My Lifelong Journey in the Card Collecting Community

From 1977 to V-Dub’s:

My Lifelong Journey in the Card Collecting Community

We are a family within the community! While my journey as a collector has spanned several decades, my recent reintroduction to the hobby happened when my sons showed me a Conor McGregor card. They were bursting with excitement, and honestly, I was hooked all over again. I immediately started wiping the dust off my old sports cards. Did I find a hidden gem that made me a millionaire? Absolutely not (haha)! But it was truly wonderful to look back at all those memories of collecting.

For me, it all started with baseball and a lot of basketball cards. Back then, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and Charles Barkley were leading the way. I still vividly remember my very first card show. My friends and I walked over to the mall in Miami. There were maybe 20 tables max set up right in the middle aisle of the mall walkway. I had so much fun looking at every single card available and trying to hunt down fun-looking Jordan cards. I ended up buying a $12 Jordan card, which I carefully put aside to keep.

If you ask me what that show looked like, it was honestly a well-organized mess. There was no real structure, no fancy setups, and no nice banners or amazing hype like the shows you see nowadays. They might have had some balloons, which we thought was very cool back in the 1990s. My friends and I had a fun day and made some great purchases. I remember thinking to myself that I would invest in my cards and keep them for a very long time.

And that is exactly what I did. As I got lucky and traveled all over the globe, my personal household goods always included my sports cards. When I lived in England, my family and I enjoyed the David Beckham era. The sports card business was slow there at the time, so I started buying shirts and other memorabilia instead. My collection just stayed with me wherever I went.

While living in Germany, I started thinking deeply about why and when I truly started collecting things. Collecting was always a true passion for my grandparents, who collected dolls, stamps, cigar wrappers, spoons, rocks, and much more. I wondered if it was just in my genes, or if I had simply always been a collector.

Thinking back, a specific memory from my childhood popped up from when I lived in the Netherlands. I remembered my dad giving me money—guldens at the time—to buy packs of The Hulk. My dad and I started collecting and opening those packs together. Before the cigarette store closed for the day, I would race back with two more guldens just to get more packs. We were completely hooked. We loved the hobby of collecting the cards—or stickers, I am not entirely sure anymore!

My lord, that was way back in 1977 (can you believe it?). Me and my dad had so much fun. Unfortunately, he passed away last year, and we never kept that Hulk collection. But the memories were built, and I loved every second of it.

So now, it is my turn to be the dad. I am loving every single minute of buying and collecting cards with my own kids. As the collecting community started growing here in the Netherlands, my family increased our personal collection by more than 300%. We decided to jump fully on board, and we met a lot of great sellers and vendors in the Dutch community. Everyone was so willing to have a chat, explain certain cards, and provide us with the assistance we needed to slowly build our own table at a card show. It has been an amazing journey with all our new friends and fellow collectors. We are truely thankfull to you all, the support and advise.

The sports card world in Europe is absolutely booming right now, and everyone is generating more and more excitement. This includes the Pokémon and TCG gaming shows, plus the great sports card shows in Den Haag, Kempen, and Amsterdam. The hobby is growing fast. More vendors, store fronts, and amazing shows are being organized by very talented groups and individuals.

My family and I are deeply involved now. We love joining the shows and offering hobbyists an amazing experience at our table, V-Dub’s. Our main focus is always the customer experience. We want to allow kids, and the kid within all of us, to come out and find that one cool card. Whether you are looking for high-end items, rare finds, or expensive slabs, we hope to offer an amazing selection to everyone within the community.

So, where are we now? I am watching all the hobby activities in the United States with total amazement, especially with the National Sports Collectors Convention in full effect. The customers, breakers, store owners, and YouTube influencers are creating incredible content around all the deals and action at the show. For those who do not know, the Nationals is the biggest and best sports card show in the world. It features millions of dollars in deals, tons of entertainment, and sports superstars making appearances to buy, trade, or sell massive cards. Maybe one day me and my boys can make the trip over to attend that extravaganza ourselves.

However, I am not too sad or disappointed. My family and I will actually be heading to one or two big shows in the United States later this year! Who knows, maybe we can make a nice trade or purchase while we are there. It is so exciting to think about.

For now, our family will keep grinding, attending shows, finding more friends, and continuing to be an active part of this great community. We at V-Dub’s are incredibly proud to serve you, the customer, and to offer a cool variety of cards for you to enjoy. We will keep pushing forward and doing our absolute best. We truly enjoy the journey, and we cannot wait to see where this hobby takes us next.

For now, I am signing off. Happy collecting!
V-Dub