Happy Festivus! Airing of Grievances
 

December 23 is Festivus! Time for the annual airing of grievances. What grinds your gears in the collecting hobby?

This year, it is the new EBay authentication that includes already graded cards. I don’t get it.

The thing that grinds my gears most severely:

Fraud in the hobby.

Whether the bad actor is a card doctor, shill bidder, or garden variety thief, they destroy a part of the hobby every time they rip off a collector. I realize this has been part of the hobby since there has been a hobby. Still, it angers me.

Buying a card on eBay and expecting it to be the card depicted in the offer. Only to get the card and find out that the card delivered is NOT the card pictured and no mention that the picture is not the actual card you will receive.

And CELLOPHANE TAPE on card holders with delivered cards. That crap needs to be outlawed… Painters tape works just fine.

I second that emotion.

All these folks celebrating Festivus a day early!

Brian

The Sports Card Industry Pushing the Vaults and Turning the Hobby into an E*trade type Brokerage House for Your Cards! WRONG! I want my Assets as they call them in my hand or bank box not some clandestine bunker in Delaware!

the phrase "Hangers are Bangers" for modern packs/cards on Twitter is absolutely stupid. I never think of cards when I read that on Twitter. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...373d69248a.jpg

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The people defending fraudsters, and advising other people to drain their 401K’s and spend everything they have pumping cards for the benefit of the people giving the advice.

My Main grievances:

1. Fraud in the hobby whether it be card or autograph related
2. "Investors" that buy fractional shares of a vintage card.
3. The amount of modern sets.


To expand on number 3, not that I really purchase modern nowadays, but on the whole there are way too many sets to keep track of and it will do more harm than good to our Hobby.

Auction houses that don't describe flannel jerseys completely.

Many AH are occasionally guilty of this. Latest example I've found:

https://goldin.co/item/1966-boog-pow...needs-sigxu2gc

Nowhere in the description does it mention the NOB is removed. For a collector and certainly for an investor, this is a major thing.

I've had discussions with 2 major AH in the past couple of years about this. Both have said that if they don't mention any restorations/alterations, I can assume the condition is all original. My reply was that with those items, I'd have a better comfort level (and they'd likely realize a better price) if they would simply put "all original" in their listing. Sometimes they do, sometimes not.

Third party authenticators. I understand that they might have to collect more money to insure and ship an expensive card vs an inexpensive card, and maybe I'm missing something and am just a grumpy old man! But I still have a problem with the fact that most of them have a sliding scale for grading and slabbing cards based on value, when in most cases, it takes the same amount of labor and same cost of raw materials to grade and slab a $20 card as it does to grade and slab a $20,000 card.

Having said that, I would happily pay extra for authentication or grading in the case of a card or other piece of memorabilia that might need extra research to be done if the piece is rare or has never been documented.

1. Unpriced cards in showcases at shows.
2. The recent trend of TPG's hammering vintage cards down 1+ grades, mostly in the 3-8 range, from what we've all been used to over the past 20 years.

gripe
 

Wire coat hangers on flannel jerseys !

Pelican cases on dealers showcases when I’m trying to look at cards

jsa stickers
 

affixed to reverse of signed t206s

Listening To Offers
 

PUT A FREAKING PRICE ON IT! HOW HARD IS IT?

I've got a f$@#king offer for you, you ignoramus!!!

Paying $5.99 for shipping--and then receiving a PWE instead.

NFTs. What's wrong with all these people paying actual money for something that doesn't physically exist? There are no limitations to the stupidity of society.

Comps are $250.....I offer it for $225......."Will you take $175??".......arghhhhhhhhhhhhh!!

The movement from collectors/hobbyists to investors/gamblers

The people BLEEPING complaining about everything in the hobby.

Ebay is going out of its way to help collectors not get screwed by counterfeit cards, altered cards, and resealed slabs for FREE. Yet many complain about it.

Card doctors conserving cards. Without them very few of those high grade vintage cards in your collection would exist.

What is or isn't altering a card. If you do anything to the card besides looking at it you are altering it so quit debating it.

The investors/influencers running up the card market. Why complain when without them your collection would be worth pennies on the dollar compared to now.

Being OK with your buddy being a card doctor but not others.

