Why has your collecting slowed down?

BBCgalaxee · Nov 16, 2014

Obviously geared towards those who have slowed down on what they collect.

But why?

For me it's easy, the "worthlessness" (current and future) of Bowman Chrome Prospects and the parallels.

Not too long ago, base prospect cards had big potential as well as worth out of the pack.

And their parallels were even better, ESPECIALLY blue or Better.

When I say "worth", I don't mean a buck or two, I'm talking $5-$15 at release...for a base card!

Now, multiple that by several players in every bowman chrome product and it was fun (and a good investment) to open boxes.

And if you got a gold refractor? Oh boy, that could be huge!

Case in point, I sold a Mccutchen gold refractor for $200 in '05 which was less than what they were selling for. THAT'S AN UN AUTOGRAPHED BASE CARD!!

If Bryant and Abreu happened several years ago, they would be $20 each as base cards instead of $3.

And their parallels would be incredible instead of "eh, pays for a few packs"

carrsallstars · Nov 16, 2014

#1 : Topps' exclusive license
#2 : my kids
#3 : Manny Ramirez is now somewhat semi almost kind of retired (not in as many card sets)

It is interesting to think about how different busting RCs out of 1987 Topps wax, 1992 Bowman, 1995 Bowman's best, 2001 Bowman, 2005 Bowman chrome and 2014 BC

Lots of change at each step and over the long term!

BiggioBrooks755 · Nov 16, 2014

Winter

DaClyde · Nov 16, 2014

#1 money

I've got all the easy and cheap cards, everything else is just expensive (at least by my budget) or difficult to find.

Yanks2151 · Nov 16, 2014

BiggioBrooks755 said:
Winter

This is when I'm most into the hobby. When I'm stuck indoors. Boat is put away, Muscle car is put away, hunting season is winding down and I'm stuck indoors constantly searching the Internet for a deal.

Topnotchsy · Nov 16, 2014

For me there's just not much that's exciting coming out. No transparency regarding game-used, designs are boring and/or redundant, and any good idea gets overproduced to death.

tramers · Nov 16, 2014

I mainly collect players I meet on local minor league team .

mchenrycards · Nov 16, 2014

I no longer have interest in modern due to so many reasons. I am collecting some other vintage sets which are affordable and actually mean something to me. I am no longer in this hobby to make money but to relive some pretty good memories.

mlbsalltimegreats · Nov 16, 2014

Pickiness, I am currently downsizing my collection and getting rid of everything that I have doubles of or that just doesn't fit my picky criteria. I only want the best of the best (in my eyes) of a players memorabilia cards. It's made my watch list very short these days.

finestkind · Nov 16, 2014

Life got in the way. My wife has been in and out of the hospital more times than I can remember in the past 12 months. I also ended up going in for major surgery. Thank god we have great insurance for once. I still buy on Ebay things that are cool to me. I'm trying to get my mind back into workng on some of the 20 + sets I've started over the past 15 years. It's kind of hard to concentrate on cards.

Austin · Nov 17, 2014

Cards are too expensive, I don't trust game-used cards, I think non-licensed cards are ugly and I'm just bored with modern cards.

However, this lack of buying new cards has actually been great for me as a hobbyist, since it reminds me to enjoy the cards I already own.

Instead of searching eBay and wasting money on boxes of garbage, I look at my binders of cards and sets and autographs I've collected over the past 30 years.

It's like someone who eats too fast and doesn't enjoy the taste of the food. I've stopped to smell the roses and it's great.

jrinne · Nov 17, 2014

Im very selective on what i buy and over the past year there has been nothing that interest me when it comes to the ball players i collect.

Sent from my GT-P7510 using Freedom Card Board mobile app

smapdi · Nov 17, 2014

I'm just not excited by anything anymore. I have little desire to add anything specific to my collection. My player collecting has gone way down, mostly due to already having everything available for Sizemore, and the Thomas arena has become extremely pricey for the nicest cards. My set-building has stalled as the things I am working on are either so rare as to be impossible, or so common as to have no challenge other than expense. I have had a couple false-starts but I haven't taken on a new collecting project in 3 years. I still love the hobby, and I am on ebay all the time looking at different things, but it has been a really long time since anything met my subjective needs of interest, uniqueness, challenge, affordability, and attainability.

r2d2 · Nov 17, 2014

DaClyde said:
#1 money

I've got all the easy and cheap cards, everything else is just expensive (at least by my budget) or difficult to find.

Couldn't agree more

jszczech · Nov 17, 2014

I player collect Kirby Puckett and he hasn't had much new stuff released since 2006. Panini has just started including him in some of there sets so I have some new stuff to chase. Other than that I am down to more expensive stuff that doesn't show up that often.

weight333 · Nov 17, 2014

Bonds hasn't had any new releases since 2007. I'm pretty happy with that since it's given me time to catch up on the slew of cards that came out during his career. I'm still heavily searching/buying but I don't buy much new product besides the occasional impulse buy at Target.

BBCgalaxee · Nov 17, 2014

I the last couple of years, I've started buying big lots and singles of cheap auto prospects, concentrating on Leaf, sterling and bowman chrome.

The only products I enjoy opening are leaf draft products (metal, valiant etc) and bowman sterling.

Sent from my HTCONE using Freedom Card Board mobile app

nkdbacks · Nov 17, 2014

Number one is money and variety of choices, would prefer to put my "fun money" towards other things at the moment, since the variety of cards is so poor. Every set for me is the same players with autographs and memorabilia cards, half the sets look the same, and I was just throwing money at having 100 similar looking cards. I've decided to just focus on a few small things here and there and work on other hobbies/travel/actually be able to afford going out with friends more, and it's been great not spending a whole bunch on cards. Not only have i been able to buy other stuff, but I've ended up saving more, the hobby was really sucking me dry.

My card buying also tends to go as the D-backs too...when they're uninteresting, I'm not too interested in cards of them. This was the first season of my baseball-watching life that I stopped paying attention completely after the All-Star break...couldn't tell you who performed well or poorly on the team after that, and don't really care at the moment. I've found my interest drifting towards football more. Certainly helps that the Cardinals are good, but the smaller amount of games makes things more interesting to me.

sheetskout · Nov 17, 2014

My collecting has slowed down because I am putting more of my disposable income in the market as I get older.

subject to change · Nov 17, 2014

I find the majority of the products that come out to be redundant and unappealing. While I'll pick up one or two Andrew Lambo autos for my Pirates collection, but I don't need or want ten different versions of his autograph from each and every product released this year. And to me the $1.25 Chrome auto I picked up is just as good as paying $5-10 for the Triple Threads auto /31 or whatever (of which there are 25 identical cards with slight shade variations).

Jack Wilson barely had any cards since 2009, and the cards I don't have come up rarely - maybe one every 6 months or so. I turned more attention towards my Pirates collection, but even of cards from previous years I have largely picked up the cards I'm really, truly interested in. I probably don't have more than 100 cards from 2013 and 2014 in my collection, and that's including base card team sets. I honestly couldn't tell you the which is which if you lined up the last 5 years of Topps or Gypsy Queen sets. The base designs are so repetitive, and most inserts just look like Photoshop-vomit to me.

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