Will your collection ever be complete?

[hockeytigers]

I started collecting game used football jerseys about 5 months ago and now have 14 (with 2 more in the mail). It started off very innocently with a jersey that I bought of one of my buddies that played in the NFL and I was going to give it to him. I thought it was cool and found another jersey of another one of my buddies and decided to buy that one as well. I have now extended the collection beyond my friends jerseys and now I am hooked! I was going to stop buying jerseys for a while and then BAM, another jersey showed up on ebay of one I really wanted followed by one that I am currently bidding on. The jerseys that I collect don't show up very much so every jersey that I find that meets my criteria, somehow ends up in my collection.

That is why I ask the question...is collecting jerseys like an addiction? Will I ever have enough of these things? I am in the process of finishing the basement so I can display all of them...

I am just curious if this is what happens to everyone...you stick your toe in the water to check the temperature and then before you know it you are diving in?

P.S. I never did give the jersey to my friend...

[joelsabi]

I started collecting game used football jerseys about 5 months ago and now have 14 (with 2 more in the mail). It started off very innocently with a jersey that I bought of one of my buddies that played in the NFL and I was going to give it to him. I thought it was cool and found another jersey of another one of my buddies and decided to buy that one as well. I have now extended the collection beyond my friends jerseys and now I am hooked! I was going to stop buying jerseys for a while and then BAM, another jersey showed up on ebay of one I really wanted followed by one that I am currently bidding on. The jerseys that I collect don't show up very much so every jersey that I find that meets my criteria, somehow ends up in my collection.

That is why I ask the question...is collecting jerseys like an addiction? Will I ever have enough of these things? I am in the process of finishing the basement so I can display all of them...

I am just curious if this is what happens to everyone...you stick your toe in the water to check the temperature and then before you know it you are diving in?

P.S. I never did give the jersey to my friend...

lol. when i dont want to buy stuff on ebay i have to remove all the autosearch that go to my email account. i also block my access to logging into to ebay.

blocking cookies to ebay will allow you not to stick your toe in the water.

if you see yourself unblocking ebay, then you have an addiction.

[B1SON]

Your collection will never be complete! I started the exact same way, bought an NFL jersey of one of my former students. Then another, then another. Pretty soon the chase is as fun as the purchase and the jersey is the trophy. Take a look at my basement on my website. When I bought my first one 3 years before that, I NEVER thought it would end up like this. I am glad it did though. And by the way, I had 6 students sign free agent deals or get drafted last week. Can you say the chase must go on???

[jonincleve]

my collection will be complete when i'm dead, otherwise i will collect. it makes my life enjoyable and i am always hunting for something.

take care
john

[gingi79]

This is a great question. I sat and thought about it and here are my thoughts in loooong story form (for what they are worth)

I have collected many different things. I usually find myself starting small and branching out. When it was baseball cards, I had a Roger Clemens card given to me by my grandfather in 1987 because he was a good player (and Grandpa was a lifelong Yankee fan to boot) From that one card, I collected everything I could that I thought would impress my friends and make me feel special. So I had a Griffey rookie and a Frank Thomas rookie. Then my dad suggested getting Robin Yount and George Brett because they would most likely have 3000 hits. I also had a rather impressive collection of comic books considering my age and how hard I worked at chores to make the money. The collection was huge covering all sports and I realized I would never own them all.

I loved my cards and comics until the day I had a conversation with my Dad about "value". Someone in a "price guide" claimed a piece of cardboard with a picture on it was "worth" money. I couldn't go to the Grocery Store and buy $100 worth of Milk and Pasta with my Griffey card, Dad said. This meant it was only "worth" what I could sell it for. The only deviation from this were the items that made me happy to own for reasons unconnected to money. I sold off everything that wasn't connected to me through a great memory.

I follow NASCAR because I used to watch the races in college and bet with a few guys (Using beer no less) on the winners. There were like 8 of us and it was a six pack to get in. Then we'd have our female RA pick random numbers from a hat and that starting position was our driver. Sometimes people won, sometimes it was obvious no one would win and we'd just drink the beer during the race. I somehow always got Dale Jr and I won me a lot of beer. When I came home, Dale Sr. died and I felt bad for the kid who had won me so many beers and who I actually started following. Somehow I started to collect his Die Cast and follow him religiously. His win in Daytona the next race back after his dad died and his Daytone 500 win rank as 2 of my top 10 favorite sports moments as a fan. I owned every different paint scheme he drove including incredibly rare and low numbered cars from before he made the big time. These were considered top pieces and owning 2 meant selling one for 5 different other cars I didn't have. But then like most hobbies, Action Motorsports (who produced the best and most plentiful versions of die cast) started to re-issue all of the rare ones and come out with "raced versions" to look exactly like the car after it won a race. You can imagine how my collection suddenly nose dived from rare and valuable to common and much less valuable. It was then that I remembered what my Dad had said about value and I got out of the Die Cast collection at the perfect time. I sold off 90% of my stuff for about 3 times what they sell for now.

When Game Worns became easier to obtain, I took my love of sports and my pack rat collectibles habit and combined them into an addiction. In baseball, I collect current Altanta Braves players jerseys from the Braves and their old teams. That part of my collection will change but will never be complete as the team is constantly changing.

In Hockey, I am all about my Vancouver Canucks. I sold off two shirts I never thought I would to help finance my White Whale. I traded my white Trevor Linden for a better version. I upgrade my Sami Salo collection by getting more meaningful versions of jerseys I have but I am trying to complete the set of every style he has worn. Since he is still an active player (and the stupid Canucks change jersey styles like most people change their underwear) the odds are I will have years of new shirts to add to my want list. In theory I may complete it (as of this writing, I am missing 4 styles) but then the question is, who will I collect then?

I hypothesize I will lose interest in Game Worn material and my collection as I have with all my other collections. I will then sell off many of the things that don't hold a deeper meaning for me. I think your collection isn't complete until you get out of a hobby. What remains are the pieces that mean the most to you. My baseball card collection (all 20 of them), my comic book collection (all 15 of them) and my Die Cast collection (all 18 of them) are full because I don't collect them anymore. However, these small collections are complete.

[AWA85]

I don't think any collection ever has an end, thats what makes collecting so much fun. I started by saying I was only going to stick with Cincinnati Reds players, that played 4 years or more with the team. Now I see myself buying prospects bats from guys that have only a few months in the minors.

There have been times where I contemplated shifting my collection to Hall of Fame players, but feel like that could turn ugly on my bank account and I better stick with a little focus in my collecting.

[hockeytigers]

I only collect punter and kicker jerseys and luckily, they are on the cheap side...there must only be a few of us that collect these guys... Although, 15 jerseys later (one came in the mail today...yeah!), they start to add up. I don't think I'll move on to other players...but I do have a Chris Chelios game worn Red Wings jersey...ut oh...

[gatorcollector]

Unless the University of Florida stops playing sports, my collection will never be complete!

[genius]

Just about there...need a blue Penguins durene and maybe a couple more Pitt basketball jerseys, a 60s Steelers gamer, and a Pittsburgh Pipers warmup. Thought I might find the Pens jersey at www.gamewornauctions.net so I consigned one of my extra Steelers durenes with them in the hopes of funding, alas no durenes to be found!

[Tay1038]

Noooope! As long as the Minnesota Twins keep adding players into their Hall of Fame it will be forever long hobby! I love it!