What causes you the most frustration as a card collector?
 

Mine's easy: I collect sets and when you try to collect a master set with color variations (E94) you don't find the cards very often and when you do see them pop up on ebay or in the BST or in auctions online, they are never with the particular background color you need. :(

What causes you the most frustration as a card collector?- Being so close but yet so far......There were (4) D355s that were walked into a coin store a few years ago. The owner had no idea what he had nor did the coin shop owner. They didn't make a deal, the guy left and was never to be seen again. I bugged the coin shop owner for about a yr after that and he said the guy never came back nor did he have contact info. I still have scans of the cards though :).

cue the violins for Bob!!!!! :D How fun would it be if they were easy to find?!?!?!

i'm shocked the hobby has not seen those d355's again?!?!? They all had back damage...if I remember correctly...and Leon...you wouldn't want that anyway!?!?

I would take back damage to fill THAT hole. I could always upgrade later!!

Nothing.
I really love and enjoy everything in this hobby.

Today an E94 Byrne popped up on ebay with a decent BIN and, of course it was blue, and I need the olive green. Grrrrr! If I don't reach the master set before I die, it would be nice if the group could go to one person who could continue the quest but you know what will happen: someone would buy them all and break them apart and make a small fortune selling them individually :rolleyes:

No war stories about getting out-sniped, or the card lost in the mail, or finding cards were trimmed or the occasional whacko dealer? :cool:
I love the hobby too, just find some things frustrating from time to time...

I'll do it Bob!!!!!

If anything...worst case scenario...if we could get the remaining color combo's you need...and we could bring them to the hospital you are dying at...just to reunite them with your hundreds of E94's...so you can die happy!!!!:D

I rue the day when your E94 hoard goes on the sales block...that's the day the value of E94's plummets!!!!!

bidding on a card from a subset you are collecting and you get outbid by a person who you know already has an example of that exact card.

Trying to win a card you absolutely "need" for your collection...because you actually collect it...and being outbid by someone who is just trying to bid you up...because they know you "need" that card!!!!

The fraud within the hobby probably frustrates me more than anything else, mostly because it will drive some current collectors out of the hobby and prevent many new people from ever starting to collect.

Best regards,

Eric

Me
 

I frustrate myself because I can't make up my own mind...am I a set collector, type card collector, Hof collector, Team collector.....and don't get me started on if I am going to try and start the T206 set again!

If I could get over that I would feel just like Nelson!!!!!

Having so many cards available, unlike the early 80's when it was all in person or mostly blind mail order.

But not having enough to afford a lot of it anymore.

Steve B

High prices for someone else's cards and low offers for your cards.

sellers on ebay who have a $ 200 bin or best offer, u offer 185 and he counters at 195. seriously, why does he even have a best offer?

Lack of $$$ would probably be number 1! The other that happens on the B/S/T here quite often is I see someone is offering a card and even though I check often the card is already sold. When did that get posted?! I won't even know what it was offered at, but it's gone. Must have been a good deal...:(

fraud and villiany

and

the fact that there aren't near enough auctions in the hobby

I think there are too many auctions just not enough quality material?!

Nop

Only bad story of extrem high custom fee in canada when i receive cards lolll

Pete,

I was kidding about the auction part.

Pretty much sums up how I feel. Just replace T206 with M101-5/M101-4.

I need more money, that's all...

Having so many Yankee cards (I am a Yankee card collector, mainly pre 1981 back thru 1906) that now I cant go to the few local card shows as they virtually never have anything I need.

Also, finding that almost every card on Ebay that I still need or want is REALLY expensive, most too expensive for me to buy now!!! Remember, everyone has a different definition of "too expensive", and now that both my wife and I are retired, I dont have the bucks available for cards that I used to. Now a card for two hundred bucks is really expensive to me, and most of the cards i want/need are WAY more than that.

This is a catch-22 situation, its great to have an advanced collection, but the fun isnt there now that its tough to obtain more cards.

1. Waiting a lengthy amount of time for a nice example of a card to show up, paying a strong price for it, and then seeing an even nicer example show up days/weeks later and sell for the same price or lower. :(

2. Knowing there are certain cards that I overlooked or didn't pursue aggressively enough in the past and really wishing I had. :o

Ha! Were gonna run out of banner space. :)

From the time I first started collecting, it always bothered me that a complete set is worth less than the sum of the parts. I think of myself as a set collector, but I have never actually completed a set, not even 1978 Topps. I did buy a complete 1982 Topps set in 1982 and that may be the only complete set I own.

Couldn't have said it better myself! #1 happens WAAAY too often!

oh man, a big amen to that.

