I was going to post this as a blog entry, but that seems to be mostly want to buy/trade/sell so I thought I would post here instead. It's actually a repost from my personal blog (which I started recently to remind myself how to write and nobody actually reads 
)
----
I started collecting comics from about 1985. DC published the Crisis miniseries, rebooting several series and simplifying the parallel worlds. This seemed like a good point to start my collection as there was some chance of getting everything. Of course, some people are more completist than others - I would never be able to match Mike Voiles, who has an almost complete collection of every comic ever published by DC. For several years I picked up almost all the DC titles, tried to fill in post-Crisis back issues and then I got hooked on the parallel merchandise. I was at a collectables fair (to look for comics) and found some non-sport trading cards about DC comics characters. I think I found 3 different base sets at maybe $5 each. I also started getting into some of the smaller statues (see the header image for my blog), stickers and promotional posters. Eventually I learnt much more about cards: found the most amazing checklist site to identify what I was missing, and eventually Card Talk - a community of like minded collectors (and now OzCardTrader
).
The next step was that eBay came along. eBay gave me access to international sellers and changed my focus almost entirely to cards. I joined in Feb 1999. At the time, I was buying a card at about $5 and spending another $15 for an international money order and shipping. Even so, the cards were cheaper than in Australia, assuming they existed here at all. Cards became my main focus because comics are too heavy to make the shipping worthwhile for the relatively low cost comics I needed.
Very early in my eBay days, there was a card for auction that I didn't recognise. It was the SW1 promo from the Superman: Man of Steel Platinum set. I had no idea of its rarity and was still very cautious about this new eBay world so I didn't bid. Apparently there were 1500 of these made and they were given out in Walmart stores. It's not clear how many survived the predations and lack of interest by small children. Once I learnt more about cards, I realised what I had missed out on. I added the card to my standing searches (when that function became available) but nothing happened. Every few months I would do a search to look for anyone who might have one. Still nothing. Other serious collectors also had it on their list of wants, so it was clearly a difficult card to find.
A few months ago a UK dealer was going through old stock and found 7 of them. He put them up on eBay (individually) and my standing search let me know. I snapped one up, and so did several other people. The front of the card is taken from one of the base cards, so there's nothing particularly exciting about the content. However, I was actively looking for this card for 10 years and it is one card I had thought I might never be able to find. For me, it's also a symbol of my transition from comics collector to card collector and reminds me of how much I enjoy collecting cards. In the last 10 years, that enjoyment has multiplied because of the many people I now interact with. This card symbolises the change from frustrated sole collector with limited access to new sellers and hence new stock, to a collector who is able to trade around the world and has a realistic chance of filling those collection gaps.
)----
I started collecting comics from about 1985. DC published the Crisis miniseries, rebooting several series and simplifying the parallel worlds. This seemed like a good point to start my collection as there was some chance of getting everything. Of course, some people are more completist than others - I would never be able to match Mike Voiles, who has an almost complete collection of every comic ever published by DC. For several years I picked up almost all the DC titles, tried to fill in post-Crisis back issues and then I got hooked on the parallel merchandise. I was at a collectables fair (to look for comics) and found some non-sport trading cards about DC comics characters. I think I found 3 different base sets at maybe $5 each. I also started getting into some of the smaller statues (see the header image for my blog), stickers and promotional posters. Eventually I learnt much more about cards: found the most amazing checklist site to identify what I was missing, and eventually Card Talk - a community of like minded collectors (and now OzCardTrader
).The next step was that eBay came along. eBay gave me access to international sellers and changed my focus almost entirely to cards. I joined in Feb 1999. At the time, I was buying a card at about $5 and spending another $15 for an international money order and shipping. Even so, the cards were cheaper than in Australia, assuming they existed here at all. Cards became my main focus because comics are too heavy to make the shipping worthwhile for the relatively low cost comics I needed.
Very early in my eBay days, there was a card for auction that I didn't recognise. It was the SW1 promo from the Superman: Man of Steel Platinum set. I had no idea of its rarity and was still very cautious about this new eBay world so I didn't bid. Apparently there were 1500 of these made and they were given out in Walmart stores. It's not clear how many survived the predations and lack of interest by small children. Once I learnt more about cards, I realised what I had missed out on. I added the card to my standing searches (when that function became available) but nothing happened. Every few months I would do a search to look for anyone who might have one. Still nothing. Other serious collectors also had it on their list of wants, so it was clearly a difficult card to find.
A few months ago a UK dealer was going through old stock and found 7 of them. He put them up on eBay (individually) and my standing search let me know. I snapped one up, and so did several other people. The front of the card is taken from one of the base cards, so there's nothing particularly exciting about the content. However, I was actively looking for this card for 10 years and it is one card I had thought I might never be able to find. For me, it's also a symbol of my transition from comics collector to card collector and reminds me of how much I enjoy collecting cards. In the last 10 years, that enjoyment has multiplied because of the many people I now interact with. This card symbolises the change from frustrated sole collector with limited access to new sellers and hence new stock, to a collector who is able to trade around the world and has a realistic chance of filling those collection gaps.
