Trade you both of them for your 1998 Greggory Platz IT Director.

I’ve been collecting cards ever since I can remember. I guess it was my dad who first got me into it. Man, he had an amazing collection. He had a complete set of Ford Motor Company’s 1952 senior management team, an Otis Bunkworth attorney-at-law card from 1948 (the year he went before the State Supreme Court), even some cards from guys with Taft Broadcasting back in the day.

Unfortunately, my grandma threw them all out when he moved out of the house. They’d be worth a ton now.

Mine are all a lot more recent than that. For instance, here’s a special-edition, embossed Jeremy Felker rookie card. This kid’s fresh out of his MBA program at Drake and I think he’s going to have a great career, as long as he can avoid injury.

Oh, and here’s a rare Aaron Ashenfelter card from 2002. This lists him as the senior assistant director of marketing, a position he only held for two months before leaving in scandal. This card is crazy hard to find! You basically have to have been at that year’s Mid-Atlantic Pharmaceutical Representatives’ Convention, or know someone who was. I got mine off eBay, but you can tell it’s legit—look at the little spatter of mai-tai. That’s from the Grass Shack Luau Lounge in Secaucus. It actually makes this card more valuable. I’ll never trade this one.

I just cringe when I see people carrying cards around in their wallets. Or worse, stapling them in a Rolodex! That’s insane. I mean, I get that they want to refer to the information on them, but hello, that’s why you get an Iris scanner. It’s a portable, multi-purpose scanner for anything from receipts to legal sized documents, but it’s best for business cards.

It converts them to fully editable and searchable text files, which you can export into Outlook, or certain other address-book-type programs. Then you don’t have to mess up your collection every time you need someone’s phone number.

Even though it freaks me out every time I see someone bending a business card, or picking his teeth with one, or cramming a handful of them into a pants pocket, or even making notes on them in pen—I guess, in a way, I should be glad they do it. After all, the fewer mint-condition Kelli Stepanski superintendent of schools cards there are, the more mine’s worth.

So go ahead. Manhandle your cards. Rubber-band them into groups and let them bang around in your desk drawer, blunting all the corners on them. Dig through them every time you need an email address. Don’t use an Iris business card scanner. See if I care! You’re just increasing the value of my collection by the day.

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