Interesting points re: the pies/tigers "tax"
Ive never been much of a team collector outside of Suns for my son's PC, and tbh, its just easier to buy the cards we want in those cases, unless we are at a trade day or similar and then it's fun to do some trades.
Personally for me, Im more about the player on the card, then the team they play for, but my background is more NBA/NFL cards where team collectors basically dont exist, and it is all about the player.
In relation to the idea of trading *Insert your PC team here* for a tigers or pies card, each to there own, but the amount of times Ive seen a "Its for my PC, and I will never sell it" collector turn around at some point and sell their PC for a variety of reasons (some valid for sure), I guarantee that Dusty Green is not being sold at the market value of the Darling Green it cost them to trade for (Just using the example presented in this thread).
The difference for me as well is, we are not swapping unnumbered inserts out of a $3 packet, we are dealing in higher cost products and lower numbered cards than ever before and the difference between two players, based on their team can be hundreds of dollars or more.
Also, my personal view is that the more products that get released in the AFL market and the more lower print cards they contain, it will get hard and harder to be a team collector so you will see some of these team collectors either give up on team collecting all together or be a lot more selective... then what happens to their collections?
I also dont like the entitled Pies and Tigers collectors that automatically assume just because you collect the Kangas or Swans for example that you should instantly trade your pies/tigers cards for their kangas/swans in a straight swap, this might be a minority, but they are definitely around. Again, if you are happy to do it great, its more an observation on entitled nature of some people in the hobby. Honestly, its just easier to buy the cards you want and sell the ones you dont these days
You know, a lot of people say, the hobby is all about the money now, blah, blah, blah, but when you are paying up to $500 a box or thousands on a case, or spending big money in breaks, you would be crazy to not have the money you spent and the value of what you get back come into it, and that doesnt make you any less of a "collector". unless of course you are one of the few where that kind of money is chump change for them, therefore the money means nothing.
I want to be very clear, I am not saying there is a right or wrong way to trade and/or buy and sell and I am most definitely not having a go at Shaun for doing that trade, I am just giving my thoughts, whatever they are worth.