Money and Cards
 

This is a question I have been pondering since taking a break from this "hobby" over the past few weeks.

I watch the monthly pick ups and deals transacted on the B/S/T. My question is this:

Do you use card sales money to finance your pick ups and purchases, or are you simply successful or otherwise inherently wealthy?

If this is too personal or touchy, I understand. But I see the monetary amounts required for the vast majority of pick ups and purchases these days.

Great post James, I was just thinking about this the other day. I would classify myself as a self employed working class collector, I'm not rich, I still have a mortgage to pay, but I love collecting baseball cards. I have a very specific idea of what I want my collection to look like but I never have enough $$ for my card budget so I have to make choices, I miss out on cards due to lack of funds but I am also able to acquire cards for my collection on a fairly regular basis. But it's a sacrifice, do I choose to remodel the kitchen or buy a 14CJ Cobb, I chose Cobb. I network, trade, sell, to add to my collection, whatever it takes. I also get the same satisfaction of buying an $80 card that I do buying an $8000 card. I would say in this environment be very sure on what you want your collection to look like and avoid those juicy little rabbit holes we all love to go down.

That being said I'm very fortunate to even be able to buy baseball cards and I'm grateful to have found this place, made connections with some really great members with fantastic collections, unbelievable knowledge, and generosity. To me that's priceless.

I’ve been in different places at different times in my collecting life, but now I buy what hits me and then try to sell something you have to recoup or at least offset the cost.

The great news about the hobby is that one can enjoy it, and even spend money wisely, at all levels and I think that is still the case. No question some elite cards have soared but far from everything.

Kill-eat all the way, for several years now: no new money into the hobby. I raise the $$ from card sales or I go without new cards. Had to be that way when my daughter announced an intention to become a doctor and I was staring down a potential half a million bucks for school that I didn't have. I had to retrench from sets to types to start raising funds. Sold off a lot of great stuff with no regrets given the purpose. She's since decided her interests are elsewhere; working as a first responder-EMT-she decided she doesn't like clinical work and wants to be in research. Out went med school, in came a far more manageable masters program. Her decision left me with a nice little nest egg to use to buy deals, which I did, and the pandemic was a gold mine for me in terms of card sales. I've been able to buy great stuff entirely with the proceeds of sales and amass a nice little fund for future purchases when the bubble breaks. Turns out that Spock was right:

"After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true."

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...OS%20Nimoy.jpg

I'm having a blast flipping stuff. Makes my wife think I actually know something.

PS: having the Nimoy card is more fun than wanting it. :D

Money and cards
 

Interesting comments thus far. I am very lucky to have entered the hobby
before prices went supersonic and am very happy with my collection (can
always get better, but I'd be a fool to complain). Personal financial goals are
irrelevant for me strictly in terms of the hobby. I made one promise to myself
years ago that I take seriously- I vowed not to sell collectibles unless the
purpose was to buy another collectible. I am knocking on wood daily and not
stepping on cracks on the sidewalk- to this day I haven't violated that oath.
I am very fortunate and know it:) Trent King

Amok Time. Top five episode for sure.

Many fine lines.
"He's dead, Spock." There's a twist on a great Trek trope.
"Live long and prosper, Spock." "I shall do neither. I have killed my captain, and my friend."

Money-wise, collecting-wise, it was so much easier when I only collected cards in their natural state. Trading was easier, negotiating with sellers at shows was easier, and on and on it goes. Now that a huge percentage of my cards are in plastic prisons (mainly to make them easily sellable in the future), everything has changed. Now it's all about past sales prices, VCP or whatever, and the actual state of the card you're looking to buy doesn't seem to ever come into play. For instance, how many graded cards on eBay have the sellers actually describing the various pros and cons of the card up for auction? Umm...0%?? The listing will simply say "(enter year, brand, number and player's name here) PSA 8!! L@@K!!!!!!!!!!" and no further information.