When I see a card submitted by a particular dealer getting a higher grade than it deserves strictly because that dealer does a lot of business with the tpg, that really bothers me. A card should be graded on its merits alone.

I agree with Mr. 'stache, it is disheartening to see favoritism in grading (or regrading for that matter). I guess money talks but it shouldn't matter who submitted the card.
I don't have an axe to grind as I have less than five graded cards in my collection. It's just something I have noticed.

The most frustrating thing is when you approach the end of a set and the few remaining cards you need just are not out there. And, when they finally do pop up, two of the same cards surface at the same time and you end up accidentally winning both.

Frustrations
 

Good one, Chris.

How about this one? The more cards I buy, the more I seem to want....

Frustration
 

Not having the money for all the cards that I can't afford.

Tony

Reproductions , RP's , Fantasy Pieces , " Photographic Prints " , Reprints etc .. ad nauseum .

+1
Wonder what this means? :)

What bugs me the most ...
 

What bugs me the most about card collecting ... seeing someone who buys an uncut sheet ... who then cuts it up so they can get a PSA 10 card. Seriously, there are only a few uncut sheets out there of some sets (and they're getting smaller every day for every set) and some idiot in it for the money destroys a piece of the hobbies history for a few $ of profits.

Those are the same idiots that would cut up Monet's Waterlies and put a sliver in a piece of a card to sell worthless 1980s baseball cards.

And the sgdest part is ... if the uncut sheet collector wasn't so short-tmer profit oriented ... they'd realize that the uncut sheet is worth more than anything else they could ever own ... and would never be dumb enough to sell it for $100 in profit.

But that will never happen as our politicians have taught us ... being short-sighted gets you re-elected.

Cheers,
Patrick

The chase for the cards is great, but once I have the cards they lose some appeal, not buyer's remorse, but something like it.

Pete- that is exactly why I had second thoughts about posting the E94 color variations I needed but I took the plunge in the hopes someone might have one laying around collecting dust and might want to sell it for a nice profit :o

Insane asking prices and American eBay sellers that use that nonsensical, money grab, aka GSP (Global Shipping Program). That's two things that bug me. :mad:

Card I need buried in a large auction lot
 

Patience is the toughest part of my collecting these days now that I really only need a few more cards. My biggest frustration, however, is when one of the cards finally surfaces but it is part of a large lot in an auction.

And so I wait...impatiently.


Patrick

Shilling, fraud, lack of honesty from some.

People who don't buy my cards. :D

While my first response is a big frustration...I ditto the sentiment that the rampant corruption is my biggest frustration in this world...which sadly encompasses this hobby!

It seems when i was a young collector...many dealers/auctioneers were just "dicks"...now they're criminals!

Indeed! I'm all over the place much like yourself. I also collect autographs and amazingly enough I've been able to identify and maintain a focus on that side of the hobby, but not so much with cards.

Big Mistakes
 

I wish I would have listened to my father when he tried to get me into vintage cards. But All of the stars of the 90's had my attention! Still waiting to get my first pre war HOFer card :(

can you elaborate on this GSP?

BW, I just got my first pre-war Hall of Famer (Walter Johnson) a few days ago, and I still haven't stopped smiling.

I really hope you can find one you love, and add it to your collection soon. Good luck!

seeing the same overpriced cards on Ebay BIN for 3 years in row, without a drop in price...

there has to be a tax advantage hidden somewhere for NOT SELLING CARDS on ebay...why else is it done so much?

Hi Scott,

I'm not an expert on this - just an eBay buyer. But my understanding is that recently (in the last year or so) eBay introduced this GSP option for sellers to use when the buyer was outside the US - including Canada. The pitch is that by using it the seller avoids all the complexities of shipping to a foreign country. Instead, if the seller selects this, eBay automatically calculates shipping, and also certain estimated cross-border fees the buyer would incur, and those are all charged to the buyer.

From the buyer's perspective, the fees charged through this method are exorbitant. It would be WAY, WAY cheaper if the seller just mailed the item using USPS.

Using cards as an example, in many cases the buyer would never incur any of the fees grabbed by eBay's GSP program.

As a collector in Canada, I avoid sellers who are using GSP. Or I message them and work a way around it.

Cheers,
Blair

As a kid growing up in the 70's, the biggest thrill was buying packs of cards and gradually completing a set. I still remember the day I completed my 1978 Topps baseball set. Now, packs are so expensive that it would cost several hundred dollars to complete a set. And the packs are full of useless inserts that I wouldn't use to wipe my butt. How about non insert packs that a regular guy can afford to collect a set?

Ebay auctions offering 15 to 20 card lots when you really need only one or 2 cards from the lot.