Friday, February 9, 2018

Decluttering(?)

I was sorting through some things in the basement the other day when it happened.  I fell down the rabbit hole.  Have you ever thought about how many things you have in your house, or room, or apartment?  I'm not talking at an absurd level, like grains of rice.  But...individual objects.

Buying a house has been kind of like a tidal wave.  First was the excitement of finally bringing all the "stuff" that we had bought, collected, stored, whatever-ed over the years in one place.  Not just from a collecting standpoint.  But the clothes that were still in my closet at my parents' house, where that *one* t-shirt would always be whenever I finally wanted to wear it.  Or finally having the space for all of my books, instead of having to ferry some back home to be traded out when I'd visit on holidays. 

It was exciting to have it all together at once.  And then you realized you'd just been smacked with a big ole wave.  What the heck to I *DO* with all this stuff?  Shelving units were bought, donation boxes have been headed to Goodwill on the regular with such precision that it would make a 1850's train conductor jealous. 

 And still...stuff.  I did some quick math.  I started with books and movies.  Having two English degrees results in owning a lot of books.  And I'm still one of those fuddy-duddies that prefers hard copies to e-books.  And the movies have piled up over the years two - too many impulse purchases walking by the $5 bin at Walmart or cheapo Black Friday buys.  I was surprised how easily a big pile of things I would gladly part with built up.
 But what about the elephant in the house?  The card collection.  All told, I probably have around 150,000 cards.  Maybe 30,00 of those are cards I consider some part of my collection.  My team collections are the largest chunk, but there are thousands of autographs, custom cards I printed, random dime box finds or 90's inserts that just looked cool.  All stuff I don't care to part with.
 But there are also thousands of cards from aborted attempts at building sets.  As much as I may try, I need to accept that I am not a set builder at heart.  I'm just not.
And then there are thousands of commons from my days breaking boxes, collections I've bought and sold, Pirates doubles.  I can't find it in my heart to just throw them out.  I've considered donating them as a tax write off, but from other collectors who have done it, it sounds pretty laborious.  I slowly trim them down in packages to other collectors in my team collector group.  But that barely makes a dent.

 
I'm looking forward to the weekend and tackling the house a room at a time.  I'm starting with the easy stuff - clothes, more books, the random pile of cables and chargers to things you threw away years ago.  But any stories to share or tips from the blogosphere on decluttering your collection?  


6 comments:

  1. Like you I realized I just don't enjoy set building either so I'm in a similar situation. I still have tons of cards from my box busting days as well. For now my plan is to tackle the project one monster box at a time. The hope is to sort by team and when a stack gets big enough just ship it off to one of my trade partners.

    A lot of the other ideas I had in my head were just too lofty. Doing things one box at a time controls the mess and I can do it at my own pace. Obviously this is not a good option if you are looking for a quicker solution to declutter.

    Have you ever thought about setting up at one of the flea markets you frequent?

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    1. I've toyed with setting up at flea markets for a few years, but we've never actually done it. Heck, even a neighborhood garage sale might help at this point. I should be able to unload a lot of the Pirates and Steelers to a dealer who comes in for the Robert Morris show.

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  2. I always like to say that apart from my books and baseball cards, I really don't own a whole lot. (Granted, I have 80+ binders of cards and who knows how many boxes of extras -- not to mention my large bookcases/crates full of books...)

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    1. So true. All told, we have 5 bookcases of varying heights throughout the house. I was actually pretty excited that we were able to clear an entire shelf this week, mostly some books from college that we aren't going to touch and some nonfiction that was read and won't be re-read. Still...a lot of books.

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  3. My biggest decluttering took place in the early 2000's when I sold off about 80 to 90% of my collection. It was kind of a sigh of relief, plus it helped me with the down payment for my place. Eventually I got back into the hobby and probably have more stuff now than I did back then, which is kind of depressing when I think of it that way. Have fun with your project!

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    1. Thanks! We've been sending a steady stream of donation boxes to Goodwill over the last year, so sometimes I'm shocked that I still come across stuff I don't want/need anymore. But it's definitely a relief to see space clear out.

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