Quote:
Originally Posted by HRBAKER
Cleaning up the hobby would involve denying yourself that which you want. That's where the first breakdown occurs.
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Only if you have nearly unlimited play money.
Those of us with tighter budgets are always denying ourselves the stuff we want. So no big change there.
Totally clearing house would be impossible.
I do think there's less smalltime fraud now than before. Mostly because knowledge is easier to come by. The days of people trying to pass off Dover reprints as original at a show are hopefully gone.
I do think that without TPG a lot of the money will leave. The more investment driven, or those with money but not necessarily the time to learn what's good or not probably wouldn't spend without the third party opinion.
And ultimately things would revert to the early-mid 80's. Some cards wouldn't become available without the higher prices. It's one thing to keep an odd family heirloom even if you're not all that interested. It's a far different thing to do that when that money could pay for a car, house, or college.
Would the Black Swamp cards be on the market if they were worth $2 each instead of a few thousand each?
Would the Nagurskis just found be on the market if they were $10 cards?
Probably not.
The internet has changed things so much it's hard to describe.
Maybe this.
As a fairly casual collector the number of tougher T206 backs I had chances to buy between 1977 and maybe 1994
Drum 1
Uzit 0
Broadleaf 460 0
Red Hindu 0
That's all I saw back then. Granted I only went to local shows, although we had some big ones. And didn't really look all that hard. But I just didn't see any.
Since roughly 1998 when I joined Ebay.
Drum 5-6?
Uzit 5-6? Maybe more
Broadleaf 460 2?
Red Hindu Quite a few with the recent batch in a big auction, which I usually didn't even look at till recently.
The money makes getting the cards tougher for many of us. But it also makes it possible for more of us.
Unfortunately it also brings the bad guys.
Steve B