It’s like The Who’s “Magic Bus” ringing in my ears with Daltry whining, “I want it” endlessly, and Townsend’s resounding response, “You can’t have it!”
Thus is my collecting experience, sometimes. This has nothing to do with those high-end honey-would-you-mind-if-I-take-out-a-second-mortgage-on-the-house type cards. Rather it’s either a card that’s available for trade within the active TCDB membership, but members are non-responsive to a potential deal, or a seller who does a double whammy by tacking on an added buck or two to shipping along with their just under the gouging status price for the card, and thus eliminating that week’s bonus grilled chicken chipotle burrito from the budget (TB has since removed that wonderful item from the menu – but that’s another rant).
Oscar Mayer Lunchables
NHL Global Superheroes #2
As stated previously, I have an affinity for cards distributed by food companies (see “Cooookiiieee!“) and despite being somewhat ignorant of hockey, I love hockey cards. Put food and hockey together and my mind craves these cards. I am clueless as to who the Sensational Senator Alexei Yashin is. I checked and he’s not a Hall of Famer. But according to the Kraft/Post folks he’s a superhero! And this card is the last one I need to complete my set, but it eludes me. No one on TCDB has it for trade, and one just popped up for sale on Ebay, BUT, hence this article. The seller made me an offer that on face value I would have accepted, but I believe he’s overcharging for shipping. I rejected the offer and stated my reason to him, and probably earned my spot on his blackball wall. So, in my best mocking Pete Townsend voice I hear, “You can’t have it!”
Second verse. There are certain cards that one can simply say, “Eh, I don’t really need that,” but this isn’t one of them. I collect the Alou brothers (and son/nephew) so I need this card for those two reasons alone. I don’t collect Rose so I could’ve ended my quest to acquire it based on that, but I also collect League Leader subsets and inserts, so it ends up being 3-1 in favor of adding it to my stash. I offered what I believed to be an enticing trade with this card as the focus (that was stated in the offer) and I get a counter with it removed with no explanation for its exclusion. That’s like ordering a thin crust pepperoni pizza with jalapenos and getting one with pepperoni and bell pepper. (A pepper is not a pepper.) It was Townsend, again, singing loudly, “You can’t have it!”
Third verse. This 2009 set ranks up there with the best of the best of my favorites. The design reminiscent of those vintage 60s Philadelphia football sets includes some political and historical events. Allegedly this is an affordable set to buy. Maybe when it was released, comparatively speaking, it was. It ain’t no more! I’m sure someone can explain, for a simpleton like me, the economics of supply and demand and how rarity relates to my pocketbook not being sufficiently filled with paper which can no longer buy what it did back then. Every card numbered from 201-400 in the set is individually inflated. Legitimately, or not, the idea that the latter half of the set is exorbitantly valued has snowballed such that I may never complete this beloved set. Our hearts will forever be incomplete. I shall look at card numbers 1-200 and bittersweetly state of their companions numbered 201-400 I was told, “You can’t have it!”
“The song is over. It’s all behind me.” Thus Daltry continues on a later album. And though “I’m left with only tears,” (I’m milking The Who connection) my hopeful side will seek the unattainable because I am not an investor, I identify as a card collector.
I Identify as a Card Collector 
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