January Recap - Benny Montgomery and Card Shows

     January 2022 turned out to be a rather exciting month as usual, you know the whole new resolution phase of things. I decided in January to start writing on this blog again and I am very excited to get back to putting thoughts and recaps into this blog started so long ago. Still working on when to sit and write and what kind of release schedule I can realistically come up with. I am hoping for 1-2 post a month on a consistent bases to get started. Now lets get into the recap. 

    January 2022 saw the biggest eBay sale I have ever done. I was fortunate enough to help out a great friend by listing and selling a card that he happened to get in a break. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    We listed the card for $3500 o.b.o. knowing that one had already sold for $2000 and another for $2900. The goal was to get in the middle of that range. We received multiple overs the first 24 hours that the listing was live and many followers. We eventually received and offer for $2400 and decided to accept it. This just goes to show you why so many people are paying money for breaks. Where else can you turn $80 into over $2000. Now speaking from experience here, this is not the typical result and you should not expect this to happen, but as they say "a broken clock is right twice a day". I am thankful to have a great friend that trusted me enough to sell this card for him. I am also thankful to eBay for making the transaction possible. 

    The next adventure started in January, but will actually take place next week in Las Vegas. I will be attending my first card show as a vendor. I am both excited and nervous about this, but it is definitely the next progression for my card collecting journey. I will have a 6 foot table to work from, in a location that I hope will be easy to manage. I did not want to be in a prime area given my first show and I wanted to have a wall behind me so that I have maybe some space to work. I have ordered some business cards that will hopefully arrive in time for the show and I have a banner to proudly display so people know who is selling the cards. My hope is to sell some cards, get some exposure, and most importantly learn new things. I will be recapping this experience in 2 weeks, wish me luck. 

    The last adventure of January was to take my 11 year old daughter and quasi business partner to her first ever card show. January 29th there was a decent size show in Van Nuys, CA, and it was crowded, crowded, crowded. They were able to pack in almost 300 tables and it was a bit tight navigating all of the vendors. I wanted to check out what these people were selling and how they set up their booth. After attending the show I think I am definitely on the right track for this upcoming show in regards to what I have to sell and how I plan on setting up. I hope to be the vendor that is selling stuff that others do not have. It is not much fun looking at the same Tom Brady, Michael Jordan, Lebron, Kobe, Patrick Maholmes, and Joe Burrow cards over and over again. I am excited to have something different for my booth and I hope that people will enjoy coming by to see what I have. Once we left the show I made it a point to stop by the world famous Burbank Sportscard Store where we picked up a couple of things before we headed home. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience with my daughter and I cannot wait for more adventures in 2022. 

Until next time, Thanks for Reading, 

 

Bubba

2022 Adventures and Life Updates

 Well hello again. 

     Life has a funny way of opening opportunities that it had previously closed. I have enjoyed writing since I was a kid. The idea of telling a story in a way that captivates and audience or the thrill of sharing exciting news with others. There are so many forms of writing and ways to enjoy it. I started this Blog eight years ago as a way to track and share my love of card collecting with my son Ryker who would be born soon after this Blog was created. I was about to have a son and hoped that he would love the card collecting hobby as much as I did. Well, my son is almost 9 years old and enjoys the opposite of most of the things that I enjoy. (go figure) That is not to say that he is not into the hobby, he just enjoys different aspects of it and that is an adaptation that I was not expecting. Lets have a quick recap of the past and lay out a plan for the future. 

• 2013 - Attempted to complete the Emerald parallel set of Topps Series 1 baseball. Completion is around 60% as of today and no longer being pursued.
• 2014 - Being a father of two children, a husband to an amazing wife, and job responsibilities did not allow me much time to collect or write. 
• 2015 - 2018 - These years all seem like a blur now. Work and Family dominated everything.
• 2019 - The death of my father in law demanded some changes in order to keep the family business running.
• 2020 - The Pandemic - like so many others this allowed me time to re-learn about the hobby that I love so much and it gave me reason to seize the moment. No more excuses, Get busy living or get busy dying. I created an eBay storefront and started my journey in entrepreneurship.
  
• 2021 -  Living the Dream - When my career (teaching high school) started back to in person learning time management became an issue once again. This issue did not stop the dream this time, but it did slow it down. PSA shutting down also helped slow things down as well.

 I know this is a lot of life boiled down to a few bullet points, and maybe I will write in more detail about some of those life events in the future, but for now I want to focus on the present. The present, such an interesting thing. I have always wanted time to move faster especially when I was younger. I couldn't wait to advance a grade level, drive a car, get a job, or graduate high school. In college it was more of the same and as a young adult more of the same. Now on the precipice of turning 41 years old I would give anything to slow things down. My children are 11 and 8 (almost 9) and I am closer to 50 than I am 30. The perspective of my life is changing so much and I am not sure that I am as prepared as I once thought I would be. 

This COVID Pandemic has allowed me to embrace the unknown and not be so afraid of the outcome. I am more confident in my abilities to learn new things and adapt to the future than ever before. The desire to enjoy experiences with my children and my wife is stronger than ever. The acute awareness of life's fragility is a motivator rather than something to be feared. So with that, I and my family are off to new hobby and life adventures.

I will be documenting our new adventures here in this blog, that I hope to update weekly. I will be attending my first card show as a vendor in February, I am planning on opening 3 cases of Topps Heritage Baseball, and I will be letting you all read about it here. I am excited for these adventures and a little bit nervous at the same time. I hope that my writing inspires others to pursue their dreams and to overcome the obstacles that we place on ourselves. I hope to learn and teach through this process. I would love any feedback that you the readers may have. If nothing else I will have written down a piece of my life that my children will always be able to share. 

Until next week, 

Bubba