In this enlightening episode, we delve into the fascinating realm of football card collecting, spotlighting the extensive and passionate pursuits of our distinguished guest, Aaron Waxenfelter, a devoted Buffalo Bills aficionado. As we explore the intricacies of his collection, Aaron elucidates the profound connection between card collecting and personal fandom, illustrating how the evolution of memorabilia intertwines with one's dedication to a team. The discourse further encompasses Aaron's experiences as a collector situated far from his team's home base, shedding light on the challenges and triumphs associated with maintaining such a collection. Through his anecdotes, we gain insight into the historical significance of football cards, as well as the unique challenges faced by collectors in the modern era. Join us as we uncover the rich narratives behind the cards that define not only individual collections but also the broader tapestry of football history.

Check out Aaron's YouTube Channel at @Profootballretro

His brother Royce Waxenfelter has a channel mentioned @VikingWaxPress

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Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com it may be the off season, but we are still talking football and football history here on Pigskin Dispatch.

And we have a special guest today.

He is a major collector of football cards.

He's going to teach us a little bit about how he is collecting and show us parts of his collection.

His name is Aaron Waxenfelter and he is a Buffalo Bills card collector.

Aaron, welcome to the pigment.

All right, thanks so much, Darren.

Glad to be here.

Now, Aaron, before we came on, you know, we were talking a little bit about, you know, our locations where we are, and you're out on the west coast and you have Buffalo gear on and Buffalo shirt, buffalo hat, buffalo paraphernalia everywhere.

How does a Buffalo fan come out on the west side of the country?

Well, let me tell you, it wasn't easy.

In the 80s when I was a kid, I was so hungry for Bill stuff like the Sporting News.

Little blurb on the Bills was all I got like once a month.

But I first started liking them in the early 80s.

I was super into native American stuff and loved buffaloes and thought they were a cool animal.

I was like, oh, this team's got a buffalo in their helmet.

That's cool.

And then, you know, I started collecting some cards and like, okay, this is my team.

So, you know, I was a fan of them a little bit.

But then this set came out.

I don't know if you can see that there.

This set came out in 82 and this is the Frank Lewis all pro card.

So they had the actual emblem on the helmet and then they had a little emblem down there by the flag at the bottom.

And that's what really that.

That set right there was like, okay, this.

These guys look cool.

This looks cool.

This is my team.

And they were actually good for a couple years there in the early 80s.

And then they fell off a cliff for a little while until Jim Kelly came.

But, but, but ever since then, I've been a die hard.

And like I said, it was.

It was a little tough.

Nowadays, there's so much information.

There's a Bills program I can listen to every day.

If I want to.

There's.

There's just everything out there.

In the early 80s, like, you know, none of the.

None of the shops had Bill shirts or Bill's hats or, you know, it was.

It was very.

Like, I'd go to Pro Image and, like, dig around, like, is there anything Bills?

You know, so.

So it was.

It was much, much different back then.

And so I'd get the subscription, which, like, now sounds so antiquated.

And then now, like, you know, Bills.com's got everything.

You know, it's up to the minute.

Like, I know today who they've cut for cap casualties, and, like, just happened 20 minutes ago.

I know about it.

So.

So it's a much different world.

Much easier to be a Bills fan out here.

But in the.

In the 80s, not so much.

Yeah, I mean, people don't realize it.

I mean, I live close to where my team plays, and I had the same thing, you know, more in the 70s is when I started collecting, but same thing.

You know, we had, you know, our digest of our local franchise, of the Steelers Digest, the Sporting News.

You know, you're bringing back old memories.

I forgot about how exciting it was to wait for that, the Sporting News to get delivered in the thing.

And you're reading this information, it's probably like a week old by the time you have it in the local Fisher app or the.

You know, or in the Sporting News.

But I remember just studying, like, all the.

They had the power, the top tens, I think, in the Sporting News.

That was always fun to look at and say, hey, where's my team at?

Hey, why aren't they in there?

What's going on here?

But, yeah, you're bringing back some good memories there.

