I’m 30. I started collecting vintage at 8 or 9. Pre-war at like 10. Which means picking up a T206 every couple months, because I was a broke kid. I remained broke until I was 25, which is largely why my focus was non sport and boxing more than baseball. My broke ass could afford a T218 sometimes.
Lots of kind, older gentleman helped to educate me and get me going and I am proud to have as friends. And lots still insist I am always wrong because simply I’m younger than them. Card collectors and fallacious argument go together like peanut butter and jelly. I’ve found men of insight and men of idiocy in every age group and segment of society. I’ve yet to see any evidence that age has much to do with it.
Most younger people in cards are in it for the money. This is absolutely true. I’m young and hip enough (I’m not hip, fine) to have spent significant time in the younger centered communities, primarily the Discords. They are in it for the money, they are engaging in market manipulation openly and some of them don’t seem to understand what fraud is. They leave a strongly negative taste in my mouth, but that’s like, my opinion, man.
However, I’m not sure this will be perpetual. It takes time to go through college, to start a career and accumulate enough wealth that one may be a true collector instead of a flipper and profiteer. I am certainly less affluent than most here, but I sit in a position of extreme luck and privilege to talk about buying $1000 cards and not really caring what they are worth on a hypothetical resale I’m never going to make. 99% of 30 year olds are not so fortunate and lucky. I think, personally, this is one of the worst impacts of money taking over our hobby, we are making it increasingly difficult for people to even be collectors at all. When our 60 year old members were 30, vintage card collecting was doable on a relatively small budget. It really isn’t so now. Even a poor beater T206 common is $25. Todays flippers are largely flippers because they need money, they’re supplementing income to get themselves going so they may improve their life and build a family. They may become collectors when they are 50 and are more likely to be able to afford it. I’m disgusted by certain business practices common among this crowd, but I can’t hate ‘the game’ too much. When you’re two years out of college and making 40K after taxes in Silicon Valley, you can barely afford to live, much less have children. ‘Stack those racks’ kids.
Not to be dark, but I think it is reality that an influx of young collectors is needed or as the aging vintage collector base dies out they will get pennys for the dollar on their stuff. What happens in 20 years if there is no such influx, and all that generation is reaching the end and they or their families are liquidating collections? Personally, I want the prices to crash so I can collect more, but I suspect this is a very minority view here. I’m not so sure older vintage collectors are really all that different than the Gary Vee worshipping guys lining up at Wal Mart. Many “collectors” are pretty open that their cards are part of their retirement portfolio or an investment. It’s just a longer flip, and that longer flip is a gamble that this influx of younger folks will be interested.
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