Thinking of throwing in the collecting towel?

I'm not throwing in the towel, but a few days ago my buddy Judson from My Cardboard Habit expressed a dwindling interest in his collection.  Judson and I don't live too far apart and share similar collecting interests so I gave him a call.

I get it.  I go through stretches where this hobby seems like more work than pleasure so I get the same feeling.   It generally goes away after a brief time.  I've had a couple of lengthy periods in my life where I was totally out of the hobby.  I actively collected cards from 1981-1992.  I took a 6 year break and then collected again from 1998-2002.  I won't rehash the reason I quit collecting the 2nd time because many of you already know, but if you want to read about it, it's right here.  

After I quit the second time, I got rid of nearly everything in my collection.  That post is right here.

The reason I'm writing this post now is to tell everyone who might be considering walking away from this hobby to tap the breaks for just a second.

If you want to stop collecting, that is certainly your right.  I'd like to suggest if you do stop, don't get rid of your collection.  Not right away at least.  My one big regret is practically giving away my collection the second time I stopped collecting.  I'm sure I could have handled that situation differently and come back to the hobby in 2008 with a huge collection that I would have happily shared with all of you.  I would suggest you hold on to the stuff you really like and have worked so hard to obtain.  Put it away and let it sit there. It's not going to hurt anything to give it a year or three or ten.  If you decide down the road that you want to get back into the hobby, you'll still have all the cards you once cherished.

You can always sell or get rid of your collection in the future, but you can't get it back if you dump it.  Give yourself time to see if the passion for collecting cards is really gone or if you're just having a temporary decline in interest.