The hobby morale is low video

[parkplace33]

Sports cards radio had some perspective on the National this year:

https://youtu.be/F4hbHiFm8gE

National part starts at the 2:00 mark

While I hardly agree with SPR, it will be interesting to see how the National is this year. Is morale low? I tend to think after the big uptick in the last few years, people are taking a pause. I also think there is general malaise in the hobby right now. And of course, prices on the hood stuff at the National will be sky high.

[Lucas00]

I think Morale is actually Rising. Especially with affordability coming back..

[HercDriver]

Maybe he meant "morals."

[Johnny630]

I think it’s time to give less and less weight to auction house sales versus in person buy it now private transactions. I’ve been saying it ever since the run up there seems to be a big difference in what people are willing to pay directly verse what cards sell for in MA’s. People want to pay a fair number not chase in auctions, if they can’t they won’t buy. I can’t tell you how many dealers when buying say I throw PWCC and Probstein numbers out of My VCP average when buying.

I think the collector morale is OK the investor morale who came in and bought at the high. I think they’re concerned.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Lucas00

I think Morale is actually Rising. Especially with affordability coming back..

I think they mean morale for investors, not collectors

[Fred]

Originally Posted by Lucas00

I think Morale is actually Rising. Especially with affordability coming back..

If someone was to create an affordability index and that index based affordability on years past, at what affordability level has the hobby dropped to? Are the prices dropped back to 2022 levels? 2021 levels? 2020 levels? 4 years ago level? 5 years ago level?

I haven't been watching too closely, all I know is that there were some really crazy rises in prices on a lot of material.

From a morale stand point - the hobby is SUCKING because the TPGs allow it to suck and they really don't seem to care about fixing anything. Money IN, Plastic slab OUT. It doesn't matter if the card is altered - it's their "subjectivity" that is being sold and if that's their opinion, you're buying it along with the rise in prices it causes across the board. Yes, the crappy grading will continue until it doesn't. Don't worry, gradings crappy!

[BioCRN]

The speculative investor "sneaker heads" types that flooded the hobby 3-5 years ago have all but disappeared (or turned into breakers). That market got heavily inflated with investors rather than collectors and has mostly burst for basketball and football.

The new shiny stuff in packs is expensive and the odds on quality hits is way worse every year. The 2022 and 2023 odds are extremely terrible and the cost has only gone up, stable at best. It's very easy to spend $80-$250+ on a hobby box and not pull anything worth mentioning. The premium hits are spread so thin that a manufactured relic is the guaranteed hit in some boxes.

It seems T206's are maintaining their recent popularity and picking up an Old Judge or T205 seems to be getting more expensive every few months.

[The Detroit Collector]

SCR is referring to the guys who buy 20K ultra-modern basketball and football rookies who haven't proven themselves. I am almost certain they are not referring to any vintage. The card hobby in general is down across the board compared to previous years. (Although it seems to show otherwise when Im bidding on something)

[mrreality68]

It will be interesting for you guys to see and report back what is trending.

But between all the action I see on social media and the young kids at these smaller local shows, and they have there own cases to hold cards and the money changing hands I think the future is bright even if some pauses

And based on all the auction and strong prices on 1950’s and before I think prices are still going strong. Some cards especially the more commons and commons players the prices are slowing down and a lot of the modern spiking and is trending down.

But still a lot of money and a lot of major increases on the key players in my uneducated opinion.

[Seven]

I'm going to speak from the heart here and feel free to disagree with me. My morale for the hobby is low, but frankly speaking, my morale for everything is low. Inflation is still high, housing is borderline impossible to enter as a young person, unless you're getting help from your family or someone dies and you come into money. The vintage side of the Hobby is still very strong, and I'm happy that so many people are interested in cardboard, it's a good thing. But prices are high, the entry point to vintage, especially pre-war is higher than it used to be, and it makes things difficult. Don't get me wrong, I'm in this for the long haul, talking about cardboard, looking at cards, reading as much as I can, but I can't help but feel very pessimistic about, quite frankly, everything.

