When looking back on your collecting journey, you’ll find that most moments are unremarkable. We tend to overemphasize the exciting or novel memories, but forget that collecting is largely mundane, interspersed with flashes of euphoria.
What are some of those little, almost forgettable memories that you enjoy reflecting on?
Some that come to mind for me:
Sleeving cards to be put into my binders
Scrolling endlessly through listings while listening to music
Opening envelopes and packages
Driving to the PO Box with childlike giddy
Clicking on eBay notifications for price drops or offers
At mom/her fianice’s house.
Pulling this, peak covid, from a/the last/ONE Walgreens tin when I was feining for ripping. Around Christmas time hints the tree in the background. Mom looked at me like I wasn’t okay (actually) as I was honestly freaking out (albeit a bit buzzed)
Express graded it, got an 8.
Will never lose sight of it. CORE memory I will never forget. One I will tell for as long as I live / any opportunity I can.
Sleeving my Oricorio collection, but each sleeve color corresponds with the color of the Oricorio form and I always enjoy that fact when I flip through them (Although I have not acquired many yellow sleeves so orange had to suffice for most of my Pom-Pom form cards)
I think that organizing binders can be very cathartic to me.
I also get so excited when I look at my phone and see Out for Delivery!
Lastly I think that looking at endless listings and putting them on my watchlist, hoping that when I finally come across some funds l’ll be able to finally get it is up there for biggest childlike hopes you could have as an adult
Some of them have already been mentioned by others, but:
(not so much anymore, but in the past) Tuesdays. Sundays and Mondays are without deliveries in my country, so when I had a lot of stuff incoming at the same time, Tuesdays were usually the day multiple packages arrived at once.
Re-organizing binders. Although the more cards I get, the longer it takes, it’s still enjoyable to do every few years.
(Mostly applies to my non-TCG Seviper collection) Looking through my weekly searches (usually not finding what I’m looking for), but coming across something else entirely I didn’t knew existed prior.
Being a middleman for dozens of people, I enjoy opening their packages and seeing cards in person I might never order myself. It’s fun to see the variety of different cards, some are simply other people’s species collection additions; others are just cute cards; some are even other TCGs (e.g. Digimon or soccer cards); some are Gold Star and Crystal cards I had never seen in person before; etc.
Reading other people’s collection stories here on the forum.
Every single day I check new listings on Shoppee Thailand for “challenge v starter deck” and “ยาโดรัน scb” in hopes of finding my last un-found card, Thai SCB Galarian Slowbro (or any decks to open). I’ve done this every day, multiple times a day, for over a year now. When I’m on vacation, I do it on my phone. Only one time have the decks I’m looking for actually appeared for sale. We opened them, no Slowbro inside, so the search continues.
I have a “unique pokémon items” folder full of screenshots from this website over the years. Listening to lotr audiobooks (narrated by Rob Ingles, of course) while browsing ebay for these items is something I look forward to and get lost in for hours.
I’m doing this right now, and it reminded me of this post
I’ve had many people who aren’t into Pokemon ask me to look through there childhood collection (or even their Childs collection) and educate them on which cards are valuable and why. It’s something that is mundane on the surface but I always get really excited when people ask me to do it. I think it’s because you never know what you are going to come across and you get to share in their excitement if you find something good.
I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on Komiya pokemon sleeves with the Shelter Snorlax (2015).
I know every card in my Komiya binder(s) has these sleeves on it but not a single one is visible to anyone else.
