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Posted By: warshawlaw

I strongly disagree with Bruce's suggestion that people who are critical of well-heeled collectors buying PSA 9 slabs are lazy muddlers complaining about people who work hard and have gotten ahead in the world. Let's cut through the self-congratulatory Calvinist rhetoric: the guys who were pioneers and whose collections would be worth fortunes today weren't rich. Timing is everything, my friend. 25 years ago people handed me boxes and bags of old cards for free just to get them out of their attics and garages. If I was 25 years older and was spending the equivalent fraction of my income that I spend now on cards starting in 1980, I'd have an immeasurably more complete, complex and diverse collection than the one I've put together now, and my collection now doesn't suck by any measure (monetary, breadth or otherwise).

No one begrudges anyone their worldly success and no one is trying to take away or disparage anyone's hard-won wealth. But this isn't a Darwinian world, it is a chat board of (mostly) well off white (nearly all) guys who collect expensive toys. I am fed up with the smug natural selection comments that are all the rage among the wealthy in this country. There are so many factors that we have little control of that put us into our present positions: birth, education, US citizenship, etc. We who collect expensive baseball cards for fun, I have a news flash: we have already won the Darwinist race. The difference between the folks who buy PSA 9 cards and brag about how expensive their collections are and the people who spend what they can afford and derive their fun that way isn't a reflection on their relative merits as human beings or their morals. Please don't insult collectors of less impressive means who are passionate collectors simply because they don't measure up to some arbitrary standards of financial success.

Personally, I encourage and welcome all wealthy collectors to buy as many high grade PSA slabs as possible. I WANT you to bid them through the roof becauee it means you will be chasing them and not be collecting what I collect.

And BTW, I have no problem with the Chinese and Indian entrepreneurs who have come up from nothing...as long as they don't collect baseball cards