Hi there, i'm a recent newbie here too, welcome!
collecting cards is heaps fun, opening a pack of cards is always exciting, not knowing what's inside, the thrill of buying a pack for a few $ and pulling out a card worth $1000
is an unforgettable experience and so worth the few $
I tend to disagree slightly about card zone, sure compared to ebay and perhaps trading here, card zone may be expensive for things, but card zone is a retailer, and the bottom line is, without that shop, the card collecting hobby would of been dead and buried long ago.
in the late 90's when all the wholesalers were dumping product, that shop bought out all that stock, futera, dynamic, tempo and all the wholesalers, he took massive risks, hocked himself silly to do it, house, loan sharks, the lot to maintain the prices and thus give exsisting collectors hope for there own collection, imagine if no one bought out all that stuff, it would all be on the market and worthless, so too would our own collections.
how do you know eba0y is cheaper? because you guage from the retail price no?
if anything the bigger dealers on eBay are killing the hobby, or have they already? they bust 50+ cases per series, make their money back on the big ticket items, then dump the basic stuff at throw out prices, team sets 99c, common sets $10-$15
if they lose on the series, it's a tax ride off as most have primary biznesses elsewhere.
Kinda makes it hard to justify buying a few packs from newsagents ect and building a set when they are practically worthless on the secondary market, card zone helps to balance that out.
I'm no great fan of card zone myself, for different reasons, and for what is to come.
But you gotta give the guy credit, after all he ran a crappy little milk bar and started off with half a case of cards in '93 to become one of the biggest card shops in the world!
forget what you see in the shop, there are warehouses full of card zone stock
card zone is THE major influence in how and what is now produced and marketed in aust'
So I don't disagree that card zone is expensive and in many cases a rip off compared to the secondary market, but without stevey boy, we'd all still be collecting yowies
But yeah, trading is heaps fun too, swapping doubles to complete your set is such a bonus, i'd suggest buying your packs from anywhere you want, have fun and if you want to go for the special type cards, buy off eBay, but first give yourself the chance to experience pulling the special cards out yourself, simply buying cards on their own can get pricey as no one is gonna sell you a card worth $1000 for $4 on ebay
My advice to you is to let your young tacka enjoy footy cards for what they are, don't put any emphasis on value appart from calling an insert card a special or hard to get card, teach him to appreciate cards for what they are, and not on what it could be worth and your kid will love card collecting forever.
read through this forum, especially the basketball category, quickly you will notice the main emphasis is put on the value, someone pulls a card and says "hey look what I just pulled" answers to follow will be along the lines of "cool.. that's worth $40" this is not card collecting, if your in this hobby for the money then save it and buy your kid blue chip shares
sorry, going on again
collect what you enjoy .. enjoy what you collect
thats about $91 a pack,considering i paid $180 from a member here just 4 days earlier!
