What's hurting the vintage card hobby?

[Exhibitman]

Well, I do agree w/our new collector that the entry price points on many vintage cards are daunting for someone new and/or w/o ridiculous disposable income. One of the factors that's turned me off from vintage collecting over the years is the need to assess each purchase as though it was an investment simply because of the amount of money that has to be committed to a purchase. I was lucky enough to obtain much of my collection before the heavy price boom in vintage hit. I never thought I'd spend anywhere close to four figures on a card (T206 Wagner excluded, of course) and now it takes high three and into four figures to get hold of any of a wide variety of cards that a starting collector would find attactive otherwise. That has to be very intimidating and discouraging to a younger collector w/presumably fewer financial resources and larger looming expenses (starting a family, and so on).