Evolution of spending

When I got back into the hobby in 2000, I told myself I was going to limit my spending to $50 on a card. That lasted about 3 or 4 months and I spent $100 on a card. Than I got the whim that I was going to buy a nice T206 Johnson, bid $260 and told myself if I can't win it for that amount I would not pursue the T206s any longer, well I won the card and the quest went on.

The next bump came when I decide to buy a Ty Cobb T205, that was $400 and thought it would be the only Cobb I owned, Well, I now 13 different Cobbs and no longer own the T205. The next big purchase I made was $800 for a T206 Cobb in about 2006. That was the most I ever paid for a card until my purchase recently of the Ewing& Mascot at $1200. that took alot of scraping and selling to come up with that dough and will probably be my biggest purchase unless i win the lottery. If you told me I would be spending this kind of money of baseball cards 10 years ago I would have told you that you were nuts.

Lee

The first thousand dollar purchase is a big event. I think mine was a C56 Art Ross. My average price per card has probably gone way up over the last two or three years but my overall hobby spending has probably declined. I'll have to check my records because I'm kinda curious to really see how my spending patterns have changed.

But, yeah, it's completely nuts. I can't even fathom a 5- or 6-figure purchase, but I guess it's fairly routine among the penultimate crowd.

$500 is the most I've spent on any card. That was for my m101-5 Thorpe. Otherwise, There is only one other card I've spent more than $250 for and that is my Delong Gehrig.

Jay

I've followed a similar path as you guys have. It's very natural. My first "big" purchase was a W514 Joe Jackson....which I BIN'ed on ebay in 2001 for $150. That was a huge sum of money for me to spend on a card at the time. It was a good deal.

That sort of snowballed in the few years that followed. Eventually I was spending $500 on scarce e cards....and then $1200 on a nice Kalamazoo Bats card with an ad back (turned out to be a huge bargain). I hit my peak when I purchased a E107 Plank 4-5 years ago. I don't envision myself spending that kind of cabbage again on a card anytime soon....unless of course a 1912 Boston Garter card became available to me

I think many of us have become more conservative in our spending over the past year or two.

I think this is something we have all experienced over the years.

Here's a question. When you go from spending $50 on a card, to $100, to $250, to $500, to $1,000 ... do you still appreciate your past purchases in the lower price bracket? Or, do you feel they no longer reprensent your collection and hurry people through them to the "good stuff" when showing your collection? I'm a little towards the latter, unfortunately.

For me, the cheaper cards tend to be bargains that I want to show off. I can honestly say that unlike most people in this hobby, I have never overpaid for a card I wanted for my collection. I may lose focus on my collecting from time to time, but I will never overpay. I think it's the frugal German in me.

As I noted, I do not have many cards in my collection that are in the $500+ department (less than 1%). I have always either sold off or traded my high dollar cards, almost all I have know I plan on keeping in my collection for a long time.

I have always appreciated the lower valued cards, I like the quantity over quality.

Lee