[MACollector]

Morale for the high end investors has to be a bit off, even for those into vintage. Did anyone see the Clemente PSA 9 rookie that sold for $1.05m last September just sell for $792k last week in Goldin’s 100 auction? There was a lot of debate about how much the one at REA would have gone for and that went for a lot more just a few months ago at $960k. Pockets of strength still at the top, but we certainly aren’t seeing records anymore. It has to trickle down eventually but doesn’t happen overnight.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Seven

I'm going to speak from the heart here and feel free to disagree with me. My morale for the hobby is low, but frankly speaking, my morale for everything is low. Inflation is still high, housing is borderline impossible to enter as a young person, unless you're getting help from your family or someone dies and you come into money. The vintage side of the Hobby is still very strong, and I'm happy that so many people are interested in cardboard, it's a good thing. But prices are high, the entry point to vintage, especially pre-war is higher than it used to be, and it makes things difficult. Don't get me wrong, I'm in this for the long haul, talking about cardboard, looking at cards, reading as much as I can, but I can't help but feel very pessimistic about, quite frankly, everything.

There is no question that today's prices make it much tougher for a newer collector than someone like myself who started again in the 90s. That said, there are still great things one can buy at almost any resource level... but I hear you.

[glynparson]

Originally Posted by The Detroit Collector

SCR is referring to the guys who buy 20K ultra-modern basketball and football rookies who haven't proven themselves. I am almost certain they are not referring to any vintage. The card hobby in general is down across the board compared to previous years. (Although it seems to show otherwise when Im bidding on something)

They specifically call
Out vintage. They aren’t really wrong about prices declining but I know nobody that thought those insane increases would go on forever.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by glynparson

They specifically call
Out vintage. They aren’t really wrong about prices declining but I know nobody that thought those insane increases would go on forever.

As I recall, we had several pumpers claiming that things would only go up during the spikes, that the best time to buy was yesterday and the second best time today. That time in the market is what matters (possibly so, in general), that demand will only increase. That these gains will continue and so much so that people should not only hold and buy more, but they people should take out loans for money they don't have and drain their 401K's and suffer the huge tax hit to reinvest them into cards instead and put everything people had into the card market. That advice given on these boards sure sounded like people arguing the gains would more or less continue inexorably forward.

[raulus]

Thinking about it a bit more, I think the biggest issue for most of us is that we want to hold onto what we already have, and we want to add to it, because more is more. And selling some stuff to buy other stuff may not really be how we view our approach to collecting, particularly if we're really attached to the stuff we have. I just want it all. Is that really so much to ask!!!??

We probably all had some lofty goals about what we hoped to accomplish on our collecting journey. Over time we've carefully revised our goals as we've re-focused, or achieved a particular goal when we finish off a set or a team run or whatnot. Naturally, over the last couple of years the speed has really stalled a lot toward achieving those goals, to the point that nowadays a lot of those goals seem to be mirages in the distance, something that is virtually impossible to achieve, taunting us that we'll never get there. And that's not a lot of fun to contemplate.

There's probably any number of adjectives you could use to describe it. Low morale is just one way to attempt to capture it. Adam has used ennui. Personally, I might favor malaise. Some refer to their collecting spirit as going into hibernation. Whatever your preferred adjective, there's no question that for a lot of us, there's a different flavor these days.

A good part of it probably also feeds into an existential question for a lot of us. If I'm not really adding to my collection, then what am I doing? Part of the process of continuing to add to the collection allows us to avoid those questions by distracting ourselves with the illusion that we're making progress towards our goals and hopes and dreams. Without that progress, movement, and forward inertia, it allows our minds to wander to dark places, stuff like:

Why am I continuing to hold onto this cardboard? Am I really getting the enjoyment from it that I used to? If some of my friends are selling, then why am I holding? Damn, I could get a gigantic sack of cash if I sell today. Think of all the awesome stuff I could do with that cash... Why am I still in this game?

And even if we've pivoted from some of our earlier goals and we're focused on other stuff, maybe buying more modern pieces, futzing around with other sports, dabbling in memorabilia, or even just switching to lower quality pieces, it still forces us to confront a lot of those existential questions as it relates to our existing collections that now seem to be orphans when compared to the path forward. And those existential questions aren't easy to answer, particularly when it seems like we've been compelled to keep answering them day after day, week after week, month after month.

Add to it the fact that it seems like this situation might keep going on for an indefinite period of time makes it that much more exciting to keep coming up with the same answer every day that I'm just going to keep sitting tight, picking up a few bits here and there, picking my spots, and being patient with a hope that one day my ship will come in and I'll be able to get back to making real progress towards my goals. And yet faced with the very real possibility and depressing reality that might never really happen.