And I'm sure listeners, too.

Yeah.

But, yeah, I actually.

My lifelong dream was to go back there and watch a game.

And for my 50th birthday, that's what I got.

And it was really cool to be back there where, like, everybody loves the Bills.

We're over here.

Like, nobody loves the Bill.

So it was such a different thing, you know, to be surrounded by Bills fans.

Every yard had a sign or a flag or whatever.

It was just really neat, a little bit overwhelming.

Like, I went to the grocery store, store Called Wegmans.

I go to this grocery store, and it's just like, Bill's paraphernalia everywhere.

It was like sensory overload.

Like, whoa.

There's Bill's hats and T shirts and mugs.

There's, like, everything Bill's.

Um, so I kind of loaded up.

I got two full duffel bags of stuff while I was back there.

Well, if you ever.

If you ever need somebody, I got a Wegmans about a mile from my home, and.

Oh, really?

And even here in Erie, they have all the Buffalo stuff because it's a Buffalo centralized store.

So it's.

They're all over the place here in Western Pennsylvania, too.

Yeah, that's.

That's cool.

So who was the game that you saw?

Who did Buffalo play there?

I saw him play the Titans.

The Titans actually were in the AFC championship the year before that, and so they were supposed to be a good team, and we just demolished them.

Coaching the Titans then, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So it was very bull.

And Derek Henry.

We held Derek Henry to, like, 30 yards.

It was a really fun game.

We scored a ton.

Being an older guy, I had to go to the bathroom a couple times, and.

And each time I went to the bathroom, I missed a touchdown.

So it's like, darn flatter.

But it was really fun and my kids enjoyed it.

And, you know, they're not huge football fans, but they were for me, so that was neat for me.

Like, my kids are, like, cheering on my team for my, you know, for my own case.

So they're living through your dreams a little bit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, so I got two important questions.

Are you going to your first Bills game?

Did you do a table drop?

I didn't.

We actually.

We went to the big lot where, like, that stuff happens, and we saw a couple.

And then there were, like, a lot of.

Because it was a Monday night game, actually, and there were a lot of TV crews around, and they were filming the Bills mafia and stuff.

And, you know, I got some pictures with some of the more prominent Bills fans, and I don't know if you've heard of John Murphy.

He used to be the voice of the Bills.

But I saw him in the parking lot, and I'd been listening to his program, listening to him call the games for a long time.

And my one regret is I didn't go over and say thank you or say hi, because a few weeks later, he had a stroke.

And then now he's not the voice of the Bills.

So I was like, oh, man, I should have said, like, thanks or something to John Murphy, but I chickened out,

so we had the pleasure.

I go to every April, I go to a PFRA meeting in Western New York, and it's hosted by folks that are Bills fans.

So there's a lot of Bills connection.

Jeff Nixon, a former Bills player, is the.

He's in charge of the players association for the Bills, for the team.

So he brings folks in all the time.

And.

And Murph talked last year, the year before, you know, he couldn't talk much because of his condition, but still a great communicator, a lot of fun and got to meet him and shake hands.

He's a good guy.

Okay, nice.

A little segue because you brought him up.

Jeff Nixon actually did an interview with me on my YouTube channel.

It's called Pro Football Retro.

So I interviewed him, got some stories from the early 80s bills.

And so if you want to look that up, you can check out my channel.

And there's quite a few interviews with Bill's players or I have a Bills, a daughter of a Bills player on there and some football card specific stuff, too.

So did Jeff play any guitar for you or anything?

He didn't, but he talked about it.

He talked about him playing guitar and Doug Flutie playing the drums at their concert.

Yeah, they had a big thing, I think it was last summer.

They had it.

And yeah, he, Fluty, and they had all built former Bills players playing in this band.

They had a little concert that's pretty cool.

I didn't.

I didn't get to attend, but some folks I. I know went to it.

They said it was a great thing.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

And I. I can also appreciate that, too.

You're talking with these tops cards because that's what I grew up on as well.

And I always thought, you know, the Steelers only have an emblem on one side of their helmet.

