined Beckett in the late 90's and began trading. A few years later I joined ebay and the whole world opened up. Now I almost exclusively collect Habs and vintage OPC with a few minor exceptions.
 
Started in 1979-1989 collected OPC sets, Leafs, Stars, traders. I also collected any food issues available (Kraft, Post, Vachon etc) and did an OPC, Topps or Panini sticker book each year. Traded lots and would spend hours and hours a day sorting, reading, trading and just admiring cards.

1990-95 Collected heavily during the boom. Got caught up in the new cards and sort of swayed from OPC except Priemier. Got totally caught up in inserts and shinny things lol.

1995-2000 Collected very little, tired and bored with the hobby

2000-2012 Collected auto's, GU and anything and everything rare and low numbered. Really collected most anything Potvin + any star player.

2012-2013 FULL CIRCLE. Gone back to buying and collecting OPC and food issues and sticker books. Collecting OPC sets again both new and old and am rebuilding my childhood collection. Basically given up on autographs, GU and number inserts except a few my 12 year old might want.
 
1990-1992: Collected whatever I could get my hands on. I still have a 5000 count full of nothing but crap in terrible condition...but it's all the stuff I amassed as a kid, so it stays with me.

1997: Collected star cards, opened the odd pack here and there

2003: I started working at eBay, which gave me dangerous access to looking at sports cards all day and seeing what had changed in the last 6 years. Got my first couple jersey cards and was hooked again...but I was grabbing lots left and right with no real collecting purpose.

2004: Stopped grabbing everything and started collecting Mike Cammalleri. Did that until the day he got traded to the Flames. Busted a lot of wax as well.

2008-2011. Didn't do much. Probably cycled through a few hundred singles just buying and selling. Opened a few boxes here and there and a case of 09-10 BTP which was awesome.

2011-present. Started collecting non-sport and UFC, which I still do (probably 95% UFC/MMA - 5% non sport)
 
I got into hockey when ud came out, I was 10. I got out when I was 12 or so.

During college I found a card store near my school and ventured in. This was about 99 or 2000. Bought a couple of packs but it didn't stick.

Fast forward to 2006 I bought another pack and pulled an auto or rod gilbert. hatted that it was a ranger card so I found ebay and sold it there. Made 40 on it. Thought wow I'm onto something here.

Started picking up low end devils game used and auto's.

Evolved into collecting elias stuff pretty exclusivly.

Got engaged and decided to rid myself of almost everything I had.

Got married and a better job and jumped fully on the wagon.

Middled in a couple of PC's, Oduya, Zajac, Parise and tried at a Certified master set......but nothing stuck. Got rid of all of them.

Started collecting Henrique stuff and I'm pretty much only in on him now.

I browse alot but if it's not henrique, I'm not really interested.
 
Man I feel old(er). When I hear guys ripping ProSet as a kid....ugh.

1980/81 - started buying packs and building the yearly OPC sets (missed the Gretzky RC by one.....DANG!)
1988ish....stopped collecting for a few years. Fewer friends were into collecting
1992 - got back into collecting because of the boom. Started wanting anything and everything. It was a lot of fun....for a while
1995ish - realized that all those different sets really didn't do a thing for me. Stopped buying new stuff and drifted into vintage. Started building sets from 1979 and back.
1997ish - realized that wasn't doing it for me either. When I was at the local card show, I saw a guy with a box of cards sorted by player. One of those players was Linden. There must have been 50 cards in there of his - all different. At a dime a piece, I snagged them all. I thought I must have had every single one of his cards. A little research revealed I wasn't even close.

I became a player collector on that day and haven't looked back once. For 15 years, I have thoroughly enjoyed building my Linden collection. Everything from high-end "wallet-crunchers" to a simple .10 cent base card. Every addition is one I love to hunt, find and pick up.

I have no doubt I will be a player collector for life and I see no other player to collect - ever (unless my nephew miraculously takes up the game and becomes Crosby-esque in the next couple years).
 
Elementary School (1979-1986): Movie/TV/Hockey trading cards (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Superman, etc). Bought OPC to get the numbers to stick on my hockey helmet.

Grade 7-Grade 12 (1987-1994): This was where I started collecting (soft sleeves and top loader style). Collected EVERYTHING...cards, pogs, figures, bull**** Cereal and Macaroni boxes...you name it.

First Year out of school (1995): Got a full time job and quit cards to get into toys. Bought and sold EVERYTHING. Walmart and Toys R Us became my best friends. I even hooked up with a stockgirl at Walmart to get first shot at delivery day.

2000: Picked up steam here. Joined Beckett and made a TON of friends and a handful of enemies (most still here). Started into high end and buying for the flip.

Current: Sold almost everything high end that I have and have gone back into the past to collect the cards that I enjoyed collecting. Working on my 1997 Jose Cruz collection, Blue Jays cards and Rocket Ismail collection and reading the boards to see the part of it all that I simply don't miss.
 
As a kid up until highschool it was anything and everything. Mostly junk but that is all my folks could afford and I know i didnt take great card of stuff back then so it was a good decision on there part.