These are great responses. Thanks for taking the time to answer. I thought it was maybe kind of personal and perhaps touchy, but your replies are excellent. I am at the low end of the spectrum, and consider myself extremely fortunate to have had some disposable cash at various times during my Navy career, and my collection of pre and post war vintage is really a combination of 1980s-90s purchases when so many of these cards could be had inexpensively, an inheritance of one of my nephew's collection, and a good friend who literally gave me a sack of great old cards as he took his vast collection to auction.

I strictly budget. A portion of my income goes to savings to keep at a certain level of pure cash on hand, a greater portion to investment, a portion to scheduled expenses, and a portion to my hobbies. My hobbies are my beer money fund, instead of beer, money I spend on things I like to do while I'm alive and expect to recoup nothing from but the satisfaction of enjoying life. I am very lucky as a late millennial that I can responsibly do this, but one of the fun things about this hobby is that it can be done extremely cheap and most can partake if they want. Cards are only expensive if you chase the very 'best'. If you want a Hank Aaron rookie to flex, it's $3,000. If you want a cool Hank Aaron card, it's like $3 for a 1976 Topps with round corners. You can get nice looking cards of superstars for a quarter or even less. What's a 2000 Topps card of Pedro Martinez worth, a nickel? Just because a card is cheap and doesn't buy bragging rights doesn't mean it's any less cool if you're collecting cards you like. I collected as a teenager when I made a few bucks a week or less, by not being a mint collector and not needing the brag cards. When I was in college and broke as broke gets I still had fun with my collection and diving deeper into the research side. I got to buy some cheap but cool cards when I was first out of college and making very little.

If your budget is $10 a week, you can have a ton of fun. If it's $1,000 a week, you can have a ton of fun too. One of the reasons I like rare but less popular material is that it's about the effort and putting in the work, turning up new or even unknown items that aren't a dollar flex. Some of the coolest collections aren't worth much. Pick up threads by their nature tend to skew to the wealthy and give a distorted picture; I wish more people who weren't made of cash would show their stuff. A T206 Wagner is not difficult to get, it's just about how much money you have, but rare items are often cheap and impressive in a different way.

For me, it is a constant going after whatever looks cool and is fun to hunt. I don't think my wife or four cats will inherit anything, so taking a small loss on something after laying my hands on it isn't too big of a deal. I love really old cards, and they drive my interest in to other things as well. If parting ways with it brings joy to someone who wouldnt otherwise have it, so be it. Losing a little money along the way, no big deal. I am fortunate to be a 43 year old kid, living the dream my dad & grandfathers imagined, probably a little better than they thought.

As long as it looks appealing, or has a good story behind it, my wife loves it. That is the main drive now for me.

I guess my answer to this is: Neither.

I don't sell cards to buy more. And I'm definitely not inherently wealthy. I guess depending on the parameters you could define me as "successful" because I have a good career and no debt, but with two college age kids I don't have much spare income for hobbies.

So my method is to save up for cards I want and/or slowly build sets on a small budget. It will take me years to build a set that some members here would build in a couple months. But that's OK...I enjoy picking up commons and low dollar cards every once in awhile while saving up for a big one.

That is one downside of the recent surge in prices. Some of the cards I was planning on saving up for are currently out of reach. If the set has Ruth, Cobb, Wagner, Gherig, etc. in it, it's likely I won't able to complete it now if I don't already have that big card. But I'm still buying the occasional common card from a set I like because who knows what the future brings. Maybe prices drop, maybe I have more disposable income in the future, who knows.

But for now it's just a slow and steady hobby.

I'm on the fence how to describe myself. It's rare that I sell or trade, so my collection grows bit-by-bit with low grade raw purchases. Similar to John's comment, some of the prewar sets I expected to complete (Sport Kings and 1938 Goudey are good examples) now look out-of-reach unless the market changes course. My mental cap for once-a-decade purchases sits around $1K. If the awesome cards I want drift above that, it's easier to change my focus to cheaper cards that are still awesome. So far, our hobby's big enough to allow for that. I've been able to obsess over "that weird set over there that no one knows much about" when working around big money purchases.

I've learned that I can't be counted on to sell a piece of my collection, so I have my budget, and if something falls outside of it, either I pull the money for someplace else, or skip it.