General Forum

Do you consider yourself a collector or a re-seller? I mean you can do both, I am just curious about those who buy, sell and trade cards for profit as opposed to just collecting for the love of it. Then again, I can see it the other way where you enjoy the hobby so much why not make a business of it by helping others collect. Just musing really.

I think of myself as more of a collector....of too much lol. Now that I'm older, I'm trying to sell my things for my family's future. Hot Wheels sold for my daughter's future fund. Cards, comics, toys, etc for what I'm hoping is a new place to live. I have my 'bucket set' list, sets I want to complete. Fun challenge for me, since this will never be a business for me. I'm not in it for the profit, but if I can sell it then I will so it will help my family down the road. So.....I'm a collector who will sell so it helps out with our future but still enjoy the hobby. Sorry for rambling

Went to a card show today, first time since the pandemic began. Seems like all panini is putting out is chrome stuff. Lots of scalped boxes. On the plus side the people didn't seem to care much about grading and were actually using their own brains to collect. That's an improvement. 

I'm always going to still be here in some capacity.

I just shake my head at the price of boxes today. Panini must be making a ton of money. I refuse to buy anything new. I pick up a few things privately or on auctions and I am working on filling out things I don't have that aren't part of the current insanity. I'm not sure if I will ever collect the stuff from today unless the bottom falls out of the market.

I watched Packerscards87 open up a box of Spectra football last night. I believe he said it was $1000 for a box (4 packs of 4 cards per pack). I'm not sure who buys that stuff.

When it could be spent on several Aaron or Williams or Mays or Clemente or Mantle or so on and so on...

I boy the occasional hobby box from my LCS, and have even taken to buying jumbos for each base Topps set. I am fortunate enough to be good friends with the LCS owner and he is an old chool collector that refuses to play the scalpers' game either so his prices stay pretty reasonable. My local Walmart also seems to be stocked in waves where some months the shelf is empty while other months it is stuffed full of goodies. Now I am mostly just trying to focus on trading away all the cards I don't really care for for sets I am trying to build.

I am thankful I was a collector and avid sports fan during the junk era so there are still cards for me to collect. The only challenge there is the graders entering in on unopened and possible gem mint cards. You can have today's hobby. It is far too expensive and it will collapse.

$1000 for 16 cards is way too much. You may be able to pull a banger and really get your money back but spectra dies off after a few months.  

I started collecting and joined TCDB a couple months ago and things have changed from when I collected as a kid in the late-70s to early-80s (I no longer have those cards). I'm a team set collector focusing on Baltimore Orioles and Washington Capitals cards (Cal Ripken and Alexander Ovechkin can make that a pricey endeavor in my book). I've bought a few team sets from eBay and from a local card dealer that is set up at a weekend flea market. The flea market guy sold me 12 Orioles teams sets (all 80s-90s) for $2.50 for all of them. I was floored and appreciative since each set was marked $2 - $3 each. After wiping out his teams sets, I started coming back on other weekends for the $0.10 cards to complete sets. The TCDB is a great help in that as I can have my collection open on my phone as I'm going through bins looking for cards. Digging through the bins looking for that one card to complete a set. That, for me, is where the fun is at. Looking for the cards! I'm not looking to invest in anything or turn a profit. The joy is the hunt.

In response to cardcollector65jw, I was at a local card shop going through the $0.20 bins trying to complete some sets. Had gathered about a $10 pile of cards so far. As I'm looking, a guy walks in and I overhear him ask the guy behind the counter, "I'll take two box of Prisms". The store clerk says, "That'll be four eighty five.............fifteen". I had to do a double-take. Did he just say $485.15? My brain was thinking $4.85 until I heard the "fifteen". So, yeah. I was thinking the same thing. Who buys this stuff? My wife would throat-punch me if I came home with cards costing $485...............and 15 cents!! I'm not in it for that. Some are, and I respect that.

Happy Collecting!

BSwagger wrote:

I watched Packerscards87 open up a box of Spectra football last night. I believe he said it was $1000 for a box (4 packs of 4 cards per pack). I'm not sure who buys that stuff.