In my previous (now deleted) post I did something I almost never did, I publicly announced I was after something.
Outside of obligatory "new Luis Torrens cards! YAY!" posts from when I was an extreme player collector, the reason I tried to not announce I'm actively after something is that I'd prefer to announce my interest long after I acquired it and let the blogpost stew for a bit.
This helps set more of a "been there, done that, onto the next" tone so it feels more like everyone is reading a postcard I sent from somewhere I was at 5 days ago as opposed to a real time update about a lousy layover I'm currently stuck in.
But this time I had to switch it up.
So I put it out into the open that I wanted a Trae Young autograph. Not so much because I expected anything to directly come of it. But just because life has a funny way of making me look like a donkey immediately after publicly stating something.
Like I think that we've all had that one classmate or coworker who yells "who took my pen?!" before standing up and seeing the pen in question fall to the ground because it was camouflaged on their pants or something. In fact you might've even been that person since I can recall a few times I've been that person.
So I thought I might as well try to use the universe's unique appetite for irony to my benefit.
Lo and behold a Young autograph came into my possession after I published my blogpost.
I had to retract my statement that I didn't want a sticker autograph because I realized that on-card Young autographs are somehow less plentiful than sticker autographs. Luckily the rest of the criteria I set were met so everything's still fine. The key point was that I wanted a thin (max 55 pt) card and this fits snugly in my 55 pt one touch magnetic holder and can be moved to a binder page with ease for easier storage if I wanted to. Perfect.
This is a rookie card so as you might expect it was a little pricey. Add to it there's suddenly a lot of attention on Young as folks ponder if he might be headed to the Western Conference so his cards are slowly but surely becoming a hot commodity by those in the know.
Now I could just absorb the cost (it's sunk anyway) but I've also decided to use this as an excuse to try something.
I'm not going to pick up another sports card until I manage to make back the money I spent on this Young auto by selling off other cards and collectibles.
During the entirety of my downsizing (which is perpetually on-going for the record because I'm liable to get bored and get rid of something at any given moment) I've sold 2 cards.
I've blogged about it before but the main reason is that I just don't like the process of selling online as I'd be opening myself up to dealing with unreasonable buyers (I say that as an unreasonable buyer myself). Which only gets worse the pricier the card is.
Now a lot of the good worthwhile stuff is long gone and I don't actually expect to pull this off. But this is more to keep me in check from wasting money.
If those can make back what I spent on Young in a timely fashion, great.
If they can't, then it'll just be a long time before I get to pick up something else again unless I can use a loophole that Calbee cards were purchased for the chips and not for the cards or something (knowing me I wouldn't keep them anyway and they'd be mailed off to Dave the same day I bought them). Thankfully very few things pique my interest anymore but we'll see, I didn't think I'd ever be actively wanting a Young autograph.
I do also sell non-sports cards every once in a while so anything I get from selling stuff in that realm will go towards this too. Though this will not hinder my chase if a new card I need for my favorite Yu-Gi-Oh! deck is released because I specified this refinancing thing only applies to sports cards.
Now me proclaiming this new goal as a blogpost may be me tempting fate and I might end up looking like a donkey who immediately buys another sports card long before I've been able to recoup the money. But for now I'd prefer to look at it more as me saying out loud what my intensions are.
After all how is the universe supposed to know what I want if I don't ask?
Last time I said I wanted a Young autograph, I got it. This time I'm saying I'm going to make an effort to recoup the funds to get said autograph. It will take a lot of time, but if this can also keep me focused on not wasting more money in the long term it'll probably pay off in ways I couldn't even imagine.
As always thanks for stopping by and take care.