here is my take on how and why the hobby has changed for the worse and better.
I started collecting baseball cards in 1988. Chasing down hockey at first for Brett Hull rookies then to 89 UD for Dale Murphy error and Griffey cards. I used to have a flower shopped that doubled as a card shop at the time. My allowance was a mere $20 a week and I would skip buying lunch at school to save up to buy packs. There was no internet at the time. As time went on into the 90s, I depended on corner stores to have packs to bust. The odd time on a monthly basis a card show would pop up and I was ready to fill up what I needed for my collection/sets. Id chase cards down through friends, dealers and a few people via a network connection of other collectors. When I ended up in Univeristy (U Of Toronto) we were given email address (1994). I used telnet to log in and check out my mail from friends. From there I used the internet to hit up IIRC chat rooms and disscusion forums in the form of email. This opened up a vast array of networking of people who collected across the globe. Simple message board to post what you were looking for and what others were buying/trading/selling. No pictures just the want lists. We would send postal money orders/cash through the mail and wait for our cards to come. Be it a big help, it still was a small community in trading.
Then ebay came along. I could now search anything and everything I wanted to fill my sets and PC wants. It was easy as Pie. Infact after a bit of time I stopped busting wax and just waiting for sellers on ebay to lists sets. Insert sets, base sets and even harder inserts to find. I just clicked a stupid button and put in a bid and won. I would then later pay by money order (at first) or paypal (later on). Easy as 1,2,3. Find it, Bid and wait a week or so and im done finishing the set up.
Time/internet is what killed my collecting days. The days of waiting for others to bust wax in my community to see if they pulled what I needed and hoping to fill my sets through my friends became the days of the past. Now I could just go online and find whatever it is that im looking for. No more time spent on waiting, searching, hoping. All you do is log on and buy it!. The dedication and the time spent on everything that went with collecting was over.
So what now? Card companies keep up with demand and put out more sets, more brands, and more cards. Too much time and money to bust wax to get it. Wait a few weeks and some powerseller will have sets up for fraction of the price of busting. Want an insert set..wait..they'll all show up. Just bid away or go on a forum and im pretty sure someone will have what you are looking for.
To sum it all up, the "Fun" was over for me. Its like going to a baseball game after its finished and knowing the score. Whats the point?
Add in the fact that household incomes grew and prices gone up (not talking inflation) but disposable income. Add in speculators and investor looking to make a buck and the market actually priced me out. If im not collecting for love, then im buying to profit. Either way, the internet/paypal/messageboards/forums/ebay all made everything to easy for me. Those all combined together killed the hobby of collecting.
Imagine being in 1992 and you want a Donruss Elite /10,000 card?? Unless you broke case after case, you were never going to see one. And if you did it was a big show and they were asking for your house for it. Fast foward 8 yrs later. All you do is get on the net and pop on ebay and youll find one. Or go to a messageboard and someone has one for sale. Gone are the days of wondering what it looks like, who has one and how long before it shows up so I have a chance at it. Here are the days of literally creating a wantlist, posting it and waiting a few hours before given a price and tada!! shipped to you in a week. The journey in collecting is gone. The end product is instant. Whats the fun in that?
I dont think its collectors or card companies that have done it in for final. Its us. We need to find something that interests us and keeps us occupied. We need the essential on what my VP at work considers a necessity..... we need something to fill our appetite of "Time well wasted". We need to fill that time "Journey" part of having a hobby.
