My budget was different as a kid. I couldn’t wait until the end of the week when I would get my allowance of about two dollars. I would do my chores that included taking out the trash, washing the floors, raking the backyard, and sometimes washing the car. The work stunk, but at the end of the week it was all worth it when I went down to 7-11.

I would take my $2 and hand it to the cashier without a question as if I was paying the toll on the Bay Bridge. And in return I would get four baseball card packs with a stick of gum in them that you hoped to god didn’t rip one of the better cards. My eyes would grow and my face would beam, as I looked at all the new players I would get. Holding a Mark McGwire rookie card in my hand was like waking up next to Kate Hudson. I was a nerd, and I loved it.

When I went to cover the sports cards and collectible show in the Serramonte Mall on Feb. 28 and 29, I had none of this on my mind. It had been at least a decade since I bought my last pack of cards and I could have cared less. I had moved on to bigger and better things such as CDs, DVDs, and this great thing called rent.

It seemed as if the market of baseball cards didn’t care about me much either, as it took a dive greater then any by Greg Louganis. Finding a baseball card store now is like looking for the Holy Grail as the rise of eBay, Pokémon, Yugi-oh, and now Spongebob Square Pants cards have taken over.

“The market is definitely going down,” 10-year-seller Jim Post said. “You had all of these secondary brands being made which started with Topps Stadium Club cards. You’re sitting here as a collector and you’re deciding between 14 different types of sets by one company, rather than just trying to collect one set.”

The prices of the cards shooting up fast in the early 1990s turned many people down as well, according to seller and 1968 SF State graduate of history Rick Miller.

“A brand called Upperdeck came out around 1989 and started making these nicer looking cards that sold for a little more at $1.25 per pack,” Miller said. “And because people were buying these cards the other brands got into the act by making a variety of cards, while enhancing their quality. Cards from the old days in the '50 and '60s remain valuable mainly because there would be only two card brands that made a Sandy Koufax or Willie Mays in one year. Now there are about 200 Barry Bonds cards a year; so you don’t get that great feeling when you get one in a pack.”

Another seller, Bob Mosher, then explained that many other fads came into play to hurt the sports card business.

“Anyone who had Pokémon cards around 1999 really thrived,” Mosher said. “Then it was Yugi-oh cards that were big. In fact, today I seem to be selling more packs of Spongebob Square Pants than anything else. Every time I sell one it seems as if the parents are laughing as their kids are purchasing them.”

Miller, a junior high school principal who sells cards on the side, explains that he actually loses money when he sells his cards, which consist mostly of A’s and Giants genre.

“Sports cards are the thing that pretty much are constant whether it be November or April,” Miller said. “Yeah, I lose some money but they’re all my cards from when I was a kid. Some people like to play golf, some people like to go to bars and drink, I like to go to one of these conventions about once a year and sell these cards.”

Mosher goes to conventions more frequently, about one or two a month in cities such as Chicago, Anaheim and Reno. Mosher teaches high school, but still makes a nice side income on cards.

“I think it’s critical to access your town that you are selling to,” Mosher said. “I sell in Napa, mostly, which is a big football town. Naturally, I sell a lot of football cards there, where I wouldn’t sell as many hockey cards as I would down south in San Jose.”

The convention saw a range of customers as people in their 50s and 60s looking for Johnny Unitas or Mickey Mantle merged with younger customers looking for the hottest card on the market, Lebron James. John Johanson is one of those customers.

“I’ve been collecting for about 20 years,” said Johanson. “I love these things, as this has been about the fourth one I’ve been to in the last month or so. I’d say Lebron James and Carmelo Anthony are the hottest cards to get just because they have so much upside and can rise in price so fast.”

Still there are other fans there mostly to look, but not buy like SF State junior in political science, Ryan Bactad.

“I love sports so I come here all the time with my friend (Johanson) but I usually don’t buy,” Bactad said. “I don’t want to say I grew up, but maybe I did. My focus is now more on memorabilia such as pictures and plaques of players.”

Mike Gin, an onlooker at the convention, had the same stance.

“I guess I just grew up and my priorities were rearranged,” said Gin. “It’s still fun to look around from time to time, it takes me back to my childhood a little bit.”

Even at some point some of the sellers had lost their love for their own cards.

“I used to have so many of them in a shoebox and didn’t know what to do with them,” Miller said. “One dealer then just told me, ‘Hey they’re just little pieces of cardboard’ and soon the guilt went away.

“I had seller remorse at the start, especially when I sold my Koufax and Clemente rookie cards,” Mosher said. “But to tell you the truth I could go out and buy back those cards anytime I wanted to now. And I like coming to these conventions and seeing the look of people when they buy the cards, striking up a conversation, and sometimes making a friend.”

Somewhere along the line at the convention I decided I didn’t want to be one of those people that completely grew up. I started talking to Mosher and asked him the best way to get back into baseball card collecting, and what a person at SF State could do to make a business out of it after graduating.

“The best way to start collecting is to have a focus, one you are sure to enjoy,” Mosher said. “Too many people treat this as penny stocks. They buy a card and wait to see what happens with it instead of enjoying it. Find a player, a team, a sport, even a certain year, and stick with it. This goes for people that want to start a business with card collecting as well. Most people just get overwhelmed right from the start with all the different kinds of cards and they end up giving up early.”

So I decided to buy a couple of packs. I already had all the Gwynn’s, Ripken’s, Bonds’, and Maddux’s. I wanted the newer players and maybe someday show my kids. I wanted the A-Rod’s, Jeter’s, and Prior’s. I opened up my packs and immediately shouted that I got Zito! I got Vladimir Guerrero! I even caught a pleasant surprise as I saw my old high school friend, Jack Wilson, on a baseball card.

For a moment I forgot about all the bills I had to pay, homework assignments I still had to do, and how I actually had to go into work the next day. Sure the cards cost about six times as much as they used to, I didn’t care. My smile was 10 miles long as I felt the same feeling I had experienced at all the 7-11s. I had come to the convention as a reporter and left as a little kid.