The Aging Jersey Collector

[rmackman]

I joined CCSLC waaaay back in 2005. I was 25 years old at the time, and I had a growing jersey collection. I wore jerseys out to brunch, just hanging out around the house, when I'd go to games (remember when they used to be much less expensive to go to), etc. I remember Champion NBA jerseys going for about $45, authentic Russell Athletic MLB jerseys going for $115, and MLB New Era caps went for around $15-20. Those seem like clearance sale prices today! Fast-forward to today, and I have a guest room closet full of all those jerseys I collected way back when. 

 

The problem is...I barely have time to wear them now. I'm in my 40s, I'm married, and I have a toddler. I'm either in work clothes, or I'm wearing clothing my kid get his hands all over after he spent 20 minutes squishing raspberries and blackberries between his tiny fingers. This stage of life means there's much less time to go to the gym, hang out with your friends, go to games...even watch sports on TV (sometimes I can get an inning or two of baseball in before I'm asked for Sesame Street or Miss Rachel). 

 

So...that means my jerseys are now spending a lot of time just hanging around. I've been thinking about what to do with them because I do love the collection. I spent a lot of time getting to where I am now. I feel like there are a lot of options, but I just don't know which direction I want to go yet.

 

• A - Keep them, and eventually hand them down to your son. You spent the time collecting them. If you get an opportunity to wear them from time-to-time, great. If not, one day your kid will love the chance to wear his father's 1992 Michael Jordan or 1994 Shaq jersey to school when it's the year 2037.
• B - Sell some of them. Most of them have probably gone up in value, and there's a solid market for them on eBay. Keep the ones that are local teams you can wear to games on occasion.
• C - I have a younger cousin who would probably love them
• D - Do nothing/keep collecting even if you don't wear them as much. Just because the current life phase doesn't allow for much jersey-wearing, you don't know what the future holds.

 

Open to everyone's thoughts/ideas/suggestions.

 

Thanks!

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

I say a combination of A and D (depending on your kid's interests).

 

My brother is, like me, in his late 50s. I collect hats; he collects jerseys, and we have done so for decades. We each estimate that we have about 200 of our preferred items.

 

He has a big closet with all his jerseys.  He wears them when he goes out socially, like to a party.  He also wears one that has a connection (however tenuous) to a given event.  For instance, he recently went to see the play Brooklyn Laundry (with the incomparable Cecily Strong), and to that he wore a Brooklyn Dodgers jersey.  (I do a similar thing with my hats: to a play dealing with old-time radio, I wore a hat with a 1930s-era NBC logo.)

 

But for the most part, my brother just keeps the jerseys in his closet. (His one adult child doesn't care about jerseys or sport history; if his son did care about that, then my brother would surely be happy for his son to wear the jerseys.)

[BBTV]

yeah, A and/or D.  I don't "get" it, but if it makes you happy and you have room and budget for them, no reason to stop.  You can always sell them later if your kid doesn't want them, and/or set up some kind of rotating display if you have a room for that kinda thing.  And if a relative is over and sees one they like, you can be a good guy and give it as a gift.

[spartacat_12]

I'd hold onto them as long as you can. I grew up getting to wear some of my dad's old jerseys, so there's a good chance your son gets to an age where he can appreciate them. If he ends up not caring you can always sell some of them. Any jersey that's gone up in value by now should only keep getting more valuable as time goes on.

 

If you have the space to hang any of them up I would say you should try and frame some of your favourites that you don't expect to wear often.

[rmackman]

6 hours ago, BBTV said:

yeah, A and/or D.  I don't "get" it, but if it makes you happy and you have room and budget for them, no reason to stop.  You can always sell them later if your kid doesn't want them, and/or set up some kind of rotating display if you have a room for that kinda thing.  And if a relative is over and sees one they like, you can be a good guy and give it as a gift.

 

Love this idea to give one away to a gift if someone's over. I hadn't thought of that. I appreciate it, thanks!

[rmackman]

6 hours ago, spartacat_12 said:

I'd hold onto them as long as you can. I grew up getting to wear some of my dad's old jerseys, so there's a good chance your son gets to an age where he can appreciate them. If he ends up not caring you can always sell some of them. Any jersey that's gone up in value by now should only keep getting more valuable as time goes on.

 

If you have the space to hang any of them up I would say you should try and frame some of your favourites that you don't expect to wear often.

 

I'm considering eventually building out a segment of the basement into a mini man cave/entertainment space. There's no rush, but that idea could work! Thanks!

[rmackman]

8 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

I say a combination of A and D (depending on your kid's interests).

 

My brother is, like me, in his late 50s. I collect hats; he collects jerseys, and we have done so for decades. We each estimate that we have about 200 of our preferred items.

 

He has a big closet with all his jerseys.  He wears them when he goes out socially, like to a party.  He also wears one that has a connection (however tenuous) to a given event.  For instance, he recently went to see the play Brooklyn Laundry (with the incomparable Cecily Strong), and to that he wore a Brooklyn Dodgers jersey.  (I do a similar thing with my hats: to a play dealing with old-time radio, I wore a hat with a 1930s-era NBC logo.)

 

But for the most part, my brother just keeps the jerseys in his closet. (His one adult child doesn't care about jerseys or sport history; if his son did care about that, then my brother would surely be happy for his son to wear the jerseys.)

 

That's actually pretty neat. Would love to see the '30 NBC hat. 

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

2 hours ago, rmackman said:

That's actually pretty neat. Would love to see the '30 NBC hat. 

 

 

This is one of several NBC logo hats that I have, and it's the one that felt right on that particular day. 

