To Catalog or Not To Catalog Vintage Cards...

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Some (very few) veteran boxing card collectors have told me that they were peeved that I catalogued cards and reported values for them because it made it harder for them to buy cards on the cheap. I thought long and hard about just that issue when I started writing, believe me. The decision to publish the data ultimately came down to what I felt was the purpose of this endeavor. People don't collect cards to hide them in attics and look at them when no one else knows and share them with no one. That isn't a hobby; it's masturbation. The growth of card collecting is a direct result of systematic efforts to catalog and then estimate the rarity of and price cards. Without cataloging there is no common lexicon for collectors to use to converse with one another about their cards, and without that common, systematized technical language, there is no interaction. Without interaction, there are no trades, no shows, etc. In sum, when I thought about it, I realized that hiding information doesn't help me as owner of the hidden cards and certainly doesn't help anyone else. Sure, I might theoretically miss out on a steal of a deal but in the long run my cards will be worth more and I will have a better time.