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I Had Over Twenty Two Hundred Business Cards That Are Worthless Now
The people either died, retired, or their companies disappeared
I stumbled on a box the other day in my closet. It was an estimated 2200 business cards that I've collected over the years.
Wow, I thought, buried in these cards are all kinds of stories. It didn't take me long to realize I needed to throw them out.
Some were over forty years old, stretching back to the beginning of my working life in the seventies. There is no collectible value to business cards.
I randomly pulled a few out, stared at them, and tried to recreate who gave them to me and where we were when the exchange took place. That was a fun game.
Some cards came to life very quickly, like scenes from the movie Jumanji. I would envision the man or woman, in some cases look them up on LinkedIn, and then shut my eyes and imagine our meeting.
Remarkably a few cards bought to life visions of romantic evenings in cheap hotels with bottles of Boone's Farm and clothes strung out everywhere. Having romantic evenings with imitation wine while listening to ABBA was a big thing at the time.
Of course, those were cards from friends and business associates before I got married.