A lot of people don't know that.

And we always thought we weren't very smart as kids here.

And so we'd always see the helmets, you know, just the black helmet, the gold stripe.

Like they're always taking a picture from the wrong side of the helmet.

You know, we didn't realize till later on that, you know, they didn't have the rights to show the emblems with tops.

So where did you go from 82?

You know, you have that, that set.

That's what started you off.

Yeah, you know, when I was younger, we would buy football cards just, like, packs at, you know, Walmart or whatever.

So we.

We did have cards.

That's just when, like, the bills, like, solidified for me.

But we did have cards.

Starting in the 75 set with me and my two older brothers, we would take the cards out on.

We had some property.

We'd take them out on our little playground and play with cards in the gravel, in the dirt, like, set up an offense, set up a defense, and smash them into each other.

So we have card collectors out there cringing right now.

Yeah, I know, I know.

And some of our cards are very beat up.

They look like they've been through the ringer.

So we had the 75 top set, and then we had the Wonder Bread set, or as many of them as we got when we got Wonder Bread.

So we.

We like that.

Kind of like.

My earliest memories of cards are those two sets, the tops and the Wonder Bread.

And then we collected quite a bit, and then we got paper routes when I was.

I was 7, living in Portland, and we got paper routes on our bikes, and so we take our money down to the corner store, buy some candy, and buy football cards.

So we started actually getting full sets.

I think in 83 is when we started getting full sets.

Like, you could buy just a set at the card shop in Portland because we didn't have a local store we could just ride our bike to anymore because we lived out in the country.

So we'd get the full sets for a few years there, and that was kind of cool.

And then, you know, the 80, 88, 89 is when the junk Wax started, you know, and.

And for me, it kind of diluted it and kind of made it like, I can't get every card anymore because there's, you know, Donruss and pro set and this and that and the other.

And, like, when it was just one brand, you could be like, I got my set for the year.

Or, like, I got the cards when it started getting so many.

It just kind of like, I can't get every Andre Reed for this year or whatever, you know, it's just like, I'll get one, you know?

So then that's where I kind of went is like, okay, I got my Andre Reid for this year.

I got my Bruce Smith.

And I wasn't brand specific, really.

I do kind of prefer tops just because they're the original.

But you know, now I did when I had young kids, I took a little time off to be a dad and you know, focus on work in school and whatever.

But, but, but then I started like, okay, I want to at least get everybody for this current team so I know who's on the team.

So I like have that physical touch and feel it of the team.

And then I started making my own cards some because it's like, well, they don't have this guy because, because they stopped making all the offensive linemen and punters and all that.

You know, they used to, you know, in the 70s, 80s when they had these large sets of 528 cards, they'd make, you know, all the, all these starters basically.

Then they cut down to like, we're only making the skill positions and maybe if they're an all pro safety or something.

But so then I'd start making my own cards.

So I kind of went to that for a while and I still do that a little bit for those obscure bills that they don't make a car card for.

Or like even Christian Binford, who's a great, you know, all pro cornerback, they don't produce cards for him.

So I made my own, you know, Binford card.

So, you know, stuff like that to just like, I'm very tactile, so I want to like hold the card, you know, look at the stats on the back, you know, put them in order of, you know, my team position wise and stuff like that.

Yeah, that's a cool thing.

So we've talked about it, you know, on some episodes we had earlier, we have.

Basically there's four types of collectors.

People can go into like sort of four categories.

And one of them is a team collector, which I'm guessing that's probably what you would consider yourself.

The others are like set, set collectors.

I guess you've had a little bit of experience doing like that.

Some are player collectors where they only want, hey, I want all the Tom Brady's I can get.

Which you just described really well because, you know, lately you've got a, you know, last 30 years you got to go to, you know, you kind of bump keen cards of one player just in one season and not Tom Brady.

I'm sorry, I said a bad word.

I'm sorry.

Yes, it's a four letter word.

Sorry about that.

But.

And then, you know, we have people like myself.

I created a fourth category.

