[ricelynnevans75]

I think for many people now, a pack of baseball cards has become the equivalent of a lottery ticket.

Ahh Corey Patterson. I remember getting caught up in that hype, but never had the money. But then again, I thought a $10.00 card was real valuable back then! LOL!

I agree with you.  It especially becomes more so when you are getting those packs that have 1-3 cards for multiple hundreds of dollars.  (They still make those right?)

Yeah I got caught up a little in the Patterson hype but very little.  Bought a few base rookies of his but didn't spend more than $15 total.  I don't think I ever spent more than $10 on a single card until 2010 when I got into vintage!

[kerryandbeth]

I skipped the hobby world 2008 thru 2012 so never heard of Corey Patterson or a guy named Mike Trout until a year or so later when I was attempting to purchase prior year complete sets. I have just a few hundred cards from those years and luckily got the Trouts I needed before he exploded, but not nary a Patterson.

Since 2016, I think I have done better than average in figuring out who will make the majors and get some nice value in return. Luck, not skill. I could list at least 15 guys that hyped up the hobby that I ignored and now they are barely recognizable on the field, if at all. On the other hand, not being around for the Trout hype puts me in a small minority of collectors who have been around since the 80's.

[Phillies_Joe]

I just feel sorry for those who collect for fun and are unable to locate decent priced product or any product at all. Good for you (whoever you are) if you are making a gazillion dollars selling pieces of cardboard with pictures. I only care that people are honest and not "dooshie" (if I spelled it right). We need to adjust and adapt. I am not happy at all with what has happened to the "hobby" the past couple of years, but I'll play along - doing what makes me happy and enjoying!

Now, where are those tulip bulbs........

[ricelynnevans75]

I just feel sorry for those who collect for fun and are unable to locate decent priced product or any product at all.

This somewhat hits home for me as my nephews (8 and 5 y/o) get excited when they go to Target and can pick up some packs or a blaster of whatever baseball product is out.  The 8 year old specifically asks for Target gift cards for Christmas for that reason.  Unfortunately, they've been out of stock for pretty much the last year on baseball whenever they go and my brother even sent me a pic of a sign and roped off area for people to wait and get their cards for whenever they come in.  I sent them most of my remnants of my collection though that included plenty of stars/HoFers and they were more than happy so they're good to go for a bit anyway.  

I really don't care what people do with their cards once they buy them.  Whether they turn around and flip them or keep them for their own PC, just quit the damn hoarding.  I know the popular thing is to rail on those who flip, but the people who find packs/blasters and hoard them for themselves aren't any better, especially grown adults.

[zeprock]

What's the difference between hoarding and collecting? I consider myself a collector. My wife says I'm a hoarder of baseball cards.

[ricelynnevans75]

What's the difference between hoarding and collecting? I consider myself a collector. My wife says I'm a hoarder of baseball cards.

In the instance I mentioned above, I'm talking about people that go into a store and buy most, if not all, of the boxes/packs that are available of a given product at that time.

What they do with it is, whatever.  Flip/keep doesn't matter in my opinion.  Can't really complain about people buying the stock out and reselling when they're also essentially buying the stock out and keeping for themselves.

[rjcj2017]

I just feel sorry for those who collect for fun and are unable to locate decent priced product or any product at all.  Good for you (whoever you are) if you are making a gazillion dollars selling pieces of cardboard with pictures.  I only care that people are honest and not "dooshie" (if I spelled it right).  We need to adjust and adapt.  I am not happy at all with what has happened to the "hobby" the past couple of years, but I'll play along - doing what makes me happy and enjoying!

Now, where are those tulip bulbs........

Yep, either dooshie or dooshy will work fine, Joe.

The good news is, our local Targets have, as of this week, instituted a three item per product per person policy and are actually enforcing it.

(Like, the checkstand will actually flag you if you try to buy more than 3 of each SKU.)

Now, in the case of NBA Hoops the other day, they only had jumbo packs, so I walked out of the store with a mighty three jumbo packs.

(In the old days I would have cleared out all 10 or 12 without blinking. But ... better than nothing, and I'm glad there's finally some kind of structure.)

But if a dooshy employee hadn't cut open the vending boxes ahead of time and removed the blasters and mega boxes, I could have also taken three of each of those.

Hopefully most of the dooshes will get tired of the hassle and will try to get, you know, lives, jobs and/or girlfriends.

[jhyde77]

I’m waiting for the bubble to burst. As covid hospitalizations decline, I believe we’ll see ridiculous prices normalize. 1987 Leaf can only sell for $200 for so long. Ha ha. A lot of new collectors won’t stick with collecting when sales go down. Not to be negative, but for a lot of people, sports cards that aren’t crazy expensive don’t have the cool factor. I’m the only person I know who collects. For adults, it won’t be able to compete with the stock market and other entertainment expenses and hobbies. For kids, I don’t believe it will be able to compete with video games. Maybe it’s different here in Mobile. After the steroid testing, a lot of people here could care less about baseball. It could be game 7 of the World Series and it will barely be talked about on sports radio.

[jhyde77]

I’m waiting for the bubble to burst. As covid hospitalizations decline, I believe we’ll see ridiculous prices normalize. 1987 Leaf can only sell for $200 for so long. Ha ha. A lot of new collectors won’t stick with collecting when sales go down. Not to be negative, but for a lot of people, sports cards that aren’t crazy expensive don’t have the cool factor. I’m the only person I know who collects. For adults, it won’t be able to compete with the stock market and other entertainment expenses and hobbies. For kids, I don’t believe it will be able to compete with video games. Maybe it’s a different here in Mobile. After the steroid testing, a lot of people here could care less about baseball. It could be game 7 of the World Series and it will barely be talked about on sports radio.

[kerryandbeth]

I am a hobby collector, but I cannot ignore the values given dome cards that I acquired from busting boxes that I could care less about keeping. So, I am clearing out a large portion of my collection while the going is good to sell.

In a few years, I suspect things will calm down except for current year products each year.