Part 1 - How do you know you are hooked on cards?

Click on card to enlarge

Bob Tryon, a part-time card dealer from Elizabeth, New Jersey, wrote hobby humor stories for Baseball Hobby News in our early days. No one in our almost 15-year run did humor better. Here are some highlights from his September 1979 article:

By BOB TRYON

You know you're a collector when . . .

you have become a close personal friend of your mailman, because you've met him at the front door every day for the past eight years.

you have to eat Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant because your dining room table is completely covered with cards.

you honestly cannot understand why your wife is angry at you for spending the mortgage and food money because a really good card deal came up.

you can remember that Amado Samuel appeared on a 1962 Topps rookie card, but you cannot remember the name of the girl that you've been engaged to for two years.

you get paid Thursday and are broke Friday after a visit to the nearest baseball card shop.

your brother is getting married on the same day as a card show, and you tell him he'll have to find another best man.

you tell your mother dinner was VG-Ex.

you become violent every time you see a rubber band.

you actually call the Post Cereal Company to find out if it still has any boxes of cereal or Jell-o in its warehouse from 1962.

you find yourself sorting cards that are already sorted because there is nothing else to do.
________________________

This is part one of several excerpts that we will post from Bob Tryon's story.