I collect them just to use in, you know, for some of my YouTube shorts and things, just to tell stories and show some images of these players and legends and help football stay alive.

So you're doing a little bit of each of that, and that's really cool.

I really can appreciate you doing.

Yeah, I'm a little bit of a hybrid because mostly I do collect bills.

I want.

I want every Bills card I can find.

I've got pretty much every commercially produced Bills card, unless it's really obscure, like some of those, you know, regional type sets or some of the Coke caps or, you know, some of.

Some of that thing.

But.

But I do also collect NFL.

I've got a few 5,000 count boxes of NFL and I'll try to get runs of, you know, good players, players.

I like hall of Famers, things like that.

But.

But Bills is my focus.

I have a little bit of bills myopia and I.

Anything with the.

The logo on it, you know, I want it.

One of the coolest things I got, I got to go back to the NFL hall of Fame with my brother.

And at the NFL hall of Fame, they have these postcards of each.

Each player.

So I got every bill that's been a Hall of Famer and that.

A couple.

I mean, I love my bills that are hall of Famers.

And also it reminds me of that trip and that time I spent with my brother and my uncle.

And, you know, it was a cool time because, you know, we grew up loving football, talking about football, playing football cards.

And so that was kind of a seminal moment.

And we used to have this.

These cards.

I don't know if you remember them.

They're the.

Oh, what is it?

Oh, they're the.

The longer cards.

They were made by flir.

They're the Roll of Honor or something like that.

But they were our first introduction to the hall of Fame.

And so, you know, players we would have never known about, like Don Hudson and Bronco Nagursky and stuff like that, we got these.

These tall boy type FLIR cards of them.

And then, you know, going back there and seeing that actual place where those came from, that was pretty cool.

But long way to answer your question.

I am a little bit of a hybrid, but focused on the Bills.

I'm trying to, again, collect every Bills card ever made.

Yeah, I had experience.

I came across.

I was walking through a local hobby shop a couple years ago, I guess not really a hobby shop, almost like a secondhand store.

And I always look for football memorabilia or something.

I can have car conversation about some history.

And I saw these.

These big things.

You know, there was one of Bart Starr and one of, I think Calvin Hill.

And I'm like, what the heck are these things?

They were.

They're big.

They're, you know, almost six inches long.

I couldn't figure out what they were.

They were in a glass case.

I looked at them.

I asked the guy if he knew what they were.

He didn't.

So I end up doing, you know, the Google in it.

I took a picture of it and said, what?

You know, what is this?

And it showed to me.

I don't know if I've ever seen the.

So there's like 37 of them, and I think 17 or 18 of them are hall of Famers now, these guys.

But the hardest one to get is a Buffalo Bill.

Maybe it's a taboo word to say because he's kind of nefarious now, but O.J.

simpson was the hardest and probably the most valuable card in that set.

He was, he was hard to get.

And a good friend of mine, Bob Swick, hooked me up and helped me get that.

You know, Bob's runs Gridiron Greats Magazine and, And he helped me get that one.

But, yeah, that was a tough one to get.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Interesting thing about O.J.

you know, you can't deny his talent, but not exactly proud of him.

When the Bills came out with their 50th anniversary team, you know, they'd have three wide receivers, they'd have a couple quarterbacks.

They had one running back, Thurman Thomas.

So, you know, even the Bills franchise was like, we're just naming one running back.

It's Thurman, and, like, kind of acting like nothing, nothing to see here, you know?

Yeah, so fair enough.

I found that interesting, and I kind of, I.

You know, you watch the old films of him.

He was amazing.

But, you know, sometimes the player's personal life weighs on my, like, appreciation of them.

Like, you know, like Tyreek Hill.

Not a fan.

I'm sure, you know, he's fan fast.

He's a good receiver and everything.

I don't want him on my team because of who he is, you know, so, so, so some of those things, like, I, I, I do have some OJ cards, but I'm not, like, super trying to collect a lot of OG memorabilia.

I do have the cards they produced of him just because I'm trying to get all the Bills cards, but kind of with chagrin.

