[rob024420]

I used to be a real active member on this site a few year ago. I was making several trades a week, constantly picking up new cards for my PC and helping others fill their collecting needs. Here in the last year or so I have really been sporadic on this site due to my lack of motivation and direction with my collecting/trading, work/personal issues, and site issues. No matter how bad this website was I continued to come back. During this recent time I have not had focus on where I wanted to go with my PC and which guys I wanted to continue collecting. Even at the National I wandered around not sure what I wanted or why I wanted what I did. About 2 months ago I thought I was going to switch jobs, take a pay cut, and have most of my weekends booked up with work. Work had me strung out...I felt I was under paid and under appreciated for the type of results I was producing for the company. That has all changed now and the place I work for made me an offer to stay that I could not refuse. Now that things have settled down in my personal/work life I am ready to get back to collecting and trading the way I was a couple of years ago. I have decided on 2 main players to PC patches and autos of (Josh Hamilton & Hunter Pence) as well as continuing to work on HOFers and established stars patches and autos. I am in the process of entering all of my cards that I will have for trade and also scanning them in to Photobucket so I can provide pictures when necessary. I also am working on scanning in my PC so I can show it off when necessary. I am a firm believer that you must write down your goals in order to keep focus on where you are headed. So here are mine.

My goals are:
To reduce the number of boxes I break at my LCS.
Increase the number of PC singles purchases through online sources.
Increase the number of trades I do on this site on a weekly basis.
Keep an active and updated mail day/purchases thread.

Thanks to those of you who have read all of this rambling. I hope by creating this I have created a level of accountability for myself in keeping active here and achieving my goals. Comments welcome as always.

[thepointguard_10]

Good to see you coming back more actively, and re-focused! Maybe we can help each other out in the future with the HOF type stuff!

[rob024420]

thepointguard10- I sure hope so. I added a few HOF autos ft just a minute ago

[franciscomarina]

Nice that you are back on track. Hope to make some trades soon.

[rob024420]

Thanks franciscomarina, we've had some good trades in the past

[franktoronto]

Here's hoping you enjoy the hobby even more now with this refocus!

[JRMdawg311]

Goal #1 was the toughest for me. There's something about the excitement of breaking a fresh box. The other problem is the decline in trade bait from breaking product. But it so so much more economical to buy exactly what you want instead of a chance at what you want.
I think it's extremely important that every collector have goals and be focused in their collecting. It's so easy to get carried away and then burned out. I've seen so many guys on here build great collections only to have to fire-sale it. Glad to hear you're on track.

[roger rabbit]

Good stuff man, always nice to have the good traders back with renewed vigour. Cheers!

[rob024420]

Thanks for the comments and support!

@JRM: You're right, not breaking boxes will be the hardest. I'm not going to go cold turkey or anything but I need to drastically reduce my amount purchased. You can buy a really nice card for the price of one box of Triple Threads.

[nolan5000]

I've never really had the itch to bust boxes. I've only busted 2 boxes. 1 box of 1990 Bowman and 1 box of 1991 Fleer. And some packs of 1990 Upper Deck.