The Way It's Always Been

I told you guys awhile back how I got my father back into collecting after a 10 year hiatus, well the other night he texted me about a blaster box of Prestige he had busted and was wondering how to tell the Sp's and what the book values were for certain cards he pulled. As always, I obliged and gave him the info he needed. His response to my answers were of excitement.

Your first thoughts I assume are..man, tell us what cards he texted about? Were they huge pulls? An auto?

My response to you would be, nah. Not even close to being a big hit. To us however, it was. What was it? A simple 2015 Panini Prestige Jameis Winston base rookie card.

Go ahead, you can start laughing.

The hobby has definitely shifted in the last ten years with everything being hit based but to hear my father's joyful noise about a simple base card rookie with a book value of $6 was music to my ears. I love hearing that despite the 10 year hiatus and the ever changing hobby that he still stuck with his roots. One that I am still grounded in myself.

The way we evaluate value of something is much different than how others might.

1. Rookie cards to us, are the top dog. Doesn't matter if it's autographed, jersey, or just a plain base card. It ranks high in our collection. 
2. Secondly, inserts still matter. Especially if they are numbered or if they contain a top player or rookie
3. Sets still hold a place. Both of us still collect, buy and trade for sets we like.
4. Key players for our PC's matter and that includes base cards.
5. We get excited over a $5 card. Yes, we don't need to land that $600 autograph. If you pay $2.50 for a pack and pull a $5  card it's a huge win to us.

I would call us simple collectors. We enjoy the pleasure just of collecting. Neither of us buy then sell. We collect. We invest time, money and fun into collecting.

This is just the way it has always been and probably will always be.

HOBBY TOPIC:
How do you guys collect?