HISTORICAL COMMENTS BY GEORGE CHEVALLIER

Hobbies

Everyone has had a hobby sometime in his/her life. From the time we are small children throughout our lives we tend to gravitate toward accumulating something of a similar nature. By doing so, we have become a hobbyist. I guess I was born with it because my mother used to tell me that she could set me down on the living room floor with a two-quart pot full of clothes pins when I was only two. I would then separate them by style making two neat piles of each. The two styles were the kind with the spring and the kind without. From there, I don’t remember much before St. Francis. The nuns corresponded with the missionaries in Africa, and they would auction off the stamps on the letters. I thought they were very exotic, being from so far away. That began when I was ten. The following year I joined the Boy Scouts and quickly earned my coin collecting merit badge. Coin collecting became a life-long passion, and I had good advice from the older collectors in the community. Two things that always stuck with me were: 1. Always buy the guide book before you buy the collectible, and 2. Remember, you are buying the coin – not the holder. Learn to grade coins on your own. Never believe what someone else thinks. Grading coins is purely subjective, and your opinion might be different from that of the person selling the coin.

           

Always collect something because you like it. Any monetary return derived later is a plus. I always had simple rules that I followed faithfully. The first rule was to ask myself two questions. The first question was, “Do I have it?” and the second was, “ Have I ever seen it before?” If I answered “no” to these two questions, I bought it. I might find one cheaper or in better condition later, but acquiring the first one was the most important thing. The second rule was that I always pulled the price tag from the item as soon as I got it home, and I immediately forgot what I paid for it. It didn’t matter because I never intended to sell it. Acquiring the collectible was the preeminent thought in my mind.

           

I had every baseball card from my youth and kept them in pristine condition through the years. I had to learn what one year was from another because we didn’t think about that when I was young. Last year’s cards were, well, last year’s cards. I frequently bought other boys’ old cards for a small amount because they might contain a player that had retired and was not in the current issue. My cards eventually went to a dealer in Philadelphia that had been after me for years to sell them to him. I had finished the sets, and they were just sitting there. Once a collector finishes a collection, the hunt is over, and so is the joy of finding that next item.

           

I have always separated collectors into three categories. The first is the Pure Collector. He collects for the pure joy of collecting. The second is the Closet Collector. He collects, but doesn’t want anyone to know he collects. This may be due to his fears of someone robbing him. The third collector is what I call the Profile Collector. He is quick to point out the value of everything he has. Value to him is more important than rarity, and that is sad. Anyone can spend great amounts of money to impress somebody else, but that defeats the purpose of collecting. Collecting should be something at which you spend more time than money. I used to tell the younger collectors that the difference between us was that my strategy was to “seek and find”, whereas theirs was to just show up and spend.

           

 Having a hobby can provide many hours of enjoyment even when you are not acquiring anything new to your collections. My father was a passionate advocate of the game of golf. He always wanted me to take up the game. He appreciated my collecting, but he never fully understood it. I tried to explain to him that if you compared the two hobbies, his skills would erode with age, and he would never be as good as he once was. In collecting, your collections only get better with age. Collecting doesn’t need the constant practice and attention some other hobbies demand. And my hobby now is the history of Salisbury, and I love it.