So yeah. All of that boils down to malaise for me. But pick your favorite adjective and run with it.

[todeen]

Originally Posted by raulus

Thinking about it a bit more, I think the biggest issue for most of us is that we want to hold onto what we already have, and we want to add to it, because more is more. And selling some stuff to buy other stuff may not really be how we view our approach to collecting, particularly if we're really attached to the stuff we have. I just want it all. Is that really so much to ask!!!??

I sold all that I wanted to sell, and I don't want to sell any more. I got a dream item: Barry Larkin GU bat with provenance from a member on Net54. I told my wife what I sold and bought. She was happy for me, but she said, "I wish you had kept the Honus Wagner, isn't he the million dollar baseball card guy." You know you made a mistake if your spouse is sad about a card you no longer have. All that did was make me get the bug to replace it!

When I was younger, I wanted to have a museum worthy collection, my own little HOF museum that told a story. Selling my items kind of ruins that dream.

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[darwinbulldog]

Originally Posted by raulus

Thinking about it a bit more, I think the biggest issue for most of us is that we want to hold onto what we already have, and we want to add to it, because more is more. And selling some stuff to buy other stuff may not really be how we view our approach to collecting, particularly if we're really attached to the stuff we have. I just want it all. Is that really so much to ask!!!??

We probably all had some lofty goals about what we hoped to accomplish on our collecting journey. Over time we've carefully revised our goals as we've re-focused, or achieved a particular goal when we finish off a set or a team run or whatnot. Naturally, over the last couple of years the speed has really stalled a lot toward achieving those goals, to the point that nowadays a lot of those goals seem to be mirages in the distance, something that is virtually impossible to achieve, taunting us that we'll never get there. And that's not a lot of fun to contemplate.

There's probably any number of adjectives you could use to describe it. Low morale is just one way to attempt to capture it. Adam has used ennui. Personally, I might favor malaise. Some refer to their collecting spirit as going into hibernation. Whatever your preferred adjective, there's no question that for a lot of us, there's a different flavor these days.

A good part of it probably also feeds into an existential question for a lot of us. If I'm not really adding to my collection, then what am I doing? Part of the process of continuing to add to the collection allows us to avoid those questions by distracting ourselves with the illusion that we're making progress towards our goals and hopes and dreams. Without that progress, movement, and forward inertia, it allows our minds to wander to dark places, stuff like:

Why am I continuing to hold onto this cardboard? Am I really getting the enjoyment from it that I used to? If some of my friends are selling, then why am I holding? Damn, I could get a gigantic sack of cash if I sell today. Think of all the awesome stuff I could do with that cash... Why am I still in this game?

And even if we've pivoted from some of our earlier goals and we're focused on other stuff, maybe buying more modern pieces, futzing around with other sports, dabbling in memorabilia, or even just switching to lower quality pieces, it still forces us to confront a lot of those existential questions as it relates to our existing collections that now seem to be orphans when compared to the path forward. And those existential questions aren't easy to answer, particularly when it seems like we've been compelled to keep answering them day after day, week after week, month after month.

Add to it the fact that it seems like this situation might keep going on for an indefinite period of time makes it that much more exciting to keep coming up with the same answer every day that I'm just going to keep sitting tight, picking up a few bits here and there, picking my spots, and being patient with a hope that one day my ship will come in and I'll be able to get back to making real progress towards my goals. And yet faced with the very real possibility and depressing reality that might never really happen.

So yeah. All of that boils down to malaise for me. But pick your favorite adjective and run with it.

This may shock you, but I've done some calculations on "morale, ennui, malaise, and hibernation"; it turns out 0% of them are adjectives.

[todeen]

I don't know if my morale is low about sports cards. Maybe that's because I'm a Reds fan and because watching them is fun, again, it has piqued my interest in modern cards. Happy life = happy hobby?

Outside the hobby? My morale is low, kinda. I fully believe when one door closes another door opens; thats pretty resistant optimism. But I'm one of those millenials getting close to 40 and I'm starting to ask myself, FYI living in a mid-size city, I can afford $2500/month for a house and all I can afford is a POS house that needs immediate upgrades? WTF! I was outpriced on a 50yr old house that had not been updated. Of course my guru tells me everything will be fine if I just continue waiting....I can't even have FOMO in this market!

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