[JollyElm]

"When I buy a new set, I look at the last card first. That way, in case I die before I finish, I know how it ends. That, my friend, is a dark side."

I present to you 2022's Collectorisms Part X - Section 2 of 3


"I made him an offer on a card he couldn't refuse..."


540. Jiggle Junkie
A spirited collector of Jell-O cards and boxes.

See also: Dessert Chopping - any card cut from a Jell-O box.

See also: Snipped Cream - a valuable card cut from a Jell-O box.

See also: Wiggle Warrior - a person always in pursuit of advancing the collecting community’s knowledge and understanding of vintage Jell-O sets.

541. Gloatin’ Free
The showing off of great cards, not because of some self-serving ‘look at me’ mindset, but simply because you know other collectors really enjoy seeing them.

See also: Gemissary - a high-minded collector who derives great pleasure from seeing other people’s enjoyment of his rare ‘jewels.’

542. Tedhead
An enthusiastic collector, follower and enthusiast of all things Theodore Samuel Williams.

See also: Ted Honcho - any very rare or valuable Ted Williams card.

See also: Ted Fake - momentarily thinking you hit it big by scoring a 1959 Fleer Ted Williams #55 ‘1955 - Ted Decides Retirement Is “No Go”‘ card...until you realize that although Ted sits in street clothes at a table next to an executive with papers to sign, it is not the coveted #68 ‘Jan. 23, 1959 - Ted Signs For 1959’ card.

543. Quadroptics
The quick, involuntary way your eyes inspect a card by focusing first on a single corner area, then moving on to the next one as you go around the horn examining all four corners to make an overall assessment of the card’s condition.

See also: Bumper Snicker - the reaction to discovering three beautiful corners in a row, only to find the last one viewed is dinged, rounded or overly soft.

544. Lickety-Split Personality
Someone who puts a tremendous amount of importance on receiving his auction wins as quickly as humanly possible.

See also: Grab Lag - when checking on the delivery status of a card, and it continually says “SHIPPING LBL CREATED USPS AWAITS ITEM” and never seems to advance into the “USPS IN POSSESSION OF ITEM” phase.

545. Two-Card Garage
Any TPG slab that wasn’t created to specifically house a certain sized card, so it remains unsecured, sliding around inside of the expansive holder.

546. Amazenith
The ridiculous, over-the-top high prices of cards listed on Amazon.

547. “When I say bump, you say how many times!”
The seeming arrogance of members sending their threads to the top much too often for anyone’s liking.

548. Sourglow
When putting a card under a blacklight reveals hidden problems or evidence of doctoring that you were unaware of.

549. Kigh Anxiety
The distress felt by any well-versed baseball fan upon hearing Kiki Kuyler’s name once again being mispronounced.

550. Bad Breadth
A card notorious for ‘always’ being terribly off-centered to one particular side.

See also: East-Slider - one seemingly found 99% of the time with the image just about falling off the right side of the card.

See also: West-Slider - one seemingly found 99% of the time with the image just about falling off the left side of the card.

See also: The Overly Brothers - the other cards that shared the same row on the print sheet and sing from the same excessively off-centered songbook.

551. Undeadline
The continually reanimated ending time of an auction with “extended bidding” rules in play.

552. Backpedestaling
The act of quickly hiking the prices of cards to reflect the newfound status of an old ballplayer who has finally become a Hall of Famer, a marked change from him sitting in the ‘dollar box’ just a week earlier.

553. Flip Floptimistic
A person hoping the prices of the cards he wants to buy drop back down to pre-COVID levels, while also wishing the prices of the cards he wants to sell continue to rise exponentially.

See also: “The best day to sell your cards is yesterday.” (adage) - the unavoidable fact that when you finally decide to auction off your cards to take advantage of crazily high prices, the market will always drop the moment you list them.

554. Etchebarrened
The surprise of seeing a player on an old card wearing a uniform number that has been forever intrinsically linked to an all-time great who played for the team later on.

555. Boxymoron
The odd absurdity of blacking in the box on a checklist card which is the number of the very checklist card you are holding in your hand and marking.

556. Pacademic
An expert at identifying and categorizing vintage baseball card wax pack wrappers.

557. Niels Bohring
Anyone whose assessment of players from long ago is focused solely on cold, hard stats, while ignoring all of the non-tangible and emotional aspects of the game, like what their contemporaries said about them as players, teammates and rivals.

558. Hubbug Out
Seeing a beautiful, newly listed card at such a great price that you’re basically knocking things over as your hand races to click on the auction and hit ‘Buy-It-Now’ before someone else beats you to it.

559. Joining Hate Watchers
Sitting on the couch, stuffing your face with junk food as you tune into a game for no other reason than to loudly root against the team and players who knocked your favorite team out of the playoffs.

See also: “The eliminator of my team’s eliminator is my friend” - no matter how much you despise a certain team, once they step up and defeat the squad who sent your team packing, you immediately give them a hearty thumbs up.

See also: Human Anti-Bradys - all of the people across the world who shout to the heavens year after year beseeching the gods to deliver Tom Brady a loss on Super Bowl Sunday.

See also: Winoculation - how some of the storied NFL franchises seem to have an immunity to becoming Super Bowl champions.

560. Ignormalcy
How placing the right member on your ‘ignore’ list returns a sense of harmony to the site and increases your enjoyment of it exponentially.

See also: Quotetails - when someone quotes one of those guys in their post, so you are forced to see whatever garbage is coming out of his keyboard now.

