Does Anyone Still Just Collect Cards?

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by jingram058

Not cards in slabs with bar codes.
Not worrying about how much they're worth.

I didn't reply originally, but from James and others - we seem to see this aspect of collector superlative tossed around from time to time. Are you a big wheel investor or otherwise who has this elaborate, pricey collection? Or are you doing things ostensibly with more purity by not worrying about the value and all kinds of other things. Whether you have the means and are just noble or something and can't be made to care about value, or that doesn't for whatever reason do it for you, or something different.

Not that either are mutually exclusive for one to be considered a "collector"; I would agree the definition can be very broad.

I started collecting at age 9 in 1986, and was if I'm remembering correctly already totally engrossed by the "old" cards I had discovered, anything pre-1980's - less than two years later.

Given the state of the hobby and when I found such things, there has never been a time I can remember where the value of cards just wasn't a concern at all. Those days were already gone. Even for new cards, and the Mattinglys and Cansecos we were looking to pull from Topps, Donruss, and Fleer packs when I started - it was understood that some cards are more valuable than others, and if you didn't realize that well, here came your friends with their Beckett Monthly's who quickly filled you in.

I started off with raw vintage, so to me a slab has more or less always been a vehicle to make sure you don't get ripped off buying something sight unseen, on ebay or elsewhere. If a pricey card - generally $100 or more, but I've bought slabs intentionally for lower value too - then if I target a PSA 5, I can usually be reasonably sure the card is not going to arrive with a hidden crease. But there is limited utility here. To me, a slab is just a holder with an opinion on it. Neither have to be permanent.

As the times change so do collectors and practices and attitudes and opinions. I can't stand them much now, but in the late 1980's - all my cards, whether in set or random order - were in binders. It's just what you did, everyone had a card album. Today I prefer organizing differently, but I also have boxes full of slabs. Had I been big time into this stuff before the retail hobby, maybe back in the 1930's - I'm sure I would have mounted cards in albums just like Burdick and Carter, and others did. So as it circles back to slabs, maybe it's just a "collector of the times" thing. We may think slabs are childish and stupid 50 years from now; who knows. I kinda doubt that, but it's possible.

As to the value, because it's again just how I grew up collecting - sure, it's of secondary purpose to me - because I collect due to enjoying nostalgia and I just genuinely like the cards themselves. But I would be in the camp that for some things I have, it would be foolish to just totally ignore value, and not to have a plan for these things in the future, etc. So that's what I do.