mrmopar
Member
- Jan 19, 2010
- 7,009
- 6,411
I don't know if I find many of the extreme player specific lists sad or inspiring. Maybe a little of both. I know it keeps most of you engaged and a spark of hope alive that you'll find one or more of these white whales. I was once right in the middle, tracking the most obscure of the obscure on a want list, hoping to come across them. My personal experience eventually more often lead to the discovery of cool items that I had never known about before and the realization that some/most of the "cataloged" cards I had chased for many years clearly didn't even exist. Furthermore, some of the real scarce items, if/when they popped up, were almost always outside of my price range and sour disappointment overcame me when I was defeated or just was not able to cough up the $ being asked. Prime example, the 1980 Topps test coin, a top 5 fantasy wish list item for ever, was offered to me for $1500. I know they are scarce, but not a chance I am spending that much on any Steve Garvey item, ever! Then we have to address the EXPLOSION of low serial numbered/parallels that have obliterated most average collectors want lists.
Here is a generic example you see quite often today, "I have 91.6% of player X, minus the 1/1s. With those included, I have 42.8% of all cards printed"! That is probably an extreme exaggeration on the percentages, but its not too far off reality. There are few, if any, collectors that have the time, patience, resources and luck to be able to continually track 1/1s and even anything less than 10 copies. This phenomenon and the ridiculous extremes it has come to has ruined collecting for the average person in my opinion. Yes, you can always just chase what you can afford, but some of the fun dies when you know you are priced out of half the stuff out there. i still collect Steve Garvey, but I have lost much of the passion that used to drive me to find it all. I can't have it all and that still bothered me until i finally just accepted it and now that I don't chase every item, I don't have the fire for what I do chase the way I used to.
Happy collecting and best of luck to you all, whatever and however you collect.
Here is a generic example you see quite often today, "I have 91.6% of player X, minus the 1/1s. With those included, I have 42.8% of all cards printed"! That is probably an extreme exaggeration on the percentages, but its not too far off reality. There are few, if any, collectors that have the time, patience, resources and luck to be able to continually track 1/1s and even anything less than 10 copies. This phenomenon and the ridiculous extremes it has come to has ruined collecting for the average person in my opinion. Yes, you can always just chase what you can afford, but some of the fun dies when you know you are priced out of half the stuff out there. i still collect Steve Garvey, but I have lost much of the passion that used to drive me to find it all. I can't have it all and that still bothered me until i finally just accepted it and now that I don't chase every item, I don't have the fire for what I do chase the way I used to.
Happy collecting and best of luck to you all, whatever and however you collect.