In high school I had my own cash and would buy a box here and there of Upper Deck but that is when I fell out of the hobby. From around 99-2005 I didnt really collect and then I realized how many cool Marian Hossa cards I had. I always consisdered collecting him a side project until I was finished high school and began to appreciate the games I saw him play in the WHL when I was younger. I now only collect Hossa hard signed cards. It used to be inserts, sticker autos and anything Hossa but I am limiting myself to hard signed autos and original art pieces that I will hopefully be able to show off as soon as they arrive.
 
Collected '86 Topps Football with my brother (gotta love $.50 packs.) Jumped to Garbage Pail Kids from the orignal 2nd series up to the 14th...I was a kid, what can I say.
A neighbor got me started collecting the 4 major sports in '90. Switched to 99% hockey in '94 or '95. Collected what I could with $0 money. Bought 1st box in '93 (UD series 2 & pulled 3 Daigle's & 3 Kariya's.)
Did not eat, spent money on cards for first 2 years of college (95'-'97) (if I wasn't paying for gas & car insurance, books & school supplies, it was on cards.)
Went to 4 yr college for one yr...no cards.
Got first full time job in '98, spent half of my pay check on cards for 2 years.(I should have spent it on school loans.)
Moved, got engaged in '00, spent too much on cards in '01 (pulled Lemieux 500 Goal jersey & Hetch Gold Label 1/1 in spree...stress spending.) Got banned from buying cards by wife until '05-06 & started buying less loose packs and started buying boxes. Spent around $2000/yr on cards until the last two years where it's been whittled down to $1000-$1500 and under $1000 this year.

I like to get some of the packs that were from the late 90's when I can. Stadium Club had some great inserts, UD was very decent in their parallel inserts. Didn't really hit it big with Fleer or Donruss but liked the Canadian sets & the Limited set with players on both sides (never remember the proper name of the set) but it had refractor versions & great inserts, but was super marred with poor cuts & embossing errors which I thought were cool since they sort of gave an idea of the sheet it was cut from (the geek in me, I guess.)

Currently working on the 2 sets in my signature for sentimental reasons ('93 Classics-first Auto from a pack; BAP Tough Materials "stitch" set since I bought 2 update sets to get a jersey card and pulled my Odgers...near impossible to know if a set can be made with the cuts ITG did for Tough Materials, but a gradual goal.)
 
1994 - I was actually uninterested of hockeycards even with my history of collecting stickers, but I was too kind and a dismial trader...
But when I received one packs with 94-95 Fleer Ultra at my 14th birthday at 1st december and pulled a Gretzky All-Star card and I was hooked then.

1995 to 1997 - Collected like crazy and with almost no focus mostly with nice looking inserts, but I had a couple PC's Blaine Lacher, Jim Carey and Eddie the Eagle for a very short time.

During late summer of 1996 I started my T.Barrasso PC.

1998 to 2000 - I gave the hobby many tim es during that time but returned every times...
I collected heavily with T.Barrasso & J.Carey plus completed numerous sets of nice looking inserts.

Late 2000 - I experienced ebay for the very first time and BANG! I could add very nice cards into my collection for a fraction of prices compared with at my LCS plus to able see new cards every day!

2000 to 2003 - I gave up to collecting inserts and started to focus memorabilia cards and broke some boxes (prices are ineed so much higher here in sweden compared with in NA!) I even still collected Jim Carey!
But started numerous of new PC's of Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr, Dominik Hasek and Cujo! Crazy yes!

I started my Johan Hedberg PC during 2001 of course!
But he was waay too expensive so I wasn't able to pick up his nicer cards then, he was equally in price-wise as Martin Brodeur (or even higher!) during 2001-2002

But during 2003 I started to get tired of the hobby and got disgusted by all those prices and the amount of 1/1's plus ultra rares...
So I retired from the hobby completely during sep-2003.

Jan 2008 to 2009 Returned to the hobby when I for fun searched T.Barrasso and got stunned by the huge amount of new cards....2008 was no doubt my craziest year ever in hobby-wise.
But I gave up the hobby again during late 2009 when I was disgusted by that I bought a crazy amount of Cujo cards with all my bonus....

2010 to 2013 - But I returned at early of 2010 and still collects to even now but I has been disgusted of the hobby many times now...absolutely unreal that there're so many who're able to buying a card with worth of a car or cars or even a house!

It's imossible to predict a player's future, just check Nuge, he has already a huge problem iwth injuries even at a such young age, and had a very bad season, what if he actually pans out and all those crazy $$$ spent on his cards gets completely wasted then?

Those crazy prices are killing slowly the hobby IMO plus all those darn impossible to find cards....
But the Rookie-craze must be ending soon! $800-$1000 for a RC card of a 20-30 points per season player is just outta the world!

Sorry for the rant but I'm tempted to give up the hobby for good soon,
plus appears that my main PC-guy isn't willing to autographing cards anymore and impossible to make a approach to him, sadly enough...plus appears to that many is taking the advantage of the knowledge of that I'm a "diehard" T.Barrasso guy and requires 3x-8x of the actual price for the card (no kidding!) but I gets irked when I sees that many other more notable named players easily seels for a reasonable prices because they don't have some diehard collector....
 

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