
posted 1/21/05 by Mark Poepsel KOLD News-13 Reporter
On a Tucson woman's Ebay profile, the headline reads: "Divorced and Finally Getting Her Due."
Kim Dryden says after 17 years of marriage she felt neglected by her husband, who she says spent their entire life savings on baseball cards and memorabilia.
Now, she's taking it to him by taking his collection to Ebay.
"It's all worth it," said Dryden. "I just sit here and giggle through the whole thing going, 'I'm going to so send this link to him and he's going to scream!' And there's nothing he can do about it."
Dryden says Mark Granieri spent tens of thousands of dollars buying sports memorabilia indiscriminately.
"Since that was so important, I'm going to sell the things on Ebay and gather up receipts and mail them to him," she said.
Dryden says at one point he took her car and the last of their money and went to Cooperstown, the baseball hall of fame. W hen he got back, she was ready with divorce papers.
"Fanatic doesn't even begin to cover it," she said of his collecting as she shuffled through thousands of cards from the 80s and 90s.
She's got baseball books, clothes, caps, rare cards, complete sets, and it's all up for grabs.
Interviewd by phone, Granieri says his ex-wife won the memorabilia in the divorce.
He admits he treated Dryden badly at times.
He says he's getting treatment in a 12-step program and has learned material goods don't matter.
But that's not what some collectors say.
"It'd be like tearing my heart out," said Doug Adelberg, at a Tucson sports card show. "I've got cards I still have I won't give to my son. I've given him the ones that aren't any good, but I've got the other cards that are valuable and put those in a safe deposit box. My wife doesn't even have the key."
Over the past few weeks, Dryden has worked to put more items up for sale.
"I have an entire climate-controlled storage shed full of stuff," she said.
Dryden's tale begs the question: Why did she stay in that marriage so long?
"He wasn't a wife beater. He wasn't a drug addict, so how hard can it be really?" she said.
She found out when she realized he was not only spending their disposable income, he was failing to pay bills.
"In a ballpark sense," she estimates, "he probably spent 10 thousand dollars each year over 17 years."
Granieri says he wants Dryden to have a good life.
She says she's working on it.
Dryden says even if she sells everything in online auctions, she won't get most of the money back. She has some valuable items, but many are not worth what her husband paid.Still, she's looking ahead with plans to marry an old flame and start a new life.
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