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From Baseball Cards to Pokemon
Mother and son share the passion for collecting and trading
By Moryt Milo
As a youngster, I was definitely a tomboy. Instead of playing dolls, I was playing ball. And when it came to baseball cards, I was into collecting and trading. I can remember sitting on the elementary school blacktop during recess, working trades in exchange for a Willie Mays or a Mickey Mantle. Everyone I knew had stacks of cards, usually bound together with rubber bands. Most of us kept them in shoeboxes. Nobody kept them in plastic sleeves. Nobody kept any kind of list. And we always seemed to have plenty of duplicates.
How could I have known at age 8 that I should have taken all those cards and sealed them in some airtight container, saving them to be auctioned off some 40-plus years later to pay my kids' college tuition. I was just being a kid, having fun, and getting satisfaction out of knowing I just got a whole bunch of cards off my buddies. Then my son started collecting Pokemon cards. I had no idea what that was all about. Foreign cards with strange names and funny looking creatures.
They sure weren't ball players. Instead of box scores they had scores for health, energy and damage. I didn't pay much attention. My son seemed to understand the entire Pokemon thing down to its most complicated level--and trust me, there are many. But every time he bought a new pack of cards, the thrill of seeing what's inside seemed just as exciting as when I use to open those baseball card packs.
On one recent purchase, he told me that some of the cards were difficult to find and thus worth more than others. That's when my baseball card memories flooded back full-force.
I figured the principles of trading were the same, and I explained how important it was to know what you had and how to trade for the best deal.
After a while, my son had so many cards we bought a plastic box to store them in. Then, friends and neighbors started coming over with their cards in plastic sleeves and binders. "Wow!" I thought. "People are really into this thing."
But I kept thinking, "These are just cards. My son can trade whatever he wants. He should just have fun." But mania has no mercy. Soon he was requesting those plastic sleeves and a binder.
"Okay," I thought, "No big deal." We knew just where to go.
On Campbell Ave. right near Winchester there's a great store called Heroes. My son and I have been going there for a long time. Heroes has all kinds of comic books, current and collectible, baseball
cards, action figures and other very cool stuff. The store window immediately catches your eye with its bigger-than-life Superhero posters. And although it may seem small compared to other places, that's what makes it so inviting. When my son was into X-Men figures, Heroes was the place to go. We'd peer into the glass case, my son marveling at the first editions while I marveled at the prices.
As we drove over to get the sleeves, I was thankful that Heroes was right in the neighborhood and I didn't have go miles in search of Pokemon.
We pulled up, parked the car, and my son, with allowance in hand, couldn't get inside fast enough. I saw him staring at the glass case spouting out odd names and counting his money to see if he could afford any of the individual cards displayed. I looked down to see what he was pointing to. "Mom that's the one I traded, maybe I have enough money to buy it back."
I looked at the card, I couldn't believe the price, $30, and it hadn't even been out a year. "You had that and traded it," I said trying not to sound astonished. "Yup," he said smiling and nodding his head. I knew we would have to have a real heart-to-heart talk about trading. Obviously I didn't take the first one seriously enough.
Right then and there I made sure he had enough plastic sleeves, a binder, and a magazine that told him the status of the cards from ultra-rare to common. And even though I still want him to have fun, I think this time I'll hold on to all his cards when he stops trading. I sure don't want to make the same mistake twice.
Moryt Milo, a citizen of Campbell since 1990, is a frequent contributor to the Campbell Reporter.
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Campbell, California