 

When I went looking for that hat in order to take the picture, I did a quick count of all of the NBC-related hats that I have, those having network logos, and those having show logos. I came up with 13. (Or 15 if you want to include Star Trek, which is now more associated with CBS.)

 

But the mere act of looking through the hats gave me pleasure. This is why I think you should hold on to your jerseys.

 

Edit: I see now that this logo was adopted in 1943. But it's still in the heyday of old-time radio — indeed, even moreso than it would have been if it had been a 1930s logo.

 

[OnWis97]

Based on your description, I'd say I have a smaller collection of jerseys. I am a few years older than you (no kids) and stopped wearing them anywhere aside from the occasional game a long time ago.  Yet I still hold on to most, as I either think they're great-looking garments or they have some other sentimental value.

 

So I have gotten rid of some, including, coincidently, a handful to a younger cousin. (I do kinda wish I'd not given him the KG Wolves swingman, but so be it..). I really don't need these jerseys and don't see most of them in a typical month...but I like having them and I'm not just into the aesthetics of games I watch, I'm into the up-close of the stitching/materials (which is still a thing with my handful of authentics that were created pre-Fanatics).  

I think all four options you provide are viable.

[rmackman]

On 4/8/2024 at 9:27 PM, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

 

This is one of several NBC logo hats that I have, and it's the one that felt right on that particular day. 

 

When I went looking for that hat in order to take the picture, I did a quick count of all of the NBC-related hats that I have, those having network logos, and those having show logos. I came up with 13. (Or 15 if you want to include Star Trek, which is now more associated with CBS.)

 

But the mere act of looking through the hats gave me pleasure. This is why I think you should hold on to your jerseys.

 

Edit: I see now that this logo was adopted in 1943. But it's still in the heyday of old-time radio — indeed, even moreso than it would have been if it had been a 1930s logo.

 

 

I love that the bottom left lightning bolt is actually NY where NBC studios is located, and above it is a W for WNBC, which is the radio official call letters. 

[rmackman]

@OnWis97 Interesting that you have some regrets about one that you gave away. That's something that had crossed my mind. I appreciate the insight.

[gosioux76]

I don't have as big of a collection as you, yet I still get some joy out of just pulling my jerseys from the closet now and then just to look them.  As I get older, I lose  the sentimentality for some of them, and find it easier to give them away to people who appreciate them more. And this goes for more than just jerseys.  I've collected soccer scarves from throughout the years, but a college friend began scarve swapping, trading scarves of his local club with friends in other parts of the country. He sent me one, I shipped him back three of mine, figuring he'll get more joy out of them than I will. 

[charger77]

I have 450ish NHL jerseys. I am keeping them all for my kids, (future grandkids) or any family or friends that may want them. My daughter will wear my older/obscure ones on school spirit days & have started a small youth sized collection for my 3 boys. I have given a few away over the the years to some of my students that I have had a close connection with. 

 

 

[rmackman]

2 hours ago, charger77 said:

I have 450ish NHL jerseys. I am keeping them all for my kids, (future grandkids) or any family or friends that may want them. My daughter will wear my older/obscure ones on school spirit days & have started a small youth sized collection for my 3 boys. I have given a few away over the the years to some of my students that I have had a close connection with. 

 

 

 

450!!!! Wow! That certainly beats my collection. Pretty sure I have around 100.

[zubazpirate]

I had a lot of jerseys for various teams in my teens and early 20s, but I only bought one in my 30s...a jersey for my favourite team that I'd wear to games and not really anywhere else.

 

Then around the time I hit 40 my oldest kid really got into sports and I ended up buying a total of seven more jerseys, all for the various home teams. I wear them to games but not really anywhere else. They're hockey and football jerseys, so it would feel a bit odd at this point in my life to wear one around town randomly, although I used to do it all time when I was 17. I also don't want to get them messed up, I like keeping them more or less pristine.

 

I'll probably just hand them down to the kid at some point, I'm sure he will appreciate them. I've built up a pretty good jersey collection for him, he's almost 11 and he has, I'd estimate, probably about 40 different jerseys.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

22 hours ago, rmackman said:

 

I love that the bottom left lightning bolt is actually NY where NBC studios is located, and above it is a W for WNBC, which is the radio official call letters. 

 

I have to admit that I had not noticed the NY on the bottom left!  Very nice observation!

 

However, I don't think that that's meant to be a W on top.  At any rate, the NBC network's flagship station that later became WNBC was called WEAF at its inception; it wouldn't become WNBC until 1946 (when, incidentally, the logo in question was dropped), changing to WRCA for a while, and then back to WNBC in 1960 through to the station's end in 1988.

 

(Side note: up until the early 1940s, RCA had two radio networks, which it dubbed the NBC Red Neword, and the NBC Blue Network; WEAF was the flagship of the Red Network The FCC eventually ruled that RCA had to give up one of these networks; RCA gave up the Blue Network, which was headed up in New York by station WJZ. The Blue Network became ABC; in the 1950s the call letters of WJZ were changed to WABC.)

 

 

 

[Discrim]

On 4/10/2024 at 12:47 PM, charger77 said:

I have 450ish NHL jerseys. I am keeping them all for my kids, (future grandkids) or any family or friends that may want them. My daughter will wear my older/obscure ones on school spirit days & have started a small youth sized collection for my 3 boys. I have given a few away over the the years to some of my students that I have had a close connection with. 

 

 

You aren't secretly the Hockey Guy, are you?

[charger77]

25 minutes ago, Discrim said:

You aren't secretly the Hockey Guy, are you?

 

Maybe