Gone from the Blue-Collar Guy
 

In general things are way too expensive with all the cards that I want to collect. I collect Exmt-Nrmt/Mint Cards. As a regular blue-collar guy with a family of 3
I can no longer pay these numbers. Spending this kind of money on some of these cards you have to consider it an investment I don’t want that with cards. That’s what my nominal brokerage account and ira are for. I would love to continue to collect as I have for years but it’s gotten out of my league.
I’m gonna be blessed and happy with what I have and step away from buying for my collection. Collecting lower grade is not my thing.

Hopefully things will correct a little down the road, my gut says it’s only going higher and higher.

There are still some things you can collect. You just have to be more creative.
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As a WC/MC collector myself I feel your pain. It helped me to build a list of my collecting goals and stay true to that list as much as possible. I find it helps when I'm focused on acquiring a big card that I curtail making any smaller purchases and keep that money growing in a pot until I can make the big purchase. I have about a dozen more cards to acquire on my list and I feel that I'll have built a respectable collection. Of course those cards are a bit pricey so it may take me awhile.
Frustrating for sure, I hope you can find some part of collecting that keeps it enjoyable for you.

Psa 7-8 early willie mays cards arent exactly blue collar cards??? I agree prices have gotten crazy and ive accepted that in order to get some cards i want i have to part with others. Life goes on!

It is a challenge for us all.

My New Year’s resolution is to fund this year’s purchases entirely with sales. Going to be a real challenge I think but will allow me to still be active in the hobby while not costing anything. I’ll revisit next year but kind of relishing the challenge for now.

I share your sentiment. The market has priced me into grades I wouldn’t have even looked at five years ago. However, there are surprisingly some exceptional looking low grades out there. These are the cards I now collect, but it takes a little more patience. I’m also thankful I obtained what I did when I did.

It's a challenge for all of us with varying collecting needs.

Starting in February, as I had some last minute expenses come up this month, I'm going to start putting a little money aside each pay check, in hopes that by the end of this year, I can afford a significant pickup in my Mantle Run.

I know it's very easy to look at the past through rose colored glasses, but I'd kill for the prices of five to ten years ago.

Other hobbies like photography, gardening, computer gaming, playing sports, etc,... are more about techniques and skill rather than money. There are some expenses to them of course, but not to the degree of as this hobby has become. We low end collectors need to find other aspects of this great hobby that gives us happiness, enjoyment, and fulfillment.

The problem is what do you do when you run out of stuff to sell to fund new purchases? A lot of the stuff I have is killer, I like it too much to let it go. Lol oh well that’s why I’m stopping.

I feel it’s gone for good the investor Speculator pushed it too far I just don’t see it coming back at least not on the graded cards and conditions I collect.

Seems to me Johnny M and Jewish Collector are correct, as are everyone else.

What were our expectations? As a 10 year old kid buying a pack of cards, I wasn't thinking about future value at all. And the same for buying my first T206 in the mid 80s. I just liked seeing a card from some player's playing days.

Have I ever thought about an increase in value? Yes. Although I think the value doesn't change, the value is nominal; what changes is the dollar amount at which buyers and sellers are willing to engage in transactions. I've bought graded cards, and for years whenever I bought them I cracked them out. The last few years I've left some of them in their slabs. Is that a tacit decision on my part recognizing that I'm gonna sell that card one day?

I mention the slab cracking to help folks see 2 perspectives: I'm buying this card to collect it because of the player, what he did on the field, the set and it's history, and the visual image of the card; vs I'm buying this card because it's going to increase in value. The 'buying to collect' folks get frustrated and thwarted with rising prices; while the 'investor' guys depend on that price increase.

Seems to me that in one way it sorts out the collectors and the investor/speculators. If the cards I'd bought as a 10 year old were still worth pennies I'd be ok with it.

Ya i remember and long for the days when nice t206 cobbs and goudey ruths were somewhat affordable. I missed the boat on 1-200 babe ruth strip cards noone seemed to want at the time. I also missed the bot on apple stock in the single digits.

Do i stop buying apple stock? No…i buy less.

