My thoughts on, and history of jersey collecting

A closet in an upstairs room of our house, once dedicated to coats of various weights and thicknesses to negotiate the long Rochester winter, has become nearly overrun with sports jerseys.  Coat hangers have become a hot commodity in our house, and eventually a separate wardrobe was purchased and placed in the basement for the coats.  Business casual button-downs still seems to be hanging on among the personalized hockey sweaters.

The funny thing is, I never set out to become a memorabilia collector of any kind.  The only daylight my childhood sports card collection amassment has seen in thirty years has been to enter each card into databases for cataloguing.  Yet, there we were, my wife and I, soldiering on for hours in August of 2010, ogling the floorshow of the Baltimore Convention Center with one overarching mission: bring home a game worn jersey.

I found myself participating in a decent upper body workout as we combed through the tightly packed racks in the Hartel Sports corral toward the end of the day.  My mind raced, rapidly processing various journeyman Expos and Kingston Frontenacs, as I attempted to calculate desirability factors on every piece.  At the end of the day I went for the value play.  Two minor league jerseys (for the price of one major league jersey!) made the trip back to New York with us.  Why two?  The better to improve the collection with, of course.

My aim with this site is manifold.  I suppose I'd like to primarily accomplish the following:

• Take stock of what I have and index it with sortable tags
• Be able to show and share my jerseys graphically
• Keep a permanent record of details regarding acquisition, etc.
• To converse with other collectors who share similar interests

I feel every jersey has an interesting story behind it, perhaps only interesting to me, but I'd like to relate them nevertheless.  It is my hope, and I highly suspect that the process of digging into the provenance and purchasing history, and sharing detailed and visual stories, will bring me as much enjoyment as wearing them to a game.

Far from a jersey 'snob,' I will be sure to include some non-game worn jerseys that retain some personal value from time to time.  I will be completely honest about each and every thing I write as I am not trying to make anything out to be something that it is clearly not.  Finally, I hope you enjoy my site and look forward to hearing from you regarding your own personal collections!