My complaining is done for now but not for long.;):D:D

PSA: Wait times, submission pricing, grades, etc.

I might be the one that made that offer! It's not out of line sometimes. It's still over half of the comps :). I have had plenty of offers accepted in that percentage range.

Yes, I vote hobby fraud as my grievance too.
.

Tons of gambling Bob...between Razzes and Raffles but hey watch football this weekend it’s all Draft Kings Fan Duel bet this parlay get this off the NFL has turned into gambling marketing overload !

The current use of goat....
Like many I "grew up" a while ago, and back in the day the goat was the guy who messed up - Like Merkle or Buckner.

The new thing just makes it confusing.

GOAT vs goat. There is a difference.

Scotch tape. 100% agree. #1 answer.

From now on, the saying Greatest Of All Time is stricken from popular use, and will be replaced by All Time Greatest. Thus the new acronym will be ATG, eliminating the goat/GOAT confusion.

Brian the GoAT (Greatest of Acronym Trendsetters)

People selling cards, especially on ebay, and not showing the reverse.

People calling card collecting a "hobby". It's gone WAY beyond a hobby, unless you're filthy rich! It's like saying collecting antique automobiles is a "hobby"!

It's flat out investment (or gambling, if you will) at this juncture.

Merry Christmas to all my fellow "hobbyists" on the board!

Eric

Some, but not all, of the hobby talking heads who podcast on UTube.

+1 to this!

My grievance is eBay sellers who (in their highly detailed description of a given card) simply state the TPG’s number grade. I could not care less, as I am most likely to break it out the second it arrives. And I can already see the number on the flip anyway.

They are too lazy to describe the card itself, and focus more on the idiotic slab. Then when you receive the card, it has a crease that never showed up in the scan, and was never disclosed in the description.

Sellers hawking a rookie card slabbed "A" for $800 while comping it to an example graded a 10 that sold for millions of dollars.

"Make me an offer"

Here's my offer. Put a price on your card and I'll consider buying it.

Aaron Judge being named Yankees Captain...right after going on a cross country tour to see which team will give him the most money to leave New York. Doesn't exactly scream integrity for a team leader, does it?

Shill bidding.

I price an item, and buyer asks for my best price.

I always reply: I don't negotiate against myself.

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For me, it's just all the complaining and negativity in this hobby. It's a lot more fun when you focus on the good. I'm having a blast building sets.

I’ll second that motion.

Does complaining about complaining verge on hypocrisy?

When and why did car dealers start being called stores? Yet another example of stupid BS.

If you want to be a collector and in a hobby, collect beater cards. Personally, I love them, because I am not a card speculator.

eBay sellers who list 800+ cards ALL with dark and out of focus scans. The first 100 could just be a mistake, the next 200-500 seems either lazy or incompetent, the remaining 600-800+ makes it seem intentional. "Don't notice my wrinkles please"

Some sellers have a scanner without a CCD element. This causes slabs (and other, more three dimensional objects) to look blurry and out-of-focus.

For the other 99% of knuckleheads who post crappy pictures, though, you’re spot on.

Yes, obviously. If you are going to list 800+ scans and many thousands of dollars worth of cards maybe invest the small amount it takes to get a used CCD scanner. This is where the "lazy" part of the assessment comes in.

Cards have two freaking sides people. You gonna sell’em? Post’em….front and back.

Every time I see that, I cuss a little and move on.

Harrumph……..gotta go. Hey you there……get offa my lawn. :D

Also, where did all these damn clouds come from?!?

Yes, yes it does.

Am I still allowed to air a grievance on Dec 24? :)

For me, a Canadian collector, it's eBay's Global Shipping Program. It adds unnecessary costs to me as a buyer and I am 98% likely to pass on a seller's item if shipping is from the GSP. Lose/Lose situation.

My most recent example was an item won from the UK that cost 9.99 GBP, then the GSP tacked on an additional 21.30 GBP!!! My mistake for not noticing but I actually won three items from the same seller - the first two were sent together via regular post for a combined 9.00 GBP shipping charge (not unreasonable), the other went through the GSP where I got charged the ridiculous shipping cost. And guess which package arrived first and which one I am still waiting for? Does not make sense.