Board activity as of late

[Archive]

Posted By: Morrie M

Jim said:

"Its obvious there is overwhelming support on the boards for what I am trying to accomplish."

With all due respect, anyone saying that they don't support you in this is going to end up painted with the hobby-equivalent brush of someone saying they don't support the troops. Clearly, you're doing this because you mean well and have what you perceive to be the best interests of the hobby at heart.

I know that I, at least, have not bothered to chime in because while I agree that the issue exists (card doctoring has been around as long as there has been a market for high-grade cards; we can't blame the grading companies for it, it's the existence of a market that values pristine cards at all that creates the situation), it does not materially affect my collection, my collecting habits, or my enjoyment of the hobby. I appreciate that it does affect many people's collections, and yes, you will get overwhelming support from them -- but in saying that there's "overwhelming support on the boards" (which I've seen you claim in at least one other thread) does little to make collectors like myself, who are on a tight budget and who don't bother with high-grade cards because we (a) can't really afford them and (b) didn't want to risk them having been altered to begin with, feel all that valued in the conversation.

Consider me not-supporting you. Not because I think these are the wrong questions to be asking, but because I don't believe you're going about it in the right way. In the Mile High thread, the rep doesn't want to respond in an open forum, and people immediately start pulling business from him. Any time it becomes, "Respond or else" (and I can't imagine how anyone who's read the threads could perceive the tacit message to be otherwise), then yes -- I start to have a problem with it.

That being said, I think that this discussion would serve as an excellent prelude to a hobby summit, say at next year's National, in which heads of all the major auction houses and reps from the major grading companies could sit down and talk about these issues. Heck, I would FULLY support that -- and hope that you would be available to serve as moderator for the discussion. But the current approach is something that they may see as coming out of the blue, at a potentially inconvenient time, and I can't find myself surprised that not everyone wants to come into an internet message board forum to answer questions when their answers will be dissected so quickly and thoroughly that they may not have any opportunity to explain miscommunications until it's too late and they've lost thousands of dollars in business.

Of course, I'm just a little guy who likes low-grade T206 and the occasional caramel card, who enjoys flipping through the half-completed 1959 Topps set he keeps in his closet and helping his wife search for 1940 Playballs for her set on eBay. I don't bid in the big auctions. But I am a collector, and I love my cards just like everyone else on the board -- and I figured I might as well be heard, too.

Morrie (M.ullins)