Alex has been collecting baseball cards since he was 5 years old when his grandfather first introduced him to the hobby. Now at age 12, Alex has amassed an impressive collection of 175 baseball cards that he is constantly adding to and organizing. Baseball card collecting has become a passion project for Alex that keeps him busy outside of school.
When Alex first started his collection 70 years ago, he would get packs of cards from the drug store or corner shop for just a few cents. In those packs he might find stars from the past or current players. Alex kept every single card, no matter the player, and stored them in a shoebox under his bed. As his collection grew, he asked for a proper baseball card binder for his birthday one year which allowed him to better organize his cards by team, position, or other categories.
In the early days of his collecting, Alex’s favorites were the classic players from his grandfather’s era like Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron. He loved looking at their stats on the back of the cards and hearing stories from his grandfather about what made them great. As Alex got older, he started following current players too and added stars like Mike Trout, Christian Yelich, and Cody Bellinger to his collection. Seeing the changes in design and production quality of cards over the decades is fascinating to Alex.
While Alex enjoys collecting all kinds of baseball cards, he has some categories that are more complete than others. He has nearly full sets of the past few years’ Topps Series 1 and 2 releases which he tries to finish each year through trades with his friends or by buying singles online. Alex also prides himself on having a very robust autograph and memorabilia card collection. With over two dozen game-used jersey cards and a half dozen autograph cards, it’s one of the strongest parts of his overall collection.
One of the ways Alex has been able to grow his collection so much is by frequenting card shows in his area on weekends. At the local Legion Hall or convention center, he sets up at card vendor tables and trades duplicates in his collection for new cards he needs. Alex has also learned the values of different players, years, and parallel or short print cards which helps him get good trades. He always brings a notepad to write down the cards he still wants or new ones he finds out about at the shows too.
While the monetary value of Alex’s baseball card collection has surely grown over the years, it’s not really something he thinks about too much. The joy for Alex comes from the research, organization, display, and community of other collectors. He keeps a spreadsheet cataloging each card by player, year, set, and condition which he’s constantly updating. In his bedroom, Alex has a nice baseball memorabilia display case where he arranges his favorite and most prized cards. On weekends or after school, Alex can often be found sorting through his collection, trading online, or reading the latest baseball news as he adds to his lifelong hobby. At age 12 with 175 cards and counting, Alex’s passion shows no signs of slowing down. He looks forward to continuing growing his collection for many years to come.
