My name is John Newman, I'm the host of Sports Card Nation, Hobby Quick Hits and co-host of Card Mensches and Hobby Hotline.
However my hobby journey started well before content creation. Let's travel back to 1979. Brooklyn,NY. A trip to the corner store with my grandfather resulted in me getting a couple packs of 1979 Topps Baseball, a pulled Reggie Jackson later and I buckled my seat belt for the ride to come.
I started to go to my local LCS almost daily, the owner Rudy Bachstein eventually put me to work in the store and on the show circuit. I started to amass a decent collection, my friends wanted my gum..I wanted their cards. It worked out for everybody.
At 15 I succumbed to the peer pressure of my collecting friends and got a New York State Tax Number and did my first show individually. It was such a great success my grandmother made me open a bank account and put those funds in the bank, Like she said "You can't walk around NYC with that kind of money in your pocket".
Five years later at age 20 and with an older partner I opened my first store. I learned a lot during my six years in the store. I was an occasional writer for Tuff Stuff magazine as well.
After leaving the store I traveled the Northeast on the show circuit, with the rise of the internet and ebay I had the freedom to do the hobby on multi-levels. I was having fun.
I got in on the content creation side of the hobby early in it's rise with the launch of "Sports Card Nation" in 2018. Like the tagline of the show says "The Hobby is the People" and I've been blessed to meet and make many hobby friends. We interviewed over 200 people on the show. I'm particularly proud of that.
I pride myself on being an advocate and ambassador of the hobby, I think my almost forty years of hobby experience warrant me being such. The hobby has been very good to me and in return I try to be the same. In recent years I've been blessed to speak on the main stage at the National multiple times and also currently write a monthly column for Sports Collectors Digest called "The Hobby is the People", where I got to put a positive spotlight on a great person in the hobby.
I'm happy to team here at Hobby News Daily with creator Danny Black, I think you'll enjoy the freshness of the site and hope you enjoy my column which could cover a variety of topics.
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