Do you have any collections?

In drawers, in boxes, and stashed in closets. My collections, which started in childhood, and continued through adulthood are now simply nostalgia and a glimpse of fond memories.

I can still recall that fateful day in third grade when my older classmates brought out their Magic: The Gathering cards. It was still early 1995 and Magic was making a splash with the release of the Ice Age expansion.

I had up until this moment been happily paging through Archie comics during my break periods. However, Magic was a whole new world that I felt driven to explore.

I convinced my parents to give me the money to buy a booster pack. Once I got back to school the next day, I traded all the cards in the pack to my classmates. I left that day with enough cards for two decks.

I continued collecting Magic cards and playing matches with my friends until the end of Summer when I encountered a fellow who was nuts for Baseball cards.

Having contracted a similar strain of sports fever, I traded away my Magic collection for Baseball cards.

I must say, In my adult life I have often regretted that decision.

Later, when a friend was visiting from Canada, I got to see his Magic collection. This was the spark that reignited my love for Magic cards. 

Sometime after getting into Magic, the Star Wars Trading Card Game (TCG) was released. My dearly departed best friend Cedar and I both collected and played Star Wars TCG.

I got my Executor Star Destroyer card from Cedar. Later I pulled an Executor variant from a booster pack. I still have the two cards in a hard case back to back.

In late 1996 I joined legions of aspiring Pokémon masters as I took up the Pokémon TCG. I had been quite enamored of the Gameboy game and the cartoon and so was more than happy to shell out my allowance for some more cardboard.

With Pokémon, I didn’t have anyone to play with so I taught my mother how to play and then bothered her whenever the mood struck.

After Pokémon it was Yu-Gi-Oh!, I pulled the foil Gate Guardian from my very first booster pack. That got me hooked.

This repeated with a few different card games that I don’t recall the names of and that likely no longer exist.

Aside from trading cards, I have an extensive collection of domestic and foreign coins including quite a bit of silver coinage.

Some coins came from working in retail while others have been gifted to me by relatives. I inherited my maternal grandfather’s coin collection and I’ve purchased some coins myself.

Notably, I purchased 5 sets of the Pride of Two Nations silver coin set which features Liberty and the Maple Leaf of Canada. I’m selling 3 of the sets on eBay.

To a lesser degree, I have dabbled in collecting bottle caps, stamps, liquor bottles, (photos of) custom license plates, stones, jewelry, and seashells. Oh, and the PEZ dispensers. I have the Star Wars, Lotro, and Harry Potter Limited Edition PEZ sets.

While I no longer possess them, I had a moderate collection of heavy blocks of sediment filled with semi-ancient shells and bones. I was quite enthralled by fossils for a period after an excavation when I was enrolled in Cub Scouts.

I’ll leave aside my digital collections of Pokémon, literature, and Internet Obscurity, and call this the end.

Thank you for taking the time to read my response to this writing prompt.

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Have a great day!