So, so what.

What's one of those cards that you were trying to get for the longest time and maybe you had a little bit of adventure getting it?

May A story about that and what.

Yeah, you know, the earlier 60s bills cards are the tougher ones to get.

They.

They tend to be a little harder and, you know, a little tougher to come by.

I really love this one.

You're talking like, the afl.

Yeah, the AFL bills.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I love this one year right here.

I think it's a 66, and they look like an old TV, like the car console TV with the brown wood grain.

It's washing.

There you go.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yep.

So that's my Billy Shaw of that year.

So I was trying to get all the bills of that year, and it took me quite a while, you know, because I. I'm also cheap, which is one thing.

Like, you can be frugal.

Frugal is a better word.

Frugal.

Frugal.

You can be a collector and be frugal.

Like, I've got a Billy Shot jersey I found at a local card shop here in Oregon, signed for $25.

So.

So you can.

Like.

I. I've never spent more.

I think the most I've ever spent on a card is 15 bucks is the most I've ever spent on a card, because I don't care about graded.

And I. I just.

I just want one of each.

I think it was a 67 Jack Kemp that I found that was the 15 bucks.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But then some of.

Some of the ones I'm still trying to find are the more obscure.

Like they have some Frito Lay cards or, you know, they have these police league cards or whatever.

And those ones, you know, you can't just go on trading card out of the base and find them or, you know, you.

You have a hard time finding them.

There's these ones that were produced in Buffalo called Bell's Market cards, and they were a local market that produced these cards.

They took the pictures, I think, at their training camp.

This is Reggie McKenzie.

But those.

Those have been a little bit tough to find.

And then, you know, I still have a big list of.

Because I'm trying to get also players that.

Not necessarily in a bill's uniform that played for the Bills.

So there's some Kansas City Chiefs Frito lace cards that I'm still hunting or, you know, diff.

Different ones.

I have this Seattle Seahawks Tom lynch card.

He played for the bills in the 80s, but the only card they ever made for him was Seattle Seahawks police league.

So.

So I had a little Tough time finding that.

Just stuff like that, that's more obscure and not.

Not one of the major brands like Tops or FLIR or Philadelphia or something like that.

Yeah, that's.

That's.

Everybody has those.

As a collector, especially when you're collecting for one team and.

And you're ways away from where people would have them.

You know, probably over in my area, there's probably more prevalent, but the world of the Internet and, you know, communicating and everything.

So.

So maybe, you know, maybe somebody has that card that you're looking for.

Actually, folks, if you.

You do, you reach out to Aaron and we'll put the link to your YouTube channel on there.

So maybe people can throw in your comments or something.

If they got something, maybe they can hook you up and get you your card you're looking for.

Yeah, that'd be great.

I was.

When I was back there, I went to a lot of flea markets and a lot of things kind of searching for this.

I found this Mike Malarkey training camp card.

So it wasn't, you know, widely distributed or anything.

It.

People got them when they went to the training camp.

And there was a small set of these, but those were the only Mike Malarkey coach card.

You know, I've got some when he was a Steelers tight end.

But this was an awesome find.

I was like, oh, that's awesome.

And, you know, at a flea market, it was only a quarter or something like that.

Yeah, those are so unique.

You know, how many of them were produced?

You know, nobody knows.

But not as many as a Tops card.

Right.

Yeah, we have.

We have another grocery store chain in our area too, from out of Pittsburgh, Giant Eagle.

And they always would have some cards.

You know, the Steelers would have good seasons, like in the mid-90s.

There's a bunch of cards, so.

And I'm sure probably Wegmans did probably in the 90s, too.

I'm not familiar with that, but I know Wegmans has all kinds of different, you know, little trinkets and, you know.

Yeah, those bills.

Paraphernalia that you can fish.

Your price.

Little people set is.

Yeah, right now.

You would love it.

They just had.

They just had one for sale.

I was up.

We were shopping at Wegmans last Sunday and they had a thing.

They said, oh, we're selling all these things for like $5 a piece.

