My name is Cliff Aliperti and I own this site.  Though The Collectors Site is brand new, I like to think it will over time become the parent site to both things-and-other-stuff.com and collecting-old-magazines.com.  This page is a brief history of my lifetime involvement in collectibles and how I got here.

In 1991 I left my job and started doing card shows myself around Long Island.  Unfortunately this was the beginning of a dead period and before long I was losing money.  I kept it up until 1993, doing shows every Saturday and Sunday, oftentimes Friday night previews as well at the big shows, and sometimes I'd do a Wednesday night show as well.  Met some interesting people but soon realized that I was selling the same items to the same faces every week.  I put an end to my travels, got a day job, and went back to my own collecting.

But I've never really had the patience to collect.  The problem is I want it all when I start going after something, and economically that isn't always possible.  But I do like knowing that I had one of those once!  Now when I buy new items they must qualify under two criteria: 1. It has to be purchasable at the right price; 2. I wouldn't mind being stuck with it if nobody else wants it!  Today my "collection" consists of the images found on my web sites.  Most of those items I no longer physically possess, but I'll always have the images...as long as I pay my hosting fees!

After graduating college I was forced to get a real job.  I self-educated myself on the computer at work and spent downtime browsing eBay.  This lead to purchasing my own first PC and dusting off my stock to sell on eBay.  That started around April 2000.  In September 2001 I opened my first shop on Ruby Lane (that shop has since closed) and in the Spring of 2002 I decided that it was time to get my own Web space to promote my sales.

Along the way I continued to follow the two rules mentioned above and ended up buying some old movie collectibles here and there.  It amazed me that I could pick up pieces featuring movie giants of the early days, such as Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and John Barrymore, for such cheap prices.  Why these were the Babe Ruths, Lou Gehrigs and Joe DiMaggios of the movie world at a tenth or even a twentieth of the price!  There seemed to be a lot of potential. 

things-and-other-stuff.com began as a mish-mash of all of the collectibles I was interested in and dealt with including baseball cards & memorabilia, magazines, books, ephemera, and then came those movie items.  Over time the baseball and the other-stuff disappeared from things-and-other-stuff.com and the site became 100% dedicated to movies.  It still is, but now I miss some of the "other-stuff".  collecting-old-magazines.com is an attempt to create a site for magazines similar to the one I already created for movies.  But I'm interested in so many other items and only have so much time!  Why not create a site for all hobbyists as well, not something about an exclusive area of collecting, more of a Collectors Site. 

My ideal for The Collectors Site, at least initially, is to create a comprehensive group of pages mostly regarding the collectibles I handle which will save me the trouble of having to open up a half dozen different books or search endlessly on Google for information.  I want a place that I can go and know where my information is.  I always figure that if I want something, then somebody else does too, so hopefully The Collectors Site will help you out as well.  As the site develops I hope to expand it's self-centered focus to more of a community atmosphere...I hope you come back to visit!