Sean Casey loves baseball cards so much he opened his own store

Now that summer is finally here, it's time to head back inside, turn up the air conditioner and really start spending some time on your baseball card collection. If you found that sentence inspiring, well, you're in the right place because the latest episode of MLB's Carded presented by the eBay Vault just dropped and we've got all the card collecting info you could ever want.

This week's episode brings us to the legendary Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. No, we're not taking a hard turn into art history, rather the Met has one of the greatest baseball card collections in the world. In fact, the man who donated his collection to the museum -- Jefferson Burdick -- could be considered the forefather of all modern card collecting.

When he first approached the museum and offered to donate his 300,000-plus item collection, the Met actually rejected him. But after meeting with A. Hyatt Mayor, the curator of prints and photographs, they eventually acquiesced under the condition that Burdick organize the collection himself.

If you're wondering, that's how Burdick became responsible for how Honus Wagner's legendary T206 card got its name.

"That's because it was part of the white border series that Burdick designated 'T,' which stands for twentieth century tobacco and '206' as it was the 206th series in the collection," Allison Burdick, Associate Curator for Drawings and Prints said.

If Wagner is the most famous of all baseball cards, let's go to the exact opposite end of the spectrum and focus on the card set that delivers players long before they become household names: Bowman.

Originally founded in 1927, the brand issued its first baseball-specific cards in 1948 before later selling to Topps in 1955. At first, they were like any other card company at the time -- they produced Mickey Mantle's first rookie card in 1951 -- but when Topps relaunched the brand in 1989 it became the place for prospect hounds to snag the hottest players.

"It's the ability to tell your friends, I bought this guy day one, [I believed] in him, I've held onto him for the last five years and now it's paying dividends," Aaron Abrams, Topps' brand manager, said. "'So, I've got this entire collection of 2009 Mike Trouts because I saw his future in 2009,' whereas everyone else was sitting on those cards or giving them away for fun. Those are the kinds of stories Bowman can really provide you with."

Wondering where to buy the newest Bowman set? If you're anywhere near New Jersey, you can drop in to Gold Line Collectibles, a baseball card store co-owned by former Major Leaguer Sean Casey and his business partner Fred Roth.

"It's been awesome, it's like I'm a kid again -- with money," Casey joked. "Back in the day, when I was collecting it was like, 'I'm delivering papers, cutting grass, shoveling driveways and all I'm doing is buying wrestling figures and baseball cards.' Now I've got big league money and I can buy a baseball card store."

Even better, Casey recently discovered his baseball card binder that had been hiding in an attic since he was 14 years old. If you want to get incredibly jealous over pages and pages of Ken Griffey Jr. rookie cards, well, this is the video for you.

"I collected all of Griff’s cards but then I ended up playing with him for six years in Cincinnati -- so weird!" Casey said. "He was a little better than me, but he got to the big leagues a lot quicker."

For more full episodes of Carded, be sure to head over to MLB.tv.