What sparked your game used interest?

[NEFAN]

Re: What sparked your game used interest?

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[frikativ54]

Re: What sparked your game used interest?

I've been a big Houston fan ever since I bought an Astros team set at Target when I was in grade school. Always a lover of baseball, I collected cards sporadically but never could afford the most rare pieces. It wasn't until high school that the card companies added swatches of game used items to their products, so I didn't get hooked on patch cards until I was much older.

By the time I had reached high school, I was several years into my love for having the same shoes the athletes were wearing. I remember that my Mom would take me to a department store and later Niketown every year to buy basketball sneakers, baseball cross training shoes, or whatever else the athletes were wearing.

My Mom bought me Frank Thomas model shoes, Griffey, Jr., etc., but there never were any Astros' shoes for sale. A big fan of Jeff Bagwell, I had my Mom call Houston to see if they had any shoes of current Houston baseball players, Bagwell especially. They didn't, so I pretty much gave up and forgot about my desire to have Bagwell cleats.

During the time I went to college, I started getting back into sports memorabilia after a brief hiatus. I bought all the swatches and high end game used cards of Jeff Bagwell and Lance Berkman. However, I never knew that I could have whole pieces of equipment. That was until I went to Houston for Jeff Bagwell's jersey retirement.

I saw a pair of Jeff Bagwell game used spikes on display at Minute Maid. At that point, I desired to collect shoes that weren't just the same model as Bagwell wore on the field, but that were actually used by him in games. So I began doing research and ultimately found Game Used Universe. I now have a collection of Bagwell cleats and haven't looked back.

[coxfan]

Re: What sparked your game used interest?

I've been a fan of general history and pre-history since I was a boy, and as a result I like artifacts (old documents, fossils, museums, etc.) though I've bought only a handful of such things.

As a result I was fascinated by MLB artifacts (i.e. g-u items) but since I never lived near a MLB city I didn't know how these things could be reliably obtained. I'd read enough about fraud to fear buying from secondary sources. It didn't help that local dealers here never seemed to know much about the provenance of their g-u stuff. ( Typically, "I'm sure I bought it from somebody reliable, but I've forgotten details").

Only when my daughter moved to Arlington in 2006 and I found I could buy directly from the Rangers, did I start a collection of MLB g-u items.

[solarlottry]

Re: What sparked your game used interest?

In 1990, while living in SF, I was collecting Montana cards and going to quite a few card shows. I was also following the Grateful Dead. While driving to Sacramento to see them I stopped by a card shop and saw 2 Montana gamers, both framed and with team letters. One was 2K and the other 5K as it was a playoff shirt. I remember thinking how cool they looked and thought one day i am going to have one. After that, instead of buying cards at shows, I started to buy jerseys. One of the first dealers I met was Dick Dobbins and bought a # of 49er gamers from his booth. It has been a non stop battle with my bank account ever since!

Always buying 49er gamers and ANY 1994 49er gamer. Paying a finders fee.
Paul
garciajones@yahoo.com

[beaglegypsy003]

Re: What sparked your game used interest?

I started collecting cards and making some complete sets (mostly basketball). In 1992, there was an article in Tuff Stuff magazine, Confessions of a Non-Card Collecting Collector. It mentioned that the writer had made complete baseball card sets from the 50s to present. After all of that effort, he surveyed his collection and saw he had binders full of cardboard and plastic sheets but not much of real baseball items. Most other people who don't collect cards wouldn't understand this but would appreciate in some ways game jerseys and other memorabilia. After thinking about it, I saw the same thing and began slowly collecting game-used jerseys. First basketball but now only football of former University of Hawaii alumni. It is cool to have a jersey of a player you watched play in person. Plus, hundreds of people can have the same card but how many people own a jersey of a particular player, even if it is a common player. By the way, I still collect cards but only of former Hawaii players.

[Preston]

Re: What sparked your game used interest?

Several things sparked it for me...

1. Buying cards and getting "game used" cards was THE thing for card collectors, because it gives the collector a chance to own a piece of it...then the prices started going through the roof, and there's been times I've paid more for a game used CARD than an actual game used ITEM, and that was when it hit me that something didn't add up.

2. Over time, throughout training camps and games etc, I'd ask players for their gloves, hats, etc in a tactful way...and sometimes it worked! Then instead of "sneaking" down to the tunnel after Titans games, I got lucky and was able to purchase two PSLs right by the tunnel, and the rest is history. Getting gloves after every game and knowing who they belong to is pretty awesome (to me)

3. The main thing I collect is jerseys....and I got lucky and got a GREAT contact w/ the Titans (used to have one w/ the Brewers AAA team but they were let go when ownership changed and I've been trying to pull teeth for two years now to no avail), so I figure why buy a jersey card when I can buy the jersey? Instead of thinking the jersey cards are cool, they actually anger me because a piece of memorabilia was cut up (allegedly, who REALLY knows the origin of the jersey) to be put into cards, thus destroying a game used item someone could collect. Granted I still buy jersey cards of certain players (Memphis Tigers, Titans, certain other players and MMA fighters - well the MMA memorabilia cards aren't "jerseys" but you know what I mean...), but mostly I just buy the jersey cards to re-sell at card shows, because I don't want to get pissed everytime I look at them (LOL)

There's my answer in a VERY roundabout way

[70to66]

Re: What sparked your game used interest?

