DL: I got started in the trading card hobby in 1990 when I was 8 years old. The most prominent set that I remember is the 1990 Leaf Baseball set. I believe it was the first time Leaf came out and my friends Dad had the whole set + extras. I collected baseball cards initially for a few years with my brother and then a few years later started to collect basketball cards and Magic the Gathering. I stopped collecting around 1997 as a sophomore in High School. Over those years I amassed tens of thousands of cards, mostly junk.

A couple of years ago while cleaning out my parents’ garage I found all of my old cards and I went around to a few hobby shops in my area asking if they would buy everything in bulk for $500 because the market for 90’s cards was not good. Every single store said no. I finally found a shop about over a year ago that would take the better cards that I did have and I sold those for around $250. Almost all rookie cards: Kobe, KG, Iverson, Ray Allen, Joe Smith, Antonio Mcdyess, etc. I didn’t think twice about it. Then about 6-9 months ago I started seeing Josh Luber posting about cards on IG and Gary Vee talking about how cards are going to be a future investment but I didn’t really pay attention to it. I went on with my normal day to day and then Kobe passed away and it hit me hard. I had sellers remorse for almost every single thing I sold of him. My cards, memorabilia, my shoes, etc… So I went to search for stuff and everything price-wise was through the roof so I didn’t buy anything. Finally, the market came back down a bit and I bought the rookie card that I was never able to afford as a kid on March 2nd, Kobe’s 1996 Topps Finest Rookie PSA 10 for $345.71 shipped. After receiving that card in the mail it was over for me, I was back in the hobby.