Can corruption kill this beloved hobby?

[drcy]

I don't like the money-centric part of the hobby, with PSA and news outlets announcing "new price records" and all that shallowness. However, many of the buyers are genuine collectors, so that's not that big of a deal. As long as the items themselves are left alone and still exist, I can live with it.

I'm not even saying things are too expensive. I just think that judging things like baseball cards and movies by their financial level is shallow, and what shallow people do. A baseball card sale will appear as a story on CNN or ESPN, but only if it sells for a lot of money. Which just says CNN and ESPN are shallow. And, of course, CNN's coverage of movies is largely based on box office receipts. As I say, you can't judge the quality of a movie by the box office receipts, in part because people buy the ticket before they watch the movie.

That wasn't a political statement. You can switch FoxNews for CNN if you wish.

Any real collector knows a wonderful item can be worth only $1 on the open market and that doesn't take away from its wonderfulness. Just as no one here, other than studio stock holders, requires box office records to pick their top 10 favorite movies.

You know, I'd call 2001: A Space Odyssey an artistic masterpiece, and I have no idea where it ranked in the 1968 box office list. Learning that Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo or the McGwire 70 Home Run ball turned a better profit won't alter my opinion. That doesn't mean I won't find 2001's box office ranking uninteresting. I like facts and figures just like the the next guy. I'm a baseball fan after all.