Growing up a music fan, I never gave much thought to a musician's gear. My interest in music and musicians was solely in the songs and the lyrics. When I envisioned myself being a musician, I pictured writing lyrics and coming up with songs and that's it.
It wasn't until I really started following music and musicians online the last five years or so that I was hit with how technical the job is. Musicians spend, it seems, much more time discussing their gear than their songs or music. I suppose if I took up the guitar as an instrument as a youngster, I would've found that out early on. But I played the piano instead.
Take your average musician's electric guitar. To get music out of that thing takes more than the guitar. it takes a pick, capo, amplifier, microphone, tuner, effects pedals, and many other things that a humble writer like me doesn't know or couldn't describe. I just know they probably involve miles and miles of cables.
This made me glad I didn't become a musician, because technology isn't my thing, nor climbing over all those wires -- even if I love the sound.
I started to think about the "gear" for my job, and it's pretty boring actually. Most of it is contained within my phone now. But at one time there were pens, a reporter's notebook, a pocket tape-recorder (the height of technology at the time) a Tandy keyboard, a scorebook, press passes and the right kind of clothes for covering games outside.
But you don't care about that, you care about the hobby. I thought about that, too. What kind of "gear" do collectors have?
I went through my own gear.
Shoeboxes, of course. From the first moment in the hobby when I realized "I need something to put these in" and my mom produced an empty shoebox, there have been shoeboxes full of cards in my life. Through various hobby explosions and talk of investments and fancier and fancier cards, the shoeboxes have remained. And cards are within.
Binders, without a doubt. Probably three or four years into my hobby I discovered binders and never looked back. Binders make an immense amount of sense for card collecting. It's the best way to categorize and view them all at once. What does your 1977 Topps baseball card collection look like? Well, do I have a binder for you. Care to turn some pages?
Binders are pretty useless without pages and I don't even want to think about how many pages are in my collection. Right now I have a decent stockpile. You're looking at it.
But obviously it's not much to look at like this.
That's much better. Pages allow you to come up with the most pleasing displays known to the hobby. Nine pockets of joy, no matter what set you collect.
But I'm not much for displaying my collection. There isn't a lot of room for that and I'm not crazy about things sitting out where someone (me or the cat) can knock it over. But if that's your preference, there are nice stands -- you can go as fancy or cheapy as you like. Again, not much to look at here.
That's better. The few tripod stands that I own are for these Project 2020 cards.
Top loaders are my preferred card protectant. I've never gotten a handle on those semi-rigid card holders (I don't even like the name). Top loaders work great, are perfect for shipping out cards and I have a supply -- thanks to all the trading I've done over the years -- that will never run out.
Same goes for team bags and penny sleeves. These are unopened packages that may never get opened because I have so much of each just floating around everywhere. I can walk through any room of the house and probably find a stray penny sleeve ... and when we had our dog Dodger, he did find them.
Shipping materials have been essential over the years, too. Blue tape is a must. I also have several boxes of unopened sharpies because I write an address on an envelope and then I'm done.
And there are the envelopes. A lot more of where those came from. I don't mail as often as I once did, so these tend to pile up a bit.
More mailing stuff -- mostly for protecting the cards you send out from the postal system.
I recently received this cup that's from the Dodgers spring training site. Drinking out of it is kind of impossible but it's neat for storing things like scissors, markers, pens, a mini ruler, all stuff that comes up when you're mailing cards.
There's a magnifying glass in there, too, to read the impossible print on the backs of cards printed post-1993. But I don't use this much.
I use this. Technology can be pretty handy.
I still rely on physical reference materials like this. It's so handy to pick up right off of the card table. Researching cards online was more efficient for years and years before Google decided that people don't matter. It's a little trickier now, which makes me glad I still have stuff like this.
Besides, some of these reference books are just plain too much fun.
Sure, most of this stuff isn't as exciting or glamorous as a musician's guitar or drum kit or a ballplayer's bat or glove. It's more supplies than "gear". But you could argue that a baseball player's glove is a "supply," too. Same with a guitar player's gig bag.
It's just that collectors don't need their gear to perform. We aren't performers on stage like a musician or an athlete. But at least some of us😉provide content and entertainment, too.
Maybe someday I'll write up a post on a card collecting writer's "gear".
Comments