Christopher Rush

While you are having a fun summer vacation watching top-notch anime series and movies, I am hoping I will be organizing my Star Trek CCG collection. Not that it is in total shambles, mind you.  Just because I haven’t played the game since Hanson was on the charts doesn’t mean my Star Trek CCG collection is in disrepair.  What I mean is ever since the summer of 2015 I’ve felt like taking inventory of what I have, what I don’t have, investigating what it may take to fill in some of those gaps, and, ideally, actually play the game again.  Despite popular opinion, I don’t really enjoy acquiring things just to have them: I do want to read the books I own, I do want to play the games I own, I do want to watch the digital video discs I own, et cetera.  I’m not big on just having objects in my home just for the purported joy of ownership.  It’s all God’s anyway, right?

I have no false hopes the electronic-bay will suddenly get giddy for my extras: “oh, you have 121 ‘Anaphasic Organism’s?  Here’s a bajillion dollars!”  I doubt I could get a ha’penny for all my “Anaphasic Organism”s, “Archer”s, “Phaser”s, et cetera put together.  I’m sure the world has no need for my commons.  Nor do I have any designs on selling my rares (no one ever believed the “I.K.C. Pagh” was “rare”).  I’m not trying to get back the, shall we say, hefty amount of money that was paid for this decent-sized collection (I admit wholeheartedly my parents paid for most of it).  I just want to know what I have.

Then I want to give most of it away.  Are you interested?

I can tell you now it’s all 1^st-edition stuff, basically up to Deep Space Nine and a bit beyond.  It’s been awhile since I’ve really looked into the game, not counting a few dormancy-ending days last summer, so I’m not sure what I’m missing as far as what sets I have none of in the 1st edition.  I’m hoping my brother will be able to get a few boxes of packs or whatnot at GenCon this year, maybe even dabbling in 2^nd edition, but we’ll see.  This past Christmas, my dad got us a box of Marvel Dice Masters booster packs, and Julia and Ethan and I had a good deal of fun opening them, seeing what cards and dice came in the packs, and then I had a swell time organizing it all, seeing what was missing, what we got … and all the fun of opening CCG packs back in the ’90s came back to me.

Coming from a long line of librarians, or a short line depending on your angle, organizing must be in my blood.  Like, possibly, most who grew up in the CCG age, I spent a lot more time organizing, bindering, listing, organizing, and deckmaking than I spent actually playing the game.  I’ve already told you the story of how I got the ultra-rare “Future Enterprise” card from a 97-cent discount pack from WaldenBooks my mom got me one summer afternoon, and how she got me the limited edition Kivas Fajo Collection as a pick-me-up after I broke my arm (it was only until later, when I grew up a bit, that I found out it is somewhat incongruous to spend a good deal of money for a gift to cheer up someone who just cost you a great deal of money on hospital bills as a consequence for doing what you shouldn’t have been doing in the first place — it must have been love).  But that’s part of the fun with CCGs, really: much like Wordsworth’s dual-view of poetry, CCGs are both the overflow of powerful emotions (buying the boosters and seeing what new cards are inside … or more likely what duplicates you got again) and those powerful emotions recollected in tranquility (the calm joys of sorting, organizing, and checking off your growing collection).  The only downside is the cost.

And storage.  I’m out of storage space.  Do you want to help?

Hey, if you come take my duplicates, we could maybe then starting playing the game together.  Everyone wins.  Give it a thought.  Let me know.  It’ll be fun.

P.S. — Are you interested in Decipher’s Middle Earth: The Wizards CCG?

P.P.S. — Even if you don’t want any anime or feel like starting your own hand-me-down Star Trek CCG collection, I hope you can come over for the summer gaming days.  That may be even more fun.

P.P.P.S. — In any event, we at Redeeming Pandora are very grateful for your loyal readership over the years through all 20 exciting issues.  I recently looked at issue 1 … man, we hit the ground running and we have been having a blast ever since.  I say “we,” even though most of the team has fluctuated over the years, but the willingness of the ol’ staff to continue contributing, as evidenced in this very issue, has been a genuine delight for me, especially seeing how they have grown and improved after their time with us.  Here’s to 20 more issues, faithful reader!

Enjoy your summer!

Remember: “wherever you go, whatever you do, whatever you say … say, say, say … say it with love!”