Collection Recession

For the first time in nearly a decade, my collection's growth has pretty much stalled after I put myself on a strict hobby budget last month.

On one hand, it's a little disheartening because collecting cards is one of the things I'm truly passionate about.  I know some people say you can't buy happiness... but I don't subscribe to that theory.  Adding a new Rickey Henderson relic card or Jose Altuve autograph to my collection always brings a smile to my face.  Unfortunately my self imposed budget restricts these purchases.

With that being said... I think the pros of creating this budget outweigh the cons.  I know it's early in the game, but I'm proud of the fact that I've been able to resist temptation and keep my purchases to a minimum.

In fact, I've only made two hobby purchases in the last forty-five days.  The first was one of Gio's 1930 Baseball Stars custom sets over at When Topps Had Balls.  The other is a card I've been chasing for almost two decades.

No.  I didn't spend hundreds of dollars for this Walter Payton.  I actually pulled it out of a pack way back in the day and I've been in love with the 1999 UD Retro Inkredible autographs ever since.

Since then, I've been slowly chasing down all of the hall of famers in the set.  There are currently eleven guys on the checklist that are enshrined at Canton... and two more who will eventually join them.

I have slowly picked them up over the years, but the one that always seemed to elude me was Roger Staubach.  I've bid on quite a few, but have never secured one for the collection until two weeks ago when an eBay vendor finally accepted my best offer after submitting multiple offers over the past few months.

Without further adieu, I present to you my first and only eBay purchase in over a month:

1999 UD Retro Inkredible #RG

It felt good to finally cross this card off of my wantlist.

I'm still going to chase down the remaining eight cards I need to complete this set, but now that I have Roger out of the way... I'm no longer in any rush.  Seven of the guys are draft picks who never lived up to expectations, so I'll patiently wait for them to fall into my price range.

Happy Thursday and sayonara!