The whole set of the team.

Like, I don't know, 10.

10 characters in there.

Yeah, yeah, they're out there.

That's cool.

All right, so.

So you're.

So you had two Older brothers now that they also.

Were they also Bills fans or were you guys.

No, my middle brother, Royce, he is a Vikings fan, so we share the super bowl loss trait that we both lost for and never won one.

But he, he loved the Vikings growing up.

He saw them play the Steelers in the super bowl and just kind of fell in love with them.

My uncle was going for the Steelers because he from the PA area, and my, My brother decided to go against my uncle.

And then my oldest brother, he.

He had a couple teams he liked.

We're in the Northwest, so he did like the Seahawks.

You know, we go up to a couple Seahawks games.

And then he also liked the Green Bay Packers.

So, you know, he, he, he would ring for either of those teams.

But, you know, Seahawks, Seahawks are kind of all of our second favorite team because that's who was on tv.

That's who is the local team.

And I do like the Seahawks.

I was, you know, once the Bills were out of the playoffs this year, I was like, okay, now I'm full in on the Seahawks.

So.

But, but yeah, lately I've been trying to go to one Seahawks game per year, you know, and when they played the Bills, I wore my Bills gear and.

And we beat them.

And then one year later, they're in the super bowl and they, you know, they really grew this year.

So I was kind of proud to be a secondary Seahawks fan this year.

It was real close.

It could have been a Bill's Seahawks super bowl, you know.

Yeah, it should have been.

A couple things happened.

Yeah.

Not saying anything about the refs, but, you know.

Right, right.

Yeah.

Watch it.

I'm a former official, so.

Oh, really?

High school official.

So.

Was it a catch, sir?

Was it a catch?

Well.

Well, I have my opinion.

I, I did an episode on it with a guy that Ed Cleese, and I, I told him, I said, I think they got it right because if he would have.

If he would have been fallen to the ground, hit the ground, and the ball would have came out and hit the ground, what would have been.

It would have ruled an incomplete pass.

Right?

So.

Because they got to complete the catch.

And I know this because, you know, we had a game against you're.

You're the team you love to hate, the Patriots.

The Steelers had Jesse James, their tight end, go across the goal line and got the ball knocked out and lost them.

The game is right near the end of the game, and it would have put.

Knocked the Patriots out of the playoffs, I believe, or maybe a playoff game.

I can't Remember that, The circumstance.

But the Steelers lost a game because of that, because he didn't complete the catch, you know, came out before he made his football move.

So that's what I think.

I think they got it right.

And I'm not saying they do it a lot, but I think they got it right.

In that case.

All right, agree to disagree, Darren.

If I.

If I was wearing the colors you're wearing, I probably would be saying the same thing.

All right, so where do you want to take your collection from here?

Are you, like, having your.

Your children picking up where.

Yeah, unfortunately, they don't.

They don't give two.

Two shakes about it.

So, you know, that.

That's one thing I think about is, like, you know, I'm 53.

At some point, you know, I'm not gonna be here anymore.

I. I've curated and loved this collection since I was like, you know, some of these cards.

I still have some of the original cards from when I was 3 and 4 years old.

So I'm like, oh, this is kind of my.

Like, this whole room is full of cards here, and this is my, like, little, you know, man cave full of bill stuff, and nobody else cares.

So.

So I'm like, okay, you know, when I retire and stuff, I'm probably gonna go the other way around and start, you know, taking stuff to card shops, taking.

Taking stuff, you know, to shows, memorabilia shows or whatever, and.

And trying to unload it to somebody who will appreciate it, because, you know, to my wife or my kids, it's just a piece of cardboard.

And they.

They has.

Has no, like, you know, sentimental value to them.

I did remember that name.

It's called Immortal Role.

So my first thing, both me and my brother and our wills, my middle brother Royce, have willed each other our football card sets.

So.

So, you know, that's kind of where my brain is going now, is, you know, I kind of want to put together.

I want to pull out all my really valuable cards that I want to actually give them to my wife and kins and say, like, these are worth money.

