Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth
Throw together a ton of money, a high percentage of scumbags with no ethics, and essentially no deterrence. This is what you get. Welcome to the "hobby."
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I've been in the hobby since the early 80s and market manipulation is something I just consider part of the hobby.
I know there's many here that have been part of the hobby for prior decades, but "market makers" making/manipulating the market has been nothing but a fact of life for me my entire time in the hobby.
The artificial pumping of cards, the purposely withholding cards from the market to create artificial rarity (70s/80s minor league sets come to mind), and straight up price fixing by the majors (and using monthly Beckett guides to codify the fix) are things that have always been normal in my world.
I imagine many hobbies are like this, but my entire hobby experience has been a noticeable mix of great people and terrible people, some of those people playing both sides of great/terrible depending on the moment.
I still like my pictures of baseball dudes, though.