The Hobby Boards

As someone who entered the hobby in October and only had about 50 Steve Yzerman commons, one RC and a Darryl Sittler 1970 OPC RC - I was starting from scratch. I figured I would invest in what I was interested in now, which was baseball and hockey. I opened a fair bit of product and outside of one magical jumbo box of Topps Series 1 - I came to realize the increasing costs of opening new product was a lost leader. I then started listening to some podcasts, watching videos and came to realize (sooner rather than later thankfully) that I am not a rip and flip type. I want to collect. I want to buy what I like even if there is no monetary gain in some instances. I understand the need to turn over inventory to buy what you love, but I didn't quite know what that was until I started listening to guys like Austin at Carlson Cards and Brett from Stacking Slabs. These guys have changed my outlook on the hobby and my own collecting so now instead of chasing almost impossible low numbered parallels in baseball I am going back to my first two loves - tennis and boxing.

I became a huge tennis fan in the late 80s, early 90s and Agassi was at the forefront of that. He and Stefan Edberg were two guys whose matches I tried not to miss. I've been a lifelong boxing fan although the last several years have been rough. All this to say I just started dabbling in Agassi cards, what his card library looks like as well as some boxing cards that remind me of my youth watching hours and hours of live fights.

I'll post some pictures of my purchases once I have them in hand.

Excited to see some pics! Can’t go wrong with either Stacking Slabs or Carlson Cards. Both guys know their stuff and definitely have a great outlook on collecting and the hobby as a whole.

Are you excited about Topps Chrome Tennis?

Boxes are insanely cheap right now.

Hobby Lites going for $40/box
Hobby standards going for around $100

I plan on picking up some boxes and opening them up on camera at some point as I like Tennis (although I don't know it super well), and I love Topps Chrome.

I had considered it, but a couple things made me pass to this point. One is, to my knowledge, Agassi is not in 2021 Topps Chrome. Plenty of other great players in the checklist but up here in Toronto we're paying close to $150-$160 for a hobby box.