Walt Weiss game me a bat at braves spring training and I was hooked!

[jppopma]

Re: What sparked your game used interest?

About 20 years ago, I was working the card short circuit and getting tired of the onslaught of new items (and companies that made you buy the junk to keep preferred status).

There was this one guy that was at alot of the shows with a table to jerseys and handing out free trial subscriptions to SCD. Yup, if jerseys are crack...Dave was the dealer! I talked to Dave a little at each of the shows learning the ropes and finally picked up a couple of jerseys from him.

It was just cool as a high schooler being able to own and wear a real jersey. I learned to appreciate all of the details and differences between the gamers and retail jerseys....and was hooked.

[UTeric3232]

Re: What sparked your game used interest?

I started collecting autographs of Texas Longhorns players, and I was hooked on that. 10 years later, my autograph collection is pretty much complete. There is nothing I want that I dont have.

So its only natural for a collector to move on to bigger and better things....what else...game used items.

[gadsden86]

Re: What sparked your game used interest?

I got into them a little while ago but couldnt afford them. I have always been a card guy and always thought why get a piece of the jersey whe you can have the entire jersey/shoe/helmet/ glove.

So i just got my 1st jersey and want another already.

[project 4]

Re: What sparked your game used interest?

negativity of baseball cards in 1994-1995. the parallel cards (gold version, artist proofs. silver version, etc.), the inserts, the continuous need to update the player checklist with new offering monthly, the outrageous prices,

New here. Been reading some of the posts and realize I have some things in common in regards to how collecting memorabilia started. Use to collect baseball in the 90's, then football in the 2000's. All the variations were killing me as I had gotten obsessed with refreshing ebay to find a new card. This stuff is obviously more rare and spending time looking for it vs. cards won't be so bad.

I collected baseball cards for years... I'm pretty much out of that except for the occassional vintage rookie card, current player autographed rookie card, and superstar/HOF auto. I still love collecting sports memorabilia though and game used items are perfect for me.


I think GU collecting displays much better than cards, I think its a more tangible connection to the game and its history than cards. And I guess to really simplify it, I'd rather spend my money on 34" slabs of wood than 2x3" slabs of cardboard.

Absolutely agree with this. I thought about how I can't really show off cards to friends but can create a museum with gamers. Still have my cards although I doubt I'll be getting much more. I think this alternative is perfect for me as well.

[karamaxjoe]

Re: What sparked your game used interest?

My father in law was cleaning out his attic and gave me four Sox flannels from the 40's. I picked up my SCD and found Dave Miedema's column and gave him a call. I then met Dave in the city and he told me the flannels were the the real thing and worth about a grand each. I sold the cards a few months later and the rest is history.

Hey Dave - whatever happened to all your "Shirt off my back" columns? All those articles might have made for a nice little reference book. Did SCD lock them up and throw away the key?

[metsbats]

Re: What sparked your game used interest?

I'd love to answer this, but my memory is a little hazy when it comes to events that happened during the Revolutionary War.

Dave M.
Chicago area

Dave

I was a regular reader of your column in SCD ("Shirt off their backs")

That would date me to the Industrial Revolution I guess

[metsbats]

Re: What sparked your game used interest?

For me it was a natural progression. I started like a lot of folks collecting baseball cards, then went on to autographs attending card shows and standing in line to get Mickey, Joe D, Ted Williams, and countless of other HOFer autographs. After the Mick died in 1995 and the National Pastime and other NY show promoters went with him, game used was the next logical step.

[godwulf]

Re: What sparked your game used interest?

My whole life I'd never really been much of a sports fan, and especially with moving around in the Navy for over twenty years, I never thought in terms of having a "home town team" to be a fan of. Baseball is the only sport that I had ever had the slightest interest in (or understood), but even that interest was intermittent and low-grade.

I retired to Phoenix in '93, and in '95 we got an MLB franchise; the Diamondbacks started playing in '98, and it seemed very natural (and also very exciting) to be getting in on the ground floor of this new team, going to the games, collecting whatever I could get ahold of, and, really for the first time in my life, being a fan. Baseball - I caught it bad.

I discovered eBay at about the same time, and was amazed, one night, to discover an actual game-used bat for sale. I'd never dreamed that you could actually buy something like that. It was a Karim Garcia DBacks bat, and I don't even recall or have a record of what I paid for it - probably in the 40-50 dollar range.

Starting in '99, I began buying gamers from a media guy who knew some of the bat boys - that was before the Team Shop began selling game-used and inflating everyone's prices. I was buying pretty much every bat that he could get his hands on, and continuing to buy on eBay as well.