[Fred]

Those that don't understand the OPs frustration might consider the following:

Many "collectors" started in this "hobby" decades ago when it was actually fun to find some nice cardboard at a reasonable price and to continue to add to a "collection". I think in most cases, these older "collectors" never considered this "hobby" as an investment or an inflationary hedge, they collected for the love of collecting.

Enter "grading". Misrepresentation, coin doctors and poor subjectivity of coins screwed up that "hobby".

Now the grading of cardboard has brought in an element of "gotta have the best in the world". Population reports and investors start to get into the "hobby" and turn it upside down by leading it into an era where there's a focus on $$$/value rather than just collecting cardboard.

Now go back to that collector who had a passion to continually add to a true collection of cardboard because it was a fun, affordable past time. Now it's a true shit show of card manipulators, thieves and greed. That last statement doesn't mean that EVERYONE is like that, quite to the contrary, especially most people on this board. It's just unfortunate for "collectors" that liked to collect for the fund of "collecting".

Older "collectors" on limited budgets may find it very challenging to continue to add to their collections because it's not economically possible or the collector has just had enough and is saying "no mas, I give up".

I continue to collect because it's something that's been part of my life for a very long time. Is it enjoyable? I think it still is, but if you used to collect a long time ago, then you find hobby dollars don't go near as far as they used to.

With the increase in "value" for cardboard, there's a larger increase in the amount of fraud and butt heads that want to "influence" collectors and end up making it worse for the pure collector.

Yes, this is just a hobby, but for some it's been a part of their life for a LONG time and now it's just not fun anymore for many of those old time "collectors".