I buy more raw cards for my binders now than I ever have since I was a kid. Its quite enjoyable. If the cards you buy have to be PSA sevens or eights and there is no deviation you’re in this more for the investment than a hobby. Invest elsewhere.

A suggestion
 

I’ve had success going for whatever is out of favor…. skip chasing what everyone is after! Not that I’m looking for more competition but oddball stuff, programs, display items, the kind of stuff Gray Ghost sells…. It’s great and makes the hobby fun. It may or may not go up in value but if you love it who cares! The more narrow your focus is , the more likely you will miss some really cool items that not many have. Of course by my method you will end up with one heck of a bunch of crazy boxes and displays …. but it makes the hobby fun !! Don’t quit keep looking around…. expand your horizons! This is my formula for my epic estate sale one day…..

Plenty of cool things to collect other than high end Goudeys. Photos. Tickets. Programs. Just have to be on the look out for the unusual and overlooked.

I bought a postcard on BST last year of relatively obscure 1900 black pre-integration player George Wilson. Have spend a lot of time researching him and seeing what I could find. Honestly has given me a lot more satisfaction than lobbing yet another psa entombed graded card into my safe deposit box. The fact that so few people know anything about him makes the researching aspect of it very satisfying And don't cost anything to research an obscure player.

Take what the defense gives you.

Everyone ignoring oversized cards? Maybe pick those up.

SGC slabs sell for half the price of PSA? Consider snapping up the discount.

Non-mainstream cards being offered at a fraction of the cost of set registry darlings? Get the oddball item.

+1

It is a challenge and sadly will always be a challenge but alot of forum members have given some great suggestions.
But in the end do what is right for you and your family.
Just do not give up what you enjoy if you do not have to.

All of my purchases are funded by sales of cards - so no new money going into the collection. low grade / mid grade / nothing much high grade. It's all good to me.

All of us have our condition requirements.

Pokémon!

Pete, I agree, but as the Bard said, "Parting is such sweet sorrow".

Both SGC and PSA are so much tougher on grades now that many of the "lower" level grades look like the higher grades of a few years ago. I blame all the card doctors who have suddenly created PSA 9's and 10's of vintage cards that didn't used to exist. :D

As Arthur Miller wrote in Death of a Salesman, life is a casting off.

I'm not rich but not poor, either. I cannot afford the prices that pre-war and many post-war cards that I might like to have command these days. I am very thankful for what I have. I had a lot of help (well-documented throughout this forum, and a lot of help from folks actually on this forum) to get here. I also made some foolish, never to be repeated mistakes in the past. All I can do now is trade. But I do not want to do that, as all the dupes and cards I would trade have already been traded. That being so, I am stuck in limbo, replying to threads like this occasionally. Maybe something will come along, maybe things will change. One day at a time, they say...

I guess it all comes down to the big question of "what makes you happy?!" If you are in it to get the best of the best, and only mint cards will do, you had to know at some point, even in normal times, the market would push prices higher. If you can't afford to get what you want, and won't bend on condition, then it's probably time to take a step back, re-assess and find a direction that excites you.

For me, condition doesn't matter, I have built sets, picked up cards here and there, and have a BLAST on the hunt. I have run into better cards than what I usually collect, and if the prices are right I will snatch them up. I never looked at the hobby as an investment, and maybe (probably) I am horribly naive, because I could move a bunch of my collection and make A TON more than what I have into it, but I enjoy it all too much to do that. Will I ever buy the 1933 Goudey Gehrig that I have chased, probably not. I have a tough time "paying up" for cards, I think I saw the light when I bought a George Brett rookie card for $2 at Mall Show in Ithaca, NY. I quacking un-velcroed my wallet and paid for it, running from the table like I had just snatched up the holy grail. It was beat to hell, but the price guide said it was worth $40, so I just made money in my eyes. That approach is still active to this day.

Find the things that bring you joy, if it has become a transaction, find something new!

As others have said, I think you can still enjoy collecting low and mid-grade cards, rather than just higher grade ones. However, saying that, what I've learned personally is that you should always enjoy what you collect. If you find that you're not happy with your latest pickups or what you're collecting or spending to get what you want, then take a break from that. The entire point of a hobby is to do something we enjoy.

