Ron 2.0 - Another Acquisition for the Ages

For me, collecting baseball cards is a journey. There is no real destination. While I'm collecting little pieces of cardboard, I'm also able to collect some pretty fond memories. Sometimes during this journey we get to meet some pretty awesome people.

While collecting Scott Rolen cards, I have met several great people who share the same passion as I have. One of those people is Ron from Jasper, IN. You may remember the incredible Rolen collection I picked up back in September of 2023. Well, as it turns out, I met another great collector named Ron. This one hails from North Carolina.

It all started on a typical evening as I was perusing ebay. I saw several really nice Rolen cards that I wanted for my collection. As I typically do, I put down a small beginning bid on several of the cards he had listed. Fast forward a bit and the auctions were set to end. As it turns out, I won several of those auctions. There were more auctions for Rolen cards set to end from this same seller and he reached out to me. That's when I "met" Ron. We started messaging back and forth on ebay about some of the cards I was either bidding on or cards that I planned on bidding on.

Here's a little pro-tip for collecting - specifically player collecting: when you find something rare on ebay, reach out to the seller to see if they have anything else of your player. Oftentimes they have a lot more, they just aren't as inclined to list every single card all at once.

As Ron and I were messaging back and forth we had a really great conversation about the Phillies and Scott Rolen cards. Ron mentioned that he had a lot more Rolen cards and other collectibles. I won't say how exactly, because it may violate a rule or two, but we ended up contacting each other outside of ebay. Ron and I had several video calls because we figured it would be much easier to go through his collection via video as opposed to pictures/texts.

I am beyond grateful for Ron taking the time to chat with me about his collection. While looking through his extensive collection, I could tell that he was a very passionate collector. We went through his cards one-by-one. Since it was such a large collection, we had to break it up over several evenings; each call lasting a minimum of two hours! While looking through his collection, I was trying to contain my excitement. He had cards in his collection that I had never seen. He had cards in his collection that I had rarely seen. And he had cards in his collection of which I have a dozen copies.

As we went through the cards, Ron pulled out all of the ones that I said I needed. As he stacked them up, we could see the pile grow larger and larger. My mind was racing thinking about adding all of these cards I needed in a single transaction. That

was something I hadn't been able to do since acquiring the other Ron's collection! While Ron was pulling cards out and setting them aside for me, I was able to help him identify other cards (that I already had) that were valuable so he could list those on ebay.

While looking through Ron's collection, there were also items that were not cards that I wanted for my Rolen collection. There were framed pictures, baseball card sell sheets, magazines and other publications, a light switch cover, card show passes, as well as some stuffed bears with Rolen's name on the back.

With pictures of everything pulled up on my computer, I began making a spreadsheet to track everything. I wanted to come up with a price for everything that was fair to me as a buyer as well as Ron as a seller. I poured over that list for hours trying to look up comps for all of the cards. Some were easy to find, but many of them were difficult to track down due to there not being very many (or any at all) records of public sales.

I know by now you're probably tired of reading and you're wanting to see some pictures of everything I was able to buy. Without further adieu, here it is:

As you can see, this collection was too large for my small folding table, so I had to take a couple of pictures. I had to stack the cards a bit for them to all fit on the table, so I have included the gallery here in this post for your viewing pleasure!

It has been really fun going through all of these cards with Ron. I've also had fun looking at each and every card as I scanned it for my website. Looking at all of the different photos of Rolen, reading all of the little blurbs on the backs of the cards, and admiring what cards used to be. I think there is still some hope for the future of the hobby. They just need to get away from the myriad of parallels and bring back some fun innovation to the hobby.

Thanks again, Ron! I'm sad that you had to make the tough decision to part ways with your collection. But I assure you, I will provide a great home for these cards for years to come!

P.S.,

As it turns out, adding all of these cards from Ron's collection to The Rolen Collection, I have surpassed the 4,000 unique card mark! What was card number 4,000? While I can't say with 100% certainty - since all of these cards were technically added at the same time, I believe the 4,000th scan for my website was this beauty:

P.P.S.,

I was able to also add another monster of a card via Ron to my collection. This one was from an ebay win, but just to ensure you all appreciate the magnitude of this collection, check this one out: