Instead Of What Is In Your Wallet The Question Is Who Is In Your Wallet

Wallet card?!?!?!?

Really?!?!?!

Seriously, at a time when collectors are handling cards with the same care used by museum curators, why would ANYONE place a fragile 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 piece of cardboard UNSHEATHED in their WALLET?!?!?!?

maybe because its fun. maybe because its silly. maybe because others are doing it in a communal spirit. maybe one doesn’t need a reason. shhh... serious collectors will think you are crazy.

This insanity started on January 2nd (mark that date) when Baseball Card Breakdown laid down the gauntlet with a blog post entitled “The game of Wallet Card.” Clearly not of sound mind, or perhaps full of evil intent, this post spelled out the audacious suggestion that one “pick a junk dupe of a card that you like but are willing to “sacrifice” (as if that kind of card exists for any true collector, every card is sacred) and carry it around in your wallet for a full year, occasionally taking pictures of it on your travels or wherever, and share them on your blog.” (If you want to read the rest of the HORROR SHOW that is that post, follow this link, but not until you are done with this post, please.)

Can you imagine what these poor, unfortunate cards will look like by the end of the year?!?!? Want to know?!?!?!? WANT TO KNOW?!?!?!? Just take a look at this massacred Doc Gooden card Those Back Pages IRRESPONSIBLY kept in his wallet before he had Gooden sign it at the Baltimore National.

Makes you want to weep, doesn’t it? A 1985 card lower to a PSA 1, and for what? For WHAT?!?!?

Well the “WHAT” may just be the essence of collecting. 

Perhaps… no… definitely both Baseball Card Breakdown and Those Back Pages are onto something here. Something that fits my “a return to collecting” theme for 2015. And here is the concept that is sometimes to hard to remember and tricky to grasp…

collecting should be personal… and should be fun.

Let me say that again.

Collecting should be personal… and should be fun.

The beauty of #WalletCard is by virtue of selecting a “card that you like” this becomes a very personally driven exercise. From Night Owl Cards’ Clayton Kershaw to The Lost Collector’s Tino Martinez to Stale Gum’s Bip Roberts (I had no idea you could Bip yourself) the picks just seem to fit the collector.

Throwing the card into your wallet is guaranteed to decrease the value of the card monetarily but retains, if not grows in personal value, an important element towards achieving “a return to collecting.”

Oddly enough, when one takes away the concerns about retaining the value and condition of the card, and combines that with finding creative and goofy ways of capturing original photos and unusual situations for the card, there is a high likelihood that fun will ensue. 

Considering the ease with which cynics will be able to mock this exercise, which they must do by law, it is clear that wallet card is worthy of the participation of most collectors who are looking to just have some fun with the hobby. A love letter, if you will, to something that we commonly embrace and enjoy.

So… once again…

Wallet card?!?!?!?

Really?!?!?!

Yep!

Next time I’ll detail the meaning behind my selection of a 1980 Topps Tug McGraw card. Those of you who know my collecting habits will see this as an unusual pick for me.  Until then if you plan to or already have jumped on the #WalletCard bandwagon, leave a comment below so we can follow your card’s adventures.