I decided that the best way to go about it was to get some bags of this year`s Calbee baseball chips, even though I had just posted on here less than two weeks ago that I was giving them up. So I stopped at the grocery store on the way home from work the next day and picked up three bags (one for my son, one for his little sister and one for me).
I arrived home, asked `Who wants to start a baseball card collection?` and got an extremely enthusiastic response from both kids. We sat down on the carpet, opened the three bags up and two new collectors were initiated into the world of baseball cards.
Its a lot of fun getting your kids into baseball cards. They liked them so much that every day for the past week they`ve asked me to get more and every day I`ve been happy to oblige.
They have built up a nice little pile, so I got them an album to put them in and printed out a checklist from Calbee`s website which they eagerly check each time they open a new pack.
We`ve been eating a lot of chips this week. Since I had a pile of 1991 OPC Premier that I wasn`t doing much with I also gave those to them. My son and I sat down and marked the checklist card with each one we had (all but 3 to complete the set) which was fun too, but the Calbees are getting a lot more traction since we can see the players on them on TV while we watch games.
Hope both kids embrace this new hobby and become lifelong collectors. If not... at least you had this moment, which is still really, really cool.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I hope they do too. Fortunately I'm catching them at a good age to implant some nostalgic memories of really liking baseball cards in their early childhood. So even if they move on to other things I think they'll probably be drawn back to cards when they are grown up. Kind of like what happened with me actually......
DeleteThis is so cool. Neither of my kids were interested in baseball cards much. My oldest had a small collection of cards but my younger daughter was never into it. It probably didn't help that I usually buy complete sets rather than build sets from packs.
ReplyDeleteThanks. Yeah, I think complete sets would be a buzz kill for kids. Its opening the packs and slowly amassing more and more that is getting mine excited. What is especially getting them (more my oldest, but also the younger one) interested is the "Lucky Card" chase. If you get a lucky card for series 1 Calbee this year you can send it in for one of those little albums. There is a picture of the album on the chip bags and right now obtaining one of those albums is my children's quest for the holy grail. Its all they talk about, they want one so badly. And when one of them hits a lucky card I know my house is going to explode with kids bouncing off the walls with excitement.
DeleteI don't have the heart to tell them that I've got like a dozen of those albums that I don't care about sitting in a box in the closet somewhere. I want them to enjoy this for as long as they can. Its even got me excited about the prospect of getting a lucky card.
I thought you were going to say something about getting one of those regional Calbees, or some cool old menkos. But this is way better.
ReplyDeleteThanks. Yes, this is a different category of collecting altogether!
DeleteI don't have kids, and know very little about today's kids, but maybe they will stick around -- or at least one of them will. Or maybe they'll lose interest in baseball cards, but find interest in some other kind of cards? Either way, it doesn't sound like you're pressuring them into this, so I would have to think that that would be good in the long run.
ReplyDeleteNot pressuring kids into a hobby is I think the key. If they like it, they like it. Ｉｆ they don't like it, you can't make them like it. I think its possible they will move on to other types of cards, there are a bunch of card games that Japanese kids are into these days (which I can't understand at all but its cool if they like them).
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