[crimedawg47]

(04-23-2012 12:27 PM)jeep1991 Wrote:  I think a large part of the issue is that this hobby has evolved from collecting into making money. It isn't about collecting your favorite players and teams now. It's about what auto you are gonna pull out of that box to make hundreds or thousands of dollars. And unfortunately over the past decade the card manufacturers have catered to that. With it becoming to expensive to collect the old school guys like myself have abandoned the hobby. And we have been replaced with dudes with fat wallets who really just want to make a buck. I don't remember where I saw it but when Gold Standard came up someone bought cases to the tune of $9,500 and busted them all. Who spends ten grand on basketball cards not having any idea what you are going to get?

You can't buy a nice 90s box for less than $150 now because you might pull a $4,000 Jordan. When in reality the chance of pulling that Jordan is worse than winning the powerball. You can't buy the old stuff, you can't buy the new stuff. It's just become ridiculous.

Jeep you nailed it...the flippers have killed the game for me. I used to enjoy ripping packs but its just became way to expensive to do that. Two years ago I switched to amost exclusively buying singles unless I found a cheap clearance box somewhere. I let someone else take the huge hit that ripping boxes has turned into.

I've got an antique mall that I go to alot and there is always a selection of 80's and 90's packs. They are super cheap and once in awhile they've got some of these packs that now appear to be more valuable than gold. I've found several skybox, spx, bowman's best, fleer, flair, etc....from this "new" $150-$300 a box era at $2-$3 a pack. IMO thats what those SHOULD be, but that 1 in 100 box 4k Jordan hit tells the market those packs should be $10 a piece?!?!?!