Quote:
Originally Posted by rainier2004
Well Hank, I have no idea as to your questions. But I do want to comment on the "wild west" days preTPGs.
They were wild, mail order w/o ever seeing the card, dealers offer 40% on yours cards, get home later to find the smallest pinhole in your prized find of the day, etc. It was also pre-internet as well and I think a lot of things would have changed simply with that, eBay was a HUGE advance for the hobby at the time.
We also spent much more time educating ourselves, digging through piles of cards and looking at others cards just for the sake of looking. Now, the TPGs have knocked down that barrier of entry bringing more into the hobby which is always a good thing.
A decent chuck of folks are circling back though, raw sets being built in binders seems more popular now than a few years ago. People are buying the card more than the holder relatively speaking.
A mesh of the wild west days learning hobby lessons mixed with the technology and ability to interact with each other today would be perfect to me. Treat the TPGs as an opinion, but you owe it to yourself to educate yourself, hell, that's the fun of it I thought. In the end though us collectors are probably just as knowledgeable if not more than a TPG, that's also a good thing.
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I agree everything in your post. Every collector SHOULD do it their way, and not treating the TPAs as gods is not only rational but healthy. Also, many things about the old days really were better: cards looked much better before slabs, and shows with dealers are more fun than auctions and Ebay. As I said, though, for the "average Joe collector" with a job and a family and limited time but who loves collecting, the TPAs are a godsend and many of them wouldn't be participating without the relative assurance they provide.