Is this pornography?
No, there is a difference with something such as baseball cards, art, or other collectibles which are being admired for a certain significance or beauty.
Returning to the previously used definition of "The theory or attitude that physical well-being and worldly possessions constitute the greatest good and highest value in life", one can see that materialism is a theory or attitude. Therefore, if they are bought with that theory or attitude in mind, then yes, they are materialistic. If they are being purchased simply to be admired, then no.
If all cards had no value, and no one was interested in collecting them, other than one individual, who was collecting them out of pure fascination and not out of anticipation that they would one day have value, that would not be materialistic. The same way that if you were to stare and admire an acorn, it is not necessarily materialistic, just beautiful.
But if you were then to store those cards in order to capture the beauty of the cards and make them personally accessible, it would be a similar behavior to a squirrel collecting acorns. Baseball cards, I think we can agree, have no functional value in the mechanical world - they feed no one, play no role in transportation, economic raw materials, etc. Yet they hold an aesthetic value.
When you think of the things that have been collected for aesthetic value over the centuries - art, beads, metals, etc., one can suppose that the act of collecting has a primal value that is hard-wired into the systems of Man. -As it is the squirrel. Yet man can appreciate the aesthetic value of an item unlike a squirrel, and thus our cards have value.
Is sex materialistic? It can be, depending on its function. Some sex may be more healthy or virtuous then other sex, yet sex itself is an ingrained part of our nature as human beings. The statue above of Venus de Milo may be erotic, but it is not pornographic as it is not geared for sexual consumption in the way that pornography is. Owning many pairs of fancy shoes is not pornographic; it is simply a way of boosting sex appeal. Cards may play a similar role in the male mentality of ownership; owning something unique and rare distinguishes that man from the other men. This means that the appeal of owning items such as rare art or cards may lie in the basic recesses of our sexual minds as part of a mating ritual.
Ultimately, the goodness of collecting cards may lie solely in the hands of the collector. Some people on this board may preach that they don't care about expense or making money, as if this washes their hands of the sin of collecting. These people are the priests, or purists, of the card world. Ultimately, the natural instinct is to make money and if they didn't, I bet they would feel disappointed. They may attempt to remain chaste, but the natural impulse is still there.
On the flip side would be crooks, forgers and corrupt dealers - the outcasts of collecting society who have become so overcome with money or cards that they have compromised their own personal integrity. This is true materialism because they are operating based on the assumption that "physical well-being and worldly possessions constitute the greatest good and highest value in life".
In conclusion, collecting cards is a natural impulse of the human mind. However, those who act criminally or recklessly within the hobby are being overly materialistic - and those who claim not care about profits at all are espousing anti-materialism. That is the premise of Socialism. Yet to deny that natural impulse may be naive and potentially hazardous. So in summary: Collect (and invest) Away!
Jamie