Commons

I just recently moved to a new home — an exciting yet horrifying experience. I’m sure anyone who has moved in the past can relate.

I’m just wrapping up the transition of getting from the old to the new home, but one issue remained at the old place — the cards.

Now, I have managed to trim down my “PC” (if you want to call it that) to a robust 50 cards at this point, however, my love of commons has not been addressed as of yet, meaning the basement of my soon-to-be former home was literally loaded with monster box after monster box (hundreds of them) of commons

And when I say loaded, I do mean loaded.

Right before the pandemic, a friend of mine introduced me to the wonderful world of Sportlots.com — an amazing marketplace for set builders and collectors looking to complete their collections and sets and subsets.

So, being a one-time set builder myself, and a guy who actually likes to sort cards as a form of therapy, I loved this idea and immediately thought it could also be a great revenue stream for my business, and one I would both enjoy and be able to source relatively cheaply.

Well, as it turns out I was right on both counts.

I did love it, and believe it or not, I could amass a lot of commons cheaply, and it did bring in a decent amount of money once I got the ball rolling — about $.18 at a time.

So, for years now I’ve been on a mission to accumulate as many commons — base cards, parallels, inserts, you name it, as possible.

I went to shops and shows and even contacted some breaker friends I knew and just bought the extra stuff they really didn’t know what to do with.

I’d sort these cards, list them on the site and repeat the process again and again— night after night, set after set.

I actually enjoyed it.

Well, this little obsession resulted in nearly 1,000,000 (I'm not kidding) baseball, hockey, basketball and football cards calling my basement home.

I had rows of shelves from floor to ceiling — all color-coded and organized by year, set and sport, dating back from the mid-1970s all the way to the newest releases I’d get from local breakers.

I was actually making some money also — not enough to retire — but enough to make it worth my while, particularly on the older stuff and the newest of the new releases.

However, my new home has a finished basement, complete with a pool table and a cool-looking wet bar. So, my wife decided the cards had to go or she had to go — I gave it some thought and earlier this week I had an old friend who owns a big shop come by and clear out my basement of loaded commons.

He paid me some — buying them by weight and not quantity — and a few tears fell onto the check as he handed it to me.

I am genuinely heartbroken about this. Watching his crew lug each box up onto their truck was painful. It really was.

However, it did get me thinking — this part of the hobby is not talked about enough is it?

Set building is really the foundation of the entire hobby, and still exists in quiet corners with a true, die-hard base of collectors.

I’m worried this part of the hobby is getting lost amongst a sea of shiny cards and RPAs and numbered parallels.

Not every hobby chase has to be for a 1-of-1 RPA.

The chase for that one card to complete your set, or your player-collect set is just as exciting — trust me.

So, that said, I’m back on the hunt for more commons (don’t judge, I really do enjoy it), although this time around I’m going to be more selective with my inventory.

Either way, let’s build some sets, people!