There's a lot of people in the hobby who prefer to remain on the outskirts of the hobby because of the people in the hobby.
I'm not a market mover or market definer. I'll never play in that realm even with a low-6-digit value collection and spare money to go bigger. Some people spend the value of my collection on a single auction, or single card. They're the makers and movers.
That said...
Since I was a young collector in the single-digits of age, I've received generous education/support/freebies from dealers + collectors. I've also been ripped off, lied to, and otherwise hustled by the peers of the ones being reasonable dealing with me.
More than that, I've experienced "both sides" playing me (or attempting) from the same person. I'm not talking about stuff like a dealer low-balling me or charging too much. I'm talking about legit bad stuff, dishonesty, and fraud.
There's more good than bad, but I've always been shocked at how many totally above the board dealers/collectors will tolerate fraud and out-classed hustling from their peers.
I think a lot of the legit good ones realize how much slime is in the hobby and accept it as part of the hobby, and your own due diligence needs to be applied to too many movers/makers in the hobby.
I'm not disgruntled. I'm still in it nearly 40 years after I started collecting pictures of baseball dudes, but it's kept me on the hobby edges and I don't have a problem with it. It is what it is and it seems it's been that way since before I knew what a baseball card was.
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