[xstreaminsanity]

My thoughts:

1. The organizer should not be required to make trades. This isn't the case in ANY other trading card website that I use, and it is what holds me back from trading here. Before Beckett.com's renovation with the new forum and everything, it was a very popular site and had a lot of active traders (myself included!).

Using the Organize is extremely beneficial for everyone involved. For one, if you have your wants listed, you will know if you need anything from the other trader (though I wish it was like the old site where your wants "floated" to the top). The same goes for the other trader. Also, it allows you to keep track of inventory a LOT easier. For instance, if you finish a trade with someone and you only have one of a card that was in that trade, it is then not available (shows as card removed or something) in another possible trade. This way you don't risk two people thinking they're getting the card. Also, as jacoby says, there's a transaction of it and the tools are great. I do know of another site that has a trading system where it keeps records and such and you can type in your cards, but that is horrible if you ask me. I don't want someone typing in "95-96 Hoops Hunter" for the card, I want the entire description so I know exactly what I'm expecting. You also have the added total of value of the cards, an easy way to keep track of how many of each card in the trade, etc. Believe me, I think if you looked into it, there's a TON of benefits. I know many people that love the system the way it is but are excited for when they fix all of the bugs.

2. The hobby is dying, for several reasons. As people mentioned the increasing cost of getting into the hobby closes it off to most people. Who wants to spend $200 on a pack of cards? Back in the 90's that would have been considered insane. Unfortunately, that's what we have now. Another reason is that too many people are in it to profit, and the high end collectors who turn cards into a stock-market like situation by manipulating auctions to inflate prices.. ick. It's a huge turn off to anyone who might be interested in this hobby.

I wouldn't say the hobby is dying. It's suffering, horribly, but it's not dying. For one, people are always coming into this hobby, it just isn't as fast as it used to be. And that's because of many reasons, but I think cost is the biggest reason. But even if there was a point where cards weren't made for say 2 years (heaven forbid) it wouldn't be across all sports. Some people would then concentrate on a different sport and then whichever sport(s) weren't making cards will try to get back into it. And if I had the money, I know if any card maker went down, I'd definitely try to get in the business. But I know right now I couldn't compete with the big boys.

3. The league itself hasn't been terribly exciting the past few years, but this season and the ones to come are very promising. We have the most parity in the league that we've seen in a long time, so that's good! The upcoming rookie class also looks more promising than what we've seen lately.

I'll agree that it hasn't been as exciting and there is a show of promise for years to come. And I believe you're right when you say it's because of the Parity. It's no longer just Cleveland, San Antonio, Los Angeles Lakers that are competing anymore, but you now have San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Miami, Dallas, Los Angeles (both of them), and even a small market team in Memphis. It's great. I just think it sucks that the NFL has Sunday Nights and Monday Nights only to concentrate on their games primarily, and there isn't a special Basketball night for people to concentrate on. Even College Football has Saturday primarily. So without that exposure, the game has lost appeal.

4. Image posting etc is buggy on the forum as well, which doesn't help matters. That should be a fairly easy fix for the web designers at Beckett.

Image posting is extremely easy on here. You can either upload the picture to a image sharing site (such as photobucket, imageshack, or flickr) or on the actual item itself here in Beckett (going to the item page and uploading the front and back image, preferably) and then post the IMG code. Here's a <a href="http://www.beckett.com/forums/thread-1423989.html">link</a> that might help you with that.

Also, don't forget, this is a very open community, you can ask anyone anything you want and will more often than not get an honest answer. We all want to help each other to make this site the best place for sports card collectors. And you can PM us mods anytime you have a question as well.

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god xstream, you and your long posts jk bro, very good points! Frankly, since I despise panini with every fiber of my body (I'm in my second war with them this year over some no-name rookie autos that I want replaced) that I refuse to buy their products anymore. It's just not worth the headache.

Couple that with the NBA lock-out (don't get me started there), and I just have little, if any, actual care/respect for the NBA currently. Heck, i'm a Celtics/Andrei Kirilenko collcetor, and I don't think I've bought a single basketball card in over a year.

IDK, maybe I'm just a mean old man, but that's just how I feel.

I know. I'm kind of glad that your beef with Panini is more about it's redemption process (each company's redemption process pretty much sucks) rather than saying that their product is pure donkey doo. I agree, except for their high end products, Panini isn't really equivalent to UD or Topps, but I'll give them time to grow (go look at the first few years of UD and Topps, they were innovative, but still ugly, lol).