Don't just toss them or, you know, get rid of them at a garage sale.

And putting aside and going like these ones, you know, like, these are worth some actual cash.

A lot of my cards aren't.

A lot of my cards, like I said, I'm frugal.

You know, I bought a lot on the cheap, and I don't expect anything out of them other than my enjoyment.

I am still hunting a lot of those really obscure cards for my Bill set.

You know, the.

Like, Jim Leonard.

He just became our defensive coordinator.

I don't have a Jim Leonard card.

So I'm, you know, hunting stuff like that stuff that you.

Even on ebay, you put it in.

It's not on ebay, so, you know, that.

That sort of your stuff.

And then every year, I'm trying to make sure I've got the team.

Like, I just.

I just went out and got a DJ More card because we just traded for DJ Moore yesterday.

Now I got a DJ More card.

So anything like that, that happens.

I'm like, okay, now I got to get that card.

But I feel like I've got the bulk of my bills.

I'm just kind of, like, adding all the very fringe stuff.

And then I am still making cards.

I've made over 300 of my own cards, so I'm still like, okay, they're never gonna make a card of this guy.

I'm gonna make one like, you know, their punter from last year.

They're never gonna make a card of Wishnowski.

So making a wish now Ski card.

They might not have enough letters to put on there.

Yeah, so.

So, you know, I'm still active in it.

I still have my little room.

I have a sign on the door that says Bill's Boulevard.

So I'll tell my wife, hey, I'm going to the Boulevard.

I'll come in here and, you know, make cards, or I'll, you know, sort some cards I bought at a card show or a card shop or on ebay or whatever.

Yeah, all right.

So we've been asking other collectors because part of what we're doing this year is we're trying to get newer collectors to recognize what to aspire to, like yourself.

You know, what you're.

What you're doing, and what kinds of tips and advice maybe can you give to a newer collector that wants to collect teams, especially from your perspective, you're 2,000 miles away from where your team plays their home games, and what kind of advice can you give them?

Yeah, you know, the Internet has sure helped, you know, ebay, trading card database, these kind of places have really helped, you know, make it more, you know, doable.

I would say try not to collect every single card nowadays because they have so many refractors and this and that and the other.

If you're like, I want to get every single Josh Allen card, you're never gonna do it because the, you know, they have so many of them.

It's, and it's cost prohibitive too.

You know, you're gonna spend all your money getting that special autographed one of one or whatever.

I would say, you know, love your team.

Try to, to, you know, get as much as you can, but maybe, maybe limited to two or three of each guy per year or even at least one per year.

And you know, like, it can get overwhelming if you're like, I'm going to collect every single, you know, Josh Allen Carter, every single XYZ guy

analysis almost.

Yeah, right, right.

Like I can't do it.

And so making a little doable list.

I crossed them all off.

I got them.

You know, it feels kind of like you accomplished something.

Start there.

But then the history.

I mean, cards can be a really good, cool way to learn history.

You know, you flip over the card, you're like, oh, this guy was a car salesman, you know, in the off season, or, you know, hey, this guy, you know, got a degree in radio broadcasting or, you know, it's kind of interesting human, human interest level stuff on the back of the older cards.

So I would say, you know, I encourage the vintage stuff.

There's, there's just kind of a charm about the vintage to me.

So if you love a certain team, kind of learn their history through cards a little bit and kind of take yourself back to a little bit of simpler time when they weren't making 30 million bucks a year, they had to get a summer job or they had to get an off season job and some of the interesting parts to me, too, are seeing the heights and weights.

You know, you could have a center that was 6ft, 240 pounds or even less, you know, and he was the center, or like a defensive tackle that weighed 230, you know, and if a guy was 260, he was a big man, you know, and like, like, now, if you're under 300 pounds, like, don't even worry about being on the interior part of the line.

Yeah, you're 260.

You're a wide receiver now, you know.

Right.

Yeah.

Not too far off.

So, yeah, so I encourage, you know, start small, start doable, and don't.

Don't get too overwhelmed.

