Notes from a retired hockey card collector

I spent the last decade collecting hockey cards--lots of sets and random cards I liked, but predominantly cards of my favorite hockey player, Jaromir Jagr.

Sometime back in March or so I decided I was done. I had been on the fence for a few months, and admittedly had thought about getting out sometime last summer. And the winter before that. And probably the summer prior to that, too.

Once I finally decided to cut the cord, I didn't make any big announcement or thread on a message board, as I felt that was quite presumptuous. Who cares if some guy from Durham, NC, is no longer buying up hockey cards? Probably no one but me.

However, as time went on, and people noticed, I did get a lot of questions asking why. It seems several others have considered stepping away from the hobby. I had the chance to carry on some conversations through email and PM (would that be PMversations?), and it seems that many others share the same feelings.

My advice? Think long and hard about it. Collecting becomes a matter of lists and gotta-haves. It's hard to break the habit of looking at checklists for new releases, checking on eBay for the best patch pieces, or watching the Box Breaks sections of your favorite message board. Collecting takes dedication. If you have ever collected anything (Pez dispensers, Depression glass, Tiffany lamps), you know just what that statement means.


I started out collecting every Jagr card possible. A few years later, when jersey cards were more popular and still "cool" I decided to just collect game-used and autos. After a while I got bored with the parallels, and a dreadful feeling of never getting anywhere close to 100%, and went with autos and just patch cards I liked. The "I liked" was an important piece that kept me hobbling along for a couple of extra years, if for no reason than that meant I did not have to maintain an accurate list of patch cards from release to release. If I liked a patch card enough I went for it. Plain and simple. I picked up press plates and other 1/1s when I could, but for the most part it was patches and autos.

So as you can see I've refocused my own Jagr collection a couple of times. I also added new player collections that were, in retrospect, merely a distraction (Gerry Cheevers, Bill Goldthorpe, Ondrej Fiala). At the end of the day, though, the fire just wasn't there. After spending untold thousands over the years on just Jagr, it got to be just a habit. Go check the mail, leave the eBay feedback, scan the card, and update my website. Mail, feedback, scan, update. Rinse and repeat.

It's sad to think of it this way, but I've seen jersey cards seeded at 1:2500 packs and actually worth something to 1:1 packs and worth less than a pack of Victory. Once you start looking at a hobby in terms of a dollar value, well, you may be in my shoes sooner rather than later.

Not once over the years did I worry about recouping my costs. If you collect things wondering what it will be worth (truly wondering, not just half-thinking about it), then you are probably not really collecting. You are investing. At least a little.

At this point, yes, I acknowledge I spent a veritable ton of money on just Jagr cards (we won't get into "other" cards, boxes, and the like). Unfortunately I'm mostly an all-or-none collector. Aside from the 1/1 cards, if I knew it existed and I liked it, I wanted it. So now that I'm done with collecting, I want to get rid of most everything I had. But my wife convinced me to keep my favorites, though it was hard to limit myself.

I am keeping about a dozen Jagr cards, a Vezina stick card from ITG Ultimate, and a '33 Ice Kings Charlie McVeigh. The rest are available, and eventually I may even sell the "keepers".

There was no one event, no straw that broke the camel's proverbial back, heck there was no camel at all. There was a whole Jason Pollock-like swirl of reasons, all of which just merged at the right time in my life. There is a list of reasons that all contribute to "the decision", but they are as individual and personal as any aspect of collecting hockey cards should be.

Like most of you, I get my eBay searches each day. However, now I look and delete them for the most part. A few I add to my watch list for curiosity purposes only, usually cards I have and am wanting to know the going rate. Mainly so my asking price will be more reasonable when I actually finish setting up my eBay store.

As for where my money goes now, I buy a lot of non-sport stuff. I'm also getting back into comic books a little, and I've always bought toys from when I was younger (I was born in 1976, so GI Joe, Transformers, Thundercats, things like that). So my hobbies have changed, that's all. Hockey was fun, and had a good run. I don't regret it at all. As I mentioned, I bought some Superlative cards, so I can't say I'll never buy another hockey card again, but I'm not a real collector anymore. There are still a couple cards that I would go for if they showed up.

In the "real world" my wife and I are also saving up some to buy some land, about 30-acres (that's roughly 12.14 hectares for the Metric folks). We're eventually gonna build a house that we are designing ourselves. With me selling off my Jagr collection, I suppose you could say that in a small way, we're building our dream house out of hockey cards.

So if you are one of the people on the fence about collecting, no matter what your decision, just make sure you'll be happy. Keep a few cards, sell them all, whatever you won't regret 6-months from now. And you know how they say to chew gum or eat carrots to stop smoking? Find your gum or carrot for hockey cards, because it really is like an addiction!