See also: Dismishugener (Yid.) - the gumption of someone who is found on countless members’ ‘ignore’ lists talking about the members he himself put on his own ‘ignore’ list.

561. Wear is Over (If You Want it)
Since modern day pack rippers completely ignore everything but the ‘money’ cards, which are immediately put into protective toploaders or albums before quickly being sent off to be graded, there will never again be stacks of cards showing the traditional wear and tear from kids excitedly, repeatedly handling them.

See also: Packslabbing - removing new cards from packs and immediately getting them ready to be sent off for grading.

562. Chaperonus (more familiarly Chaperanus)
Someone who feels it’s his duty to constantly complain about threads that he alone feels are posted in the wrong sections.

563. Replicandy
The magnificent cards that you have multiple copies of.

564. Centerrifical Force
The way your eyes immediately tell you if a card is rightfully centered enough for you personally, independent of what other collectors or TPGs may think.

565. Teambiguous
Looking at a card where the player can be found as a member of one of two different clubs, but you can’t recall if the one you’re viewing is the prized variation or the ‘normal’ one.

566. Crock and Pull Story
Someone joyously posting a card in the new pick-ups thread with a story about how excited he is to finally have one and it took forever to finally pull the trigger, etc...then a few scant days go by and you see he has the card for sale in the B/S/T section.

567. Strike Hike
How a dealer insists on getting the much better end of whatever trade deal may be struck at a card show, and cites a litany of reasons for it, such as the cost of his table, he’s there to make a profit, etc.

See also: Trytanic - when your perceived ‘low ball’ offer on a tremendously overpriced card at a show is met with nothing but an icy stare of death from the dealer.

568. Upsidentical Twin
An otherwise high-grade card that has a small, but fatal, flaw (such as a pinhole or writing) that you grab, because the trade-off of paying just a fraction of the price of what one without such a defect costs is too good to pass up.

See also: Ninesense - smartly grabbing a high grade card with a qualifier, because the visual difference between it and a straight grade is minute enough that spending a crapload more on one without the qualifier would be idiotic.

569. Sugarcoaxing
The emerging practice of craftily listing a card on eBay at a low Buy-It-Now price to draw buyers in, only for them to discover that the ridiculously exorbitant shipping cost actually makes the final price higher than the ‘expensive’ listings of the same card.

See also: Ployboy - a seller who works this kind of scheme.

570. Brandy New Collector
Anyone who has returned to the hobby after a long time away and is so drunk with enthusiasm that he makes all sorts of rookie mistakes right out of the gate.

See also: Empty Feathering-the-Nester - someone who has cleared out his entire collection...only to suddenly find himself buying a coveted card and jumping right back into the collecting game again.

571. PTVSD (Post-Trade-Value Stress Disorder)
How a trade you made many years ago, which in the end proved to be a horrendously bad move, still haunts you to this very day.

572. Windy-Wendy
A San Francisco Giants enthusiast with a special affection for all things Candlestick Park.

See also: Fenwicked - for good or bad, any of the momentous baseball events that took place on Boston’s home turf.

See also: Soapbronxing - anyone expressing his undying adoration for the New York Yankees team or players.

573. Stamp Scamp
Someone immediately looking at the cost of the postage on a mailer he received, then doing the quick math in his head to see if the shipping cost (plus materials, etc.) charged by the seller was close enough to be considered fair.

See also: Mailarkey - when the shipping charge proves to be nothing short of a rip-off.

See also: Bendvelope - a mailer contaning a card inside of a flexible Card Saver holder with nothing else used as a stiffener to better protect the cargo.

574. Musialeum
A collection of ‘Stan the Man’ cards and memorabilia.

575. Barefaced Buy
The purchase of a 1967 Topps ‘Who Am I?’ card where the creative ‘disguise coating’ had been scratched away long ago.

576. April Scour (also Spring Bling)
How a player’s card became hugely desirable to kids as they ripped open new packs searching for it the spring following his incredible exploits in last year’s regular season, playoffs or World Series.

See also: Zoilologist (eponym) - someone eagerly trying to get his hands on one of these new, highly sought-after cards.

See also: Donlarceny (eponym) - the act of taking advantage of someone else’s newfound fervency and scoring great cards off of him by trading one of your ‘new hero’ doubles.

577. Casual Loathing
Not being a fan of Babe Ruth cards and memorabilia where he is dressed in street clothes and not in his legendary baseball uniform.

See also: Mis-Taking Identity (or Ruth-Less Seller) - someone pretending to be slyly ‘unaware’ that the card he’s selling with a label stating it is Babe Ruth pictured on it, clearly shows someone other than ‘The Babe.’

578. Slabdication
When the anger over ridiculously long delays, coupled with the grading company’s poor attitude towards its own customers, grows so intense that you swear you will never spend another dime sending cards their way.

See also: The Vainglory of their Times - the smugness of PSA not giving a rat’s ass about the pathetic length of time it takes for them to grade and return the cards of loyal customers.

579. Omentum
When an auction has such an unusual amount of early activity/bidding that it serves as a bad sign that the price of the lot is going to be driven much higher than you could’ve imagined.

580. Fuzzcuts
The roughly sliced edges of O-Pee-Chee cards.

581. Whale Grail
When a pick-up is so epic that neither “White Whale” nor “Holy Grail” comes close enough to describing how magnificent of a grab it is.

See also: Gloatation Device - a card or piece of memorabilia so monumental that not a single person will ever take exception to the owner loudly boasting about it.


End of section 2, so keep mining for gold so you can afford to fill up your gas tank...