Boutowner

Been collecting since I was 6 so 33 years. Got out of the hobby about 21 years ago when I join the Army. Always enjoyed looking at my collection every so often. About 3 years ago, I bought a blaster pack of 2018 Donruss Elite football and in my first pack ripped, I got a Lamar Jackson pink refractor parallel which caused me to search its valuation. Literally the 2nd card in pack was selling in raw state for upwards of 400 bucks.. instantly hooked me back into the enjoyment I once last when I stopped collecting all those years back. To be honest, I almost walked away again once the pandemic started as getting packs felt like I had to beat everyone with a stick just to get a single blaster pack.. it sickened me that people only bought everything they could to resell them on ebay, mercari, etc. for triple what they were purchased at Walmart for and still, the were selling just as fast. It felt like ibwas standing next to a bunch of humanized bots who had zero passion for the hobby I love and instead of purchasing them for the sheer enjoyment of ripping into a pack to see what I had inside, became almost like legalized looting. I would ask some if they would allow me to just grab 1 maybe 2 blaster pack and being told to either pound sand or literally try and sell them to me for double the MSRP before they themselves purchased them. I have over 85k cards from the 4 big sports, WWF, 5 sport, even Marvel and garbage pail kids( the original versions. I am on TCDB.com and decided to inventory and organize ever single card i owned.. took nearly 3 months of a couple hours nightly to finally accomplish this feat.
I finally decided that I wish to find more collectors who, like myself, who simply didnt buy cards for the potential of a resale profit but collected for the simple enjoyment that had eluded me when I was still collecting as a child. This is my first forum post and still have yet to delve into all that this site has to offer. Thank you for taking the time to read this post and look forward to speaking to you all

John Barclay
(Boutowner)