Good day my fellow collectors. I turned on my computer this morning and ventured on my usual card forums to read of a fellow who had busted a case plus a few loose boxes of this year's National Treasures. Now he was very upset because he didn't get what he thought was very good 'value' for his purchase. He did indeed get the promised case hit and autos and game used per box/case but was unhappy because apart from five or so cards he didn't believe anything was worth more than $20. It got me thinking he is not the only one. Every day I read stories of people who are unhappy because they feel they have been ripped off or scammed because they didn't get the value they sought after and it made me ponder.......... has this hobby lost its way?
Gone are the days in 90s when you used to sit eagerly opening your packs in the hope of a rare 'insert', yes you heard me right...... an insert. Gone are the days when you used to get excited about pulling a Michael Jordan or Shaq base. Gone are the days that the only time you cared about the value of the card is when you were trading cards with little jimmy down the road, only to make sure it was fair and equitable.
Some may say well if I'm forking out $100+ a box or $1700 a case I should get value for my money and this is true to an extent. However prices are only this high because card companies are trying to meet consumer demand. Consumers now demand there must be autos and game used cards galore per box, and are mortified if they don't receive a Kobe, Rose or even MJ card of value; hence card companies now must fork out more money to satisfy these demands to pay players to sign these tiny pieces of cardboard that we so highly seek. Some may say but these companies are ripping us off and making millions in profits, this couldn't be further from the truth. The trading card business is a very small margin one and you only have to go back and look at all those companies who failed and went bankrupt to understand this.
So who's fault is this? Well the card enthusiest has to take some of the responsability, myself included. We have become so spoilt and set our expectations so high, that as I said before, if we don't receive the big hit or something we consider value we kick up a stink and cease purchasing product as a lot have done with the current manufacturer. Hence why in Panini's Gold Standard product there is over 2,000 Kobe Bryant autos and Upper deck have flooded the market with Michael Jordan and Lebron James autos in their latest lines.
The other party at fault I believe is ebay. In the 1990s, and before, you were only able to trade, buy and sell your cards in your local community, or with little timmy down the street or with a few mates in the school yard at lunch time. These days you can still trade with little timmy, but this little timmy lives on the other side of the world in some city in the US, Europe or Asia. This has yes opened us up to a new world and made it easier for us to complete our player PCs and set chases but it has also made us become victims of our own creation. Before if you saw a card you wanted you had to wait until you were able to trade for it with someone in the community, bust it in a pack or box or buy it from an overpriced hobby shop. These days we see a card we want on ebay and within a few clicks and a couple of weeks its in our hands. This has lead to less collecting and more turnover of cards because ultimately there is an infinite amount of cards we desire but only an certain amount of dollars we can spend, before our partners have us for it
. This is also why we are so upset when we don't get the value we desire in a box/case of cards because if we don't get this value we can't then turf those cards to purchase new ones off 'the bay'.
Also no longer do we use what used to be considered the bible of the hobby, the beckett magazine, for value and prices of cards, we instead use ebay. To me in this current day and age it makes more sense as it is kind of a trading card stock market able to give us to the second prices on our cards based on a true reflection of demand and supply.
The final party I blame is the card manufacturing companies themselves as they are the ones continually pumping out more product, autos and game used cards than ever before. However for this I blame them the least as they are only trying to meet consumer demand and without them we wouldn't have this wonderful hobby.
So what can we summise out of all this? Well basically we have become less collectors and more value seekers within the hobby and at times tried to run it as a business. This is not why the hobby was created and is the main reason I think the hobby has lost its way. One has to think logically that if everyone received a Kobe, MJ or Lebron auto every time they opened a product their value would diminsh and what are we left then........ a piece of cardboard with someone's scribble on it. So next time you bust a box or case of cards and feel aggreived you didn't get the value you were seeking maybe sit back and appreciate what the card is actually all about. Its a chance for us the card/sports enthusiest to get closer to the game and players we admire so and also realise its because of these smaller hits that when we actually get 'the big one' it feels so much better.
Gone are the days in 90s when you used to sit eagerly opening your packs in the hope of a rare 'insert', yes you heard me right...... an insert. Gone are the days when you used to get excited about pulling a Michael Jordan or Shaq base. Gone are the days that the only time you cared about the value of the card is when you were trading cards with little jimmy down the road, only to make sure it was fair and equitable.
Some may say well if I'm forking out $100+ a box or $1700 a case I should get value for my money and this is true to an extent. However prices are only this high because card companies are trying to meet consumer demand. Consumers now demand there must be autos and game used cards galore per box, and are mortified if they don't receive a Kobe, Rose or even MJ card of value; hence card companies now must fork out more money to satisfy these demands to pay players to sign these tiny pieces of cardboard that we so highly seek. Some may say but these companies are ripping us off and making millions in profits, this couldn't be further from the truth. The trading card business is a very small margin one and you only have to go back and look at all those companies who failed and went bankrupt to understand this.
So who's fault is this? Well the card enthusiest has to take some of the responsability, myself included. We have become so spoilt and set our expectations so high, that as I said before, if we don't receive the big hit or something we consider value we kick up a stink and cease purchasing product as a lot have done with the current manufacturer. Hence why in Panini's Gold Standard product there is over 2,000 Kobe Bryant autos and Upper deck have flooded the market with Michael Jordan and Lebron James autos in their latest lines.
The other party at fault I believe is ebay. In the 1990s, and before, you were only able to trade, buy and sell your cards in your local community, or with little timmy down the street or with a few mates in the school yard at lunch time. These days you can still trade with little timmy, but this little timmy lives on the other side of the world in some city in the US, Europe or Asia. This has yes opened us up to a new world and made it easier for us to complete our player PCs and set chases but it has also made us become victims of our own creation. Before if you saw a card you wanted you had to wait until you were able to trade for it with someone in the community, bust it in a pack or box or buy it from an overpriced hobby shop. These days we see a card we want on ebay and within a few clicks and a couple of weeks its in our hands. This has lead to less collecting and more turnover of cards because ultimately there is an infinite amount of cards we desire but only an certain amount of dollars we can spend, before our partners have us for it
. This is also why we are so upset when we don't get the value we desire in a box/case of cards because if we don't get this value we can't then turf those cards to purchase new ones off 'the bay'. Also no longer do we use what used to be considered the bible of the hobby, the beckett magazine, for value and prices of cards, we instead use ebay. To me in this current day and age it makes more sense as it is kind of a trading card stock market able to give us to the second prices on our cards based on a true reflection of demand and supply.
The final party I blame is the card manufacturing companies themselves as they are the ones continually pumping out more product, autos and game used cards than ever before. However for this I blame them the least as they are only trying to meet consumer demand and without them we wouldn't have this wonderful hobby.
So what can we summise out of all this? Well basically we have become less collectors and more value seekers within the hobby and at times tried to run it as a business. This is not why the hobby was created and is the main reason I think the hobby has lost its way. One has to think logically that if everyone received a Kobe, MJ or Lebron auto every time they opened a product their value would diminsh and what are we left then........ a piece of cardboard with someone's scribble on it. So next time you bust a box or case of cards and feel aggreived you didn't get the value you were seeking maybe sit back and appreciate what the card is actually all about. Its a chance for us the card/sports enthusiest to get closer to the game and players we admire so and also realise its because of these smaller hits that when we actually get 'the big one' it feels so much better.
With the internet explosion providing a huge market to easily obtain stuff, we've also seen a decrease in face to face stuff and in that sense the hobby has become less of a social thing. For those of us not near shops and markets anyway! 