I've found that whether your budget is $10, $100, $1,000, or more, the collector's dilemma stays the same, there are still cards you really want that are *just* out of reach.

For what it's worth, I've found it helpful to identify the cards/sets I like and ask myself 1. what's the minimum grade I'll be happy with, and 2. What will it cost me to get the set now in that grade?

I used to start projects, find them overwhelming, and get frustrated that I couldn't complete them. This approach has saved me countless frustration. If the answer to question 2 is "more than my current budget", I ask myself if I would be comfortable adjusting my answer to question 1. If the answer is no, I move on to other cards/sets. There's so much out there to collect, across all budgets.

Been that way with me for a decade or so. Anything I want I have to sell into or save for from sales proceeds.

This! I don't think I've ever been to a show where I haven't picked up something that I wasn't looking for. But it also doesn't hurt to have eclectic interests as well. I have holes in my sets but have no problem passing over an item that would fill that hole if the price isn't right, and being a bargain hunter, it usually isn't. But that doesn't stop me from picking up some really cool items.
One of our local dealers who always has a mixed bag of 'stuff' told me once that he always looks forward to seeing what I might buy from him as he has no idea what will interest me. My response was :Neither do I". :D

This is exactly how I collect as someone who has a limited budget. I have things I would love to collect but definetly pass on if I think I can get a better price else where. I also will just pick up random cool things that I see in auctions or at shows if they fit my budget even if they arent a target of mine.

The amount of money coming into the hobby right now is crazy. Are baseball cards for Main Street or Wall Street? In the last 10 years (and really the last 5 years), people looking at cards as an investment vehicle has exploded. We have moved into a new phase, treating cards like gold or some other commodity.

At the last card show, collectors walking around with bags full of cards, most for trading or trying to get the best price. It looked like the NYSE floor to me. I guess this is the future.

What this observation seems to indicate is that a lot of serious collectors that are trying to trade current value in their cards so that they can get something they want without having to pay the exorbitant prices being asked in today's "market". When the cash totally dries up at shows, it'll probably reinforce that this bull market has reached the end. What happens after that is beyond me. Will card prices stagnate and sit at this level for a while before some other monetary real world market fluctuation (not related to cards) drives the prices back up or down.

I think the OP is probably like most of the "real" collecting community. I'm at the point where I am really considering dumping a lot of my stuff because it's about the right time. Time will tell.

Brilliantly Said Fred I agree. I said this before on here, I think people blew it off but I think a lot of money that has come into this market over the past 14 months has been from crypto. Many big cards are playing Musical Chairs from Heritage, to Mile High to Memory Lane Ect. Pump Repeat Recycle... Will it fall? I don't think enough for it to affect these crazy levels I could be wrong. Def a lot of Speculating in Cards over the past year.

I get the idea of being kind of stuck in your ways and it being hard to adapt, but to me it feels pretty natural to adapt to new niches as I get priced out of some. T206 is still my favorite set to collect, but my dollars go a lot farther elsewhere and I have about 10 other sets and certain type cards that I'm always happy to add when they show up, and those buys always feel like a bargain to me.

I know we all have our condition preferences, but limiting yourself to just graded cards with big numbers on the label seems a little extreme. To each his own obviously, but if I ever got to the point where a crease or a rounded corner made me not want an otherwise nice card, I'd have to ask myself if I really like cards, or if I am a perfectionist who used to like cards.

If everything I like shot up 20x tomorrow, I'd start working on that matchbook set from 1935 and collecting team issues and photo packs from the 40s, etc. There's always something out there that's underappreciated and underpriced for how cool it is.

+1. Well said!

Every thread needs a card.
_

Is this the post you leave up for the wife to see, Adam? Kind of reminds me of someone who bought some cards from me a few years ago and asked if he could pay half by check and the other half by money order. Curious, I asked him why, and learned that his wife already had access to the checkbook and could see what he bought, so 100% money order wouldn't work when there was no corresponding check and card, and this way he would only catch half as much hell.

I have been collecting for easily 35 years so old stuff to sell I am no longer interested in isn't a problem. The new $600 limit on getting a 1099 is what will stop most from doing it. Since many eBay sellers are normal collectors selling something to buy something else or straight up unlicensed non tax paying dealers. I see eBay listings drying up real quick.