Make some lists and feel some accomplishments by crossing off a year or like, you know, crossing off, hey, I want, you know, one year of every Thurman Thomas and cross them all off.

But, yeah, you can get overwhelmed because the amount of product out there since basically the 90s, but now they've got all these color, you know, the orange and the black and the whatever.

To me, like, it's the exact same card, whether it's green on the front or blue, you know, So I. I don't.

I don't care about that.

But, you know, I like the players and I like learning a little bit and.

And kind of like being a fan through the cards a little bit.

But, yeah, that's my main thing is I would say start small and then as you cross something else, go like, okay, now I want to get this.

Or like, oh, I saw this, this set.

That's pretty cool.

Another way to learn history is some of these legend sets.

I don't know if you've seen these, but, like, the 97 upper deck legends is my favorite set because it's got a lot of the hall of Famers, a lot of the legends, but with newer graphics, newer, you know, abilities to make a really neat looking card, and then all their stats on the back.

I'm a big stats guy.

I like not just one year of stats.

I like the whole career.

So that's one thing I love about those Upper Deck Legends.

It has the whole career on the back, so you can see every team they played for, you know, every stat they ever made.

So.

Yeah, well, great.

That's great advice.

So before we let you go, why don't you.

Let's give a plug again on your podcast and maybe something you got coming up that people can look forward to, to listen to.

Okay.

Yeah.

It is called Pro Football Retro.

So it's.

It's focused on three main things.

I've got quite a few interviews of players on that, and then the Buffalo Bills.

So if you're into any of those three things, I'd encourage you to check it out.

I do have some collaborations with my brother.

Like, we did our 20 favorite football cards and so on there.

We each show our football card and we talk about why we like that.

So if you're a football card person and you want to weigh in or you want to think about, like, why do people like certain cards?

And then I've been collaborating with another friend, Kelly Reed.

Unfortunately, he's a Cowboys fan, but he's a nice person.

And, you know, we'll.

We'll get together, talk about, like, hey, who's your five top running backs from the 70s?

Or something like that.

And then whatever the topic is, we'll each take turns and talk.

And that's been really fun just to kind of, you know, shoot the bull about football.

You know, some.

Some people the same age kind of like remembering some of our favorite things.

So we've done quite a few of those.

You can check out either my site or Royce's, my brother.

His is called Viking Wax Press.

He does a lot with the new ufl, the new incantation of the usfl.

And then Kelly Reed, he does a weekly podcast podcast on.

It's called Card Blitz.

So, yeah, I'd encourage anybody who loves football to check out any of those.

I've actually loved watching your stuff, Darren, about the history, like the history of the goal post.

And, you know, I just love interesting stuff, like obscure, weird, interesting.

So I want to hit a little bit more on stuff like that.

I do have planned in the afl, they had all star games, which one of them they boycotted because of the Jim Crow laws in the South.

So I want to do one on that.

And then one of the years, they had the Bills championship team as one of the teams, and then all the other stars were the other team.

So it shows, like, all these Bills made the Pro bowl this year.

Well, not really.

The whole team made the Pro bowl because they won the championship, so.

So if you look at Football Reference, it's a little bit like, why did that guy make the Pro Bowl?

He wasn't that great.

Oh, it's because they all did.

So.

So little obscure, weird stuff like that is.

Is kind of my next direction.

Yeah, that's great history.

And folks, if you're driving in the car, you can't write that down.

We will put notes in the show notes of the YouTube channel and the podcast where you can catch Aaron's and Royce's and Kelly's podcast.

We'll put the links of all the owner plug.

I'm going to be a guest on Royce's Vikings Wax press and we very interesting episode he has on some Army Navy gear at the he's going to be talking about with us and stay tuned for that.

I think he's going to let us collaborate and put that on our YouTube channel too after he does that.

So that'd be some good stuff.

So Aaron, we really appreciate you coming on here, taking some time to share your collection, share the history, share your knowledge and keep on collecting.

And thank you.

All right, thanks so much.

That's all the football history we have today, folks.

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