The End

Mike

TP9 | VC15
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5.00 star(s)
Unfortunately it is time for TCZ/SCC to come to an end.

I started collecting cards back in May 2008. When I first started out I joined TCC and found a home there. I was quickly welcomed as a part of that community and loved every minute of it. TCC was the only forum I was a member of back then. I simply had no other reason to be a part of any other collecting site. I was quickly made to feel welcome there like I'd been a member of their community for years! In a little over a year (July 2009) I was added to TCC's Membership Team. Less than a year after that, I was named as the Content and Graphics Team Manager. As far as I was concerned the hobby, the site, and my collection were all moving along just as I liked.

Not long after that TCC took a turn for the worse. The owner went AWOL, we lost the ability to make changes to the site, and (at least in my mind) all hope was lost. That's where this idea for TCZ was started. It took some time but at one time TCZ was a fairly active place.

Several years into its start my wife experienced some health issues and I had to shut the site down due to financial issues. Once things got back on track and I opened the site back up again, things just never hit stride again like they once had.

I've kept the site going for years with tons of ideas and thoughts on how to expand membership and keep things trucking along. The hope was always to get TCZ back to its former glory.

I even acquired a few other sites and merged them with TCZ in hopes of getting some newly active members that way. Both sites I acquired, however, were slowly dying the same death as TCZ before I acquired them and there was nothing I could do to stop that.

For different reasons here and there, mostly of my own fault of taking breaks from the hobby from time to time, none of the ideas I had ever came to fruition and most of the projects I started on ended up getting laid to rest.

Combined with the fact that I wasn't able to keep TCZ as active as I'd like, the hobby is also changing in a way that just no longer suits me. Boxes are getting too expensive, the focus has changed largely towards young rookies, and there just doesn't seem to be as much focus on actual collectors anymore. The hobby just isn't as exciting for me anymore. It's just nothing like it once was. Maybe it's just me, or maybe not. Either way, though, it's just not as enjoyable to me as it once was.

That is why today, after a lot of thought, I am announcing that TCZ/SCC has reached its end. This is something I've been considering doing for probably a year, or maybe even longer, but I think the time is now for me to move on from the hobby and this site.

I've met a lot of friends and acquaintances over the years, some of which I will forever keep in touch with, and I'm extremely grateful for each and every one of you. I appreciate all of your contributions to this site and to my personal collection through the years.

Because of the group breaks that are currently ongoing on the site, the site will remain online and operable until at least January 1, 2022 or until all of the group breaks are completed. After that, the site will be completely deleted and taken offline permanently.

Again, thank you all for your time and, most importantly, your friendship through the years. I cannot express what it means to me to have met so many awesome people in this hobby, and through this site.

Collect Hard! -RGBII
 
A bitter sweet moment to be sure. It was probably around 2009-10 when I first followed a Crpalmi video back from YouTube and found the TCC website. No doubt my bank account would have been better off if I had never gotten back into the hobby I (like pretty much everyone else here I'm sure) enjoyed as a kid.
Being Canadian the bulk of my childhood collection was O-Pee-Chee hockey cards with the odd pack of football, baseball, basketball thrown in for good measure. I wasn't young enough to have any Gretzky rookies in my shoe box but I had more than my share of Yzerman and Lemieux rookies...not that they would have been worth a whole lot after lining them up against the bottom of the fridge at my cousin's house and whoever knocked them over with a flicked card got to keep them...All the same those are great memories. Being over at a friends house and rifling through a few hundred cards and knowing which ones you needed and which ones you "got" is another memory that I'm sure most of us share...hopefully most of you guys listened when your mom told you to clean your cards up and didn't lose your first collection of cards to the garbage can like I did.
I've always been jealous of the guys running the breaks. It must be a rush to open a pack and find that big hit. Having said that there's never been a doubt in my mind that there's a lot of hard work involved as well between the sorting, shipping, having to wait on payments etc.
As a father of three boys this hobby (and beer) are probably the only times I don't let myself feel guilty that I'm putting something I want ahead of all the other daily expenses.
Thank you for all the time and effort you've put into making the rest of us able to pursue our addiction Mike and the best of luck moving forward.
 
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