Money in the hobby

[steve B]

Originally Posted by calvindog

It's always the guys with no money telling the rest of us how dumb we are to spend big money on high grade cards. They have yet to figure out that no one listens to investment advice from guys with no money.

Nice card!

I don't usually say people spending big on high grade cards are dumb. In some situations I'm not sure it's a good investment. Of course, I've had that same opinion of those cards, in some cases since they were new. (86 Fleer Jordan ) So you're probably right about some of my investment ideas.

On the original topic of money in the hobby.
It's one of those love/hate things. I've collected long enough that the prices between when I started and now are worlds apart. T206 Wagners were under 20K for sure, 52 Mantles were under 1000 even for a nice one.
Would I like to return to that?
Yes and no. Now that I've got "some money", at least the Mantle would be within reach, probably not the Wagner. (I could buy one at say 10K, but me and the card would be kicked out of the house shortly after ) And I'd love to get common T206s for $2 each with no regard for backs and not much for condition.
But then, back then I hung out at a dealers a LOT. Sort of worked for them, and got to see a lot of collections come in. And saw a lot of those go back out because what the cards were worth to a dealer wasn't enough to overcome the "these were granddads cards".

Yes, money has shut me out of some of the hobby, my own cheapness from a bit more. But if it wasn't for the money, a lot of that stuff would still be in attics and drawers, or would have been thrown out.
Would the Black Swamp find have been sold into the hobby if the cards were worth a dollar each? Maybe maybe not.

And yes, wherever there's money there are crooks.

But overall, I think the hobby has benefitted from the money.

Steve B