One of Them Good Problems

Time to give this blog a heartbeat.  One of the topics I wanted to shed some light on was what it's like to run an online card store.  I'll give a quick update here then move on to another topic.

I'm into the third year of running my online store, sandlotcards.com, and I'm enjoying it.  I have to admit that it takes a lot of work.  Early on, after the initial start up phase, it was pretty simple.   I just had to add cards to my inventory and wait for orders which were few and far between.  Now that Sandlot Cards is well into it's third year we're starting to get a lot of orders and we have to balance that with adding cards to inventory.

I don't know if any of you are fans of the HBO series 'The Wire' but there is a great line by Marlo where he says, "That's one of them good problems."  So that's how I look at it, I'm having fun filling all the orders coming in for both new and returning clients.  Am I struggling to add new stuff quickly? Yea, but that's one of them good problems!

Now on to the topic I wanted to write about......Minis!  I've always said I will not be a collector while I run Sandlot Cards. The reason why is that I do not want to keep cards in my personal collection that customers may want to purchase.  I caved a little and decided I would buy some lower end tobacco cards because I do not plan to sell these online.

I love the tobacco cards because they are over 100 years old and bring you back to the early days of baseball.  I also love them because they are different.  They are not the size and shape of the normal cards we are used to.  They are mini!

And because of that I'm starting to like all the other mini cards I'm seeing.

Like this one from last years's Topps Kimball Champions insert set.....

And this one from Topps 2012 insert set of 1987 mini replicas.

They remind me of the old tobacco cards like this one I recently picked up at a card show....

I just think these are all cool.  I have a feeling that some day I'm going to start building a collection of modern mini cards.  Of course I'd have to throw in the 1975 mini's as well, what mini collection would be complete without those? Heck, I may even start looking at oddball cards.

You know what's great about collecting?  There is no right or wrong way to do it!  Pick something you enjoy and run with it. Someday I'm going to get back into collecting full time but while I'm having fun running my site I'll have to wait........until then I'll settle for a tobacco card now and then, after all, they are the original minis.  

Run my card store or collect full time?  That's one of them good problems.......