It's healthy to walk away for awhile every now and then. Stay off the forums, ebay, ah's and put the cards away. Come back with a new perspective. It's just a hobby and just cards. Fills a void sometimes, but I always realize I can live without most of what I have.

If ebay listings dry up real quick, then that reduces supply. Assume demand stays the same, then you have increasing prices. Increasing prices as in more spendy than the last year - oh, boy, up up up go the values yet again ?

Forget nice condition pre-war, forget PSA 7 & 8 the 50's & 60's HOF star cards, now all I can afford are 1970's stars in PSA 7 and splurge on a PSA 8. Or heck with it all and buy raw Steph Curry & Giannis cards, call it good.

Remember, the reporting is only for commercial sales activity, so Paypal Friends & Family payments are NOT included in what will be reported. Not sure if any of the other payment platforms have a similar type of personal payment option, but if it seems maybe so, you can contact them and ask if such payments are included in this new 1099-K threshold reporting mandate or not.

However, be advised these payment platforms are not stupid, and monitor and keep record of all payments through them, including friends and family ones. So don't be surprised if they suddenly see someone incurring ongoing transactions and activity for thousands or tens of thousands of dollars using their friends and family option, especially when there was no such previous F&F activity or history before, and investigating it themselves, or reporting it to the pertinent authorities (like the IRS). They certainly aren't going to take a hit for someone using their payment platform and trying to get around the tax laws. Remember the old saying, pigs go to market, but hogs get slaughtered.

Can definitely see Ebay losing some listings as sellers who aren't flat out businesses don't want to risk getting a 1099 and suddenly have to start reporting such activity for tax purposes. Can see them moving to other venues besides Ebay, where they can be paid by check or M.O. instead, or possibly start consigning through a big online seller or auction house that doesn't report and send 1099s to them. Using our forum's B/S/T is just such an option. No one likely reports anything on here to the IRS, nor are they required to by the forum. And the forum itself isn't required to keep track of and report anything to the IRS either (at least not yet). This could actually be a good thing for shows, flea markets, and such, going forward, as sellers are possibly motivated to go out and about again so as to not have to worry about their sales being reported to the IRS.

Nope, scout's honor on that one, Todd. My daughter wanted to go to medical school and when that seemed serious I had to not only stop all new money into cards, I had to sell a bunch of stuff to get a jump on covering that cost. Med school is f*****g expensive. When she decided on a different advanced degree at less than half the cost, I kept it that way since it imposes a good brake on my impulsive card spending.

I often feel as others do, that the hobby has gotten beyond me financially. I don't sell it all in frustration, though. I selectively cut back on my collection instead. For example, I stopped collecting boxing sets and focused on types instead. I have only one complete set of vintage boxing cards and that is only because I got it in a collection I bought.

I work in the hobby but no longer collect and have sold everything. I am finding so much satisfaction in new hobbies though. I have gotten into genealogy which is incredibly satisfying and I also collect records which is so much less expensive than sports memorabilia. Plus you get to listen to cool music.

We are at the peak of a once in a lifetime asset bubble. Don't like these prices, give it some time. Air is coming out of all asset classes I follow and with QE being wound down, no stimulus in sight, and money about to get a lot more expensive, there will be a day relatively soon when all the things we can't afford today will become slightly more affordable.

Thing is, will you or I, in that environment, be willing to part with cash to buy this stuff. If you stock portfolio is down 20 points, your HELOC up 2% and your RE down 15%, you may have a hard time pulling the trigger on a 10K card that used to be 18K. I'm not sure what's coming will be good for the retail investor / blue collar collector.

Agree 100%. An economic environment that necessitates lower hobby prices isn’t exactly something to pine for.

Completely onboard with this. I thought this would occur in the 2018/2019 timeframe and the pandemic just further exasperated this. 2022-2025 is going to be a very interesting time period.

Traditionally, the next few months often see an uptick in demand and prices. Many auctions houses have spring time events, the weather starts to turn better, spring training baseball starts .. do we see a hobby pop this year ?

Brilliant totally agree this is coming, time will tell.

One can hope.

By Pop you mean go even higher ?