[Dpeck100]

I have been actively following card prices from late 2009 of all genres and I think the hobby has never been more healthy during that time frame. It is getting stronger not weaker. We can all debate prices and why one card is worth X and another is worth Y and each might be over valued and so on but the number of active participants is rising and that is what is most important to the health of the hobby.

Look at the cards like Pokemon and Magic The Gathering. This segment has been absolutely on fire for years and single handily disrupted the third party grading business. I get it very few on here care for this segment but there are people out there that do and they are card collectors. Getting more people to actively participate in the hobby of trading card collecting is critical. There are so many cards that have a very limited number available and all it takes is a few more market participants and prices rise. If you have this kind of scenario across numerous segments it is a tremendous positive.

One of the things that I suggested would happen with wrestling cards is we would eventually get a lot of cross over buyers. People who might not want to dive in head first but wouldn't mind owning some cards. Perhaps of the biggest stars or someone they just really liked. This is what happens when you get more collectors interested in cards. They run out of stuff to buy or see something that catches their eye and buy cards from other genres making the fire spread even further.

The fact that there is almost turn away business at third party graders is arguably the best sign. It shows cards from so many sets are getting graded and there is an expectation that those cards can be either sold or kept and with that number growing there is no way to look at the market in an overall negative manner.

Simply looking at the prices of the most popular cards and using them to gauge the market is really not the best way to determine the health. There was a very serious run up and then collapse of some cards in the hobby but many of those are firming and so this is no longer a negative but what is more important is seeing things like unopened explode. Signed rookie cards go for crazy money. Many registry sets get chased. Many dealers trying to fill those cards. Message board activity staying high. Facebook groups popping up. All of this is showing a bigger audience and to me that is the best sign of health and confirms the hobby is very strong.