Hey Big Spender

[Ejm1]

We care.

It rather amuses us that so many people get so emotional when we raise the issues of high value collectibles. One does not speak about the world of art
without a long discussion on Impressionist paintings. And in the world of coins there are well over 5000 US coins sold in each year with a value of 100K or more.

The questioning with regard to what we do with our money was not one we raised. We are playing by the rules, Dan Bretta.

We do think that we bring a level of energy to the Board that appears to lack, so we wonder on "what grounds" you could possibly raise an objection.

Finally, whilst baseball memorabilia is a hobby, it is certainly first and foremost (like coins, art, antiques) a business. Otherwise the providers of material would not be called Dealers.

In every hobby there is fierce competition. Whilst grading services and lists of who owns what is limited to comic books, coins, stamps and cards (because of grading), the very fact that there are hundreds of collectible auctions every year is testimony to the American love for competition.

In auctions, like in life, you either win or lose. We are fiercely competitive,
and when we want an item that we can afford, we will spare nothing to determine a way to acquire. We view all of those who collect what we do as
the competition. And we love the battle.

Albeit on occasion we make a typo, we enjoy the Board. In fact, our last three BTW have resulted in 8 purchases.

Hope all of you have a good weekend. Don't lose your sense of humor or your sense of reality. We already have that problem in our Congress
(Democrat and Republican)

Bruce Dorskind
America's Toughest Want List
bdorskind@dorskindgroup.com

[Sterling Sports Auctions]

The rest of "we" is going to be pissed when they find out everything is in Bruce's name and they are not in the will.

[novakjr]

Hi Bruce.

I think Leon pretty much summed it up in post #3. I'm honestly at the exact opposite of the spectrum as you when it comes to collecting. I honestly probably have one of the junkiest collections out there. Sure there's some great stuff, but I've been able to amass a pretty diverse and satisfying collection on a budget due to my lack of care for perfection. However, I do understand and appreciate exactly what you were getting at with your initial post.

To address that, I believe what you were looking to discuss is that the very top of the high end, collector-wise has seemed to remain somewhat steady at about 10 collectors. And that you feel that the market for that high end material will continue to be safe while the lower and middle ends of the market have slowly dwindled, and will probably continue to do so, with collectors dropping like flies due to financial issues.

To that extent, I can agree. However, the collectors in the market for that high end stuff will eventually dwindle and (to put it in simple terms) die(no offense), with no one to step in once one leaves. Eventually the safe 10 that you're referring to, will be 7, 5, 3 and at some point maybe zero. It's not like the last big spending collector left will be king. At some point financially, all that will be left to sell to are the middle-grounders, and I guarantee once you're selling down into a different collecting bracket, money will be lost.

Now the low end of this market is where the most growth and contraction will take place. Honestly, if you were to look at this from an investment standpoint, that volatility should make it potentially the most profitable area of the collecting market. At the same time it could make it the most costly, with some mistakes. All that aside, most of us at the low-end of the spectrum aren't actually any different than you high-enders, despite our obvious differences in financial ability, as our collections seem to be more for the enjoyment of collecting, as opposed to investing. Nobody's here competing with each other to see who has the best collection. Honestly if we were to handi-cap it golf style based on financial ability, I'd sure as hell have to say I'm about as happy as I could be to have my collection where it currently is. I guess that would make me the winner. YAY!!!

Anyways, now that that's out of the way. We're all just here to collect and share knowledge, information and ideas about the hobby. Despite the fact that what you shared here is completely irrelevant to me, and I'll assume most of us here, I really do appreciate getting to read every bit of it, and learning from the big timers. It's like Baseball itself. Do I really need to know everything that I know? F*** no, but I sure as hell enjoy the sh*t out of knowing it. And learning more can often times be every bit as satisfying as buying a new card. That's just my simple view on the hobby.

[barrysloate]

What clouds this issue a bit, as has been cited, is the amount of material that gets recycled, again and again. There are plenty of collectors who after they drop 100K in an auction, consign 75K of duplicates to the next one. So if you say that every year these big auction houses sell tens of millions of dollars worth of material, you shouldn't underestimate how much of it has appeared two or more times in a short period of time. I'm sure there is someone who buys a T206 set only to merge it with the one he already has, then consigns his duplicate set to a future sale. So much of this stuff goes round and round that it's hard to get an accurate gauge of how much collectors really spend.

If I buy a card for 10K and then sell a different one for 10K, that's 20K worth of sales, but I in fact have spent nothing.

[soflphillyfan]

The Bruces - "We put the a$$ in assumption."

[tonyo]

This has been a classic and mostly enjoyable thread......True Bruce, it does bring some energy. Thanks to all who have contributed. Although it sickens me to read direct personal attacks and to hear that some folks consider collecting as a competition (I know it's true, I just don't like that it is), it is still an entertaining thread!

The Highlights for me: (in no particular order)

Learning that Chuck Daly coached BC and Penn.
Hearing of Bruce's plan for what happens to his collection when he is gone (I'm impressed much much more with the plan than the actual collection)
Andrew's find of a reference to a singular person.
Eric's "add a female to the want list"
The use of the word "Whilst"
David's description of his low grade collection and his take on the hobby (the post I most identify with)

[hangman62]

Stop using that word - WHILST !!!