The New Directory of Collectorisms...

[perezfan]

We need more Tape Saints in the hobby. That's a courtesy you see maybe 1 in 100 times.

[butchie_t]

Originally Posted by perezfan

We need more Tape Saints in the hobby. That's a courtesy you see maybe 1 in 100 times.

Amen to that statement.

[JollyElm]

"Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It's fun to be a card collector."

I present to you 2022's Collectorisms Part X - Section 1 of 3 (Yes, I've developed enough material to turn this new section into a trilogy*...so stay tuned!!)

***ALERT!!!!!!*** This is meant for entertainment purposes only!!!! Hopefully, laughs will abound!!!!
Before you do anything, scroll down to #512 and read it, so you will understand what's going on here. Life sucks, so grab yourself some yuks!

This is a work of fiction. Do not read this post if you are currently taking a drug for depression. If a rash, redness, irritation, or swelling develops, discontinue reading. Please do not eat the urinal cakes.


"Lord loves a working man, don’t trust Whitey (Ford)..."



*And like 'The Godfather' trilogy, you'll love some of it, hate some of it and will ultimately end up screaming, "When in high f*ck is this thing finally going to end???!!!!!!"




491. Cravin'-It Emptor
When your unbridled desire for a card causes you to be unaware of all of the red flags pointing to it being a scam.

492. Sacrificial Jam
Stuffing random cards you couldn’t care less about into each end of a vintage set box to act as a space-filling buffer and protect the ‘good’ cards from getting damaged.

493. Stampire
A tobacco card collector who preys on finding ones with specific stampings on them.

494. Leap Frauds
The hackers and scammers who continue to jump from one platform or account to another after being exposed time and time again.

See also: Whack-A-Troll - the endless pursuit of warning other collectors about new scam artists appearing on the scene.

See also: Scamster Wheel - the scumbag mindset of always searching for new and innovative ways to rip off people.

495. Schlock Photos
The generic, traditional poses used time and time again by Topps and other baseball card companies.

• Flesh Rhombus
A pitcher with his hands and mitt above his head, elbows pointing outward, to mimic the start of a wind-up.

• Grass Squat
A catcher devoid of equipment and nowhere near home plate, crouching down in the middle of the field to receive a pitch that will surely never come.

• Stretch Strong-Arm
A pitcher who’s leaning far forward with his pitching hand outstretched, mimicking the end of his release.

See also: Sleepbalker - when the hurler, seemingly in a daze, is still firmly holding the ball in his outstretched hand.

See also: Bringing the Greet - when this pitcher is also smiling happily at the camera.

• Batting Trance
An expressionless hitter forced to stand in the ‘ready’ position, looking at the camera with his bat up, waiting for a phantom pitch to come.

• Longholler
A manager with his hand next to his mouth pretending to be shouting out instructions to his players.

• Sir Lanceswat
A player majestically gripping his ‘wooden sword’ with two hands while directing it at, or in the general direction of, the camera, so it appears to be coming right at the viewer.

See also: Knights of Columberus - a group of these types of cards.

• Moundticipation
A slightly crouched pitcher with his hand and mitt at the ready, apparently either waiting for the ball to be tossed back to him by the catcher or preparing to field a come-backer.

• Hatless Couture
The standard close-up head shot of a player not wearing a cap, which purposely eliminates any hint of which team he plays for.

See also: Chinchilling - a closeup of a player casually looking skyward, chin jutting out with only the underside of his cap brim visible, so the team logo remains unseen and unknown.

• Wadworker
A card showing the player with a huge gob of tobacco stuffed in his cheek.

See also: Chawtograph - any signed Nellie Fox card.

• Foul Haul
An player with his mitt near the grass, pretending to backhand a non-existent ball while clearly standing in foul territory.

• Crouch Potato
A hunched-over infielder looking at the camera with his hands and mitt primed to scoop up a grounder hit directly at him.

• Knobster
The self-assured, ready for the coming fight pose of gripping the bat with two hands as it rests upon a shoulder, knob bottom facing the camera.

• Gutclench
A hurler at a full stop in the ‘set’ position, hand grasping the ball inside of his mitt at his stomach, stoically looking off to read the catcher’s signs or slyly keep a runner in check.

496. Optimullet
A card that is optimally beautiful when looked at from the front, but when you flip it over there are significant problems on the back.

See also: Hind Thwarters - a visually gorgeous card in a slab that has a lower grade (or qualifier) based solely on an otherwise ‘unseen’ issue on the reverse.

See also: Stainted Love - a card that looks beautiful on front, but has a dark, egregious, unremovable gum stain on back.

497. Popanoia
The unshakeable feeling in your gut that the graders at any TPG literally don’t want your cards to receive high numbers.

498. Crumb-Drops (also Price Droop)
Anytime someone bumps a for sale thread with a declaration of “PRICE DROP,” when it’s nothing but a slight, insignificant reduction in price.

See also: Bump Jump - when the latest lowered price on a card is finally attractive enough for you to pull the trigger.

See also: Flies on the Prize - the acute awareness that all sorts of other collectors are buzzing around, primed to zip in and beat you to it when the price drops to the right level.

See also: Slash Bash - a thread where the seller has a wide variety of cards listed and lowers the price on ‘everything that still remains.’

See also: Slabtain Obvious - if any graded card remains unsold in the B/S/T after a short while, it simply means the asking price doesn’t correspond closely enough to any recent sales price data.

499. James Banned
A collector of players who have been banished in some way from the major leagues or are otherwise found on baseball's ineligible list.

See also: Bitter Batter Bettor Barter (tongue twister) - any trade involving a Pete Rose card.

500. Tuxidermy
Any card sitting inside of an elegant, black and white SGC slab.

See also: Black Slab Affair - how exquisite a group of cards looks housed in these SGC holders.

501. Frontalbacks
Cards having wet sheet transfers on them.

502. Parkaeologist
Someone who is able to deftly analyze the visual clues hidden inside of a photograph to determine what old baseball stadium the picture was taken in.

See also: Circa-Catch - when said clues also indicate, within a close proximity, the year in which the photo was taken.

503. Jeepers Keepers
Having two of the same card, both having relatively minor, but different, flaws or drawbacks, and you go back and forth trying to decide which of the pair is the ‘better’ one to hold onto.

504. Redruelin’ (slang)
Memories of begging your dad to hit the gas station, even when the tank was full, because you were salivating over getting your hands on more of the football or hockey stamps they gave away free with each visit.

See also: Gas Brags - kids who pridefully showed off all of the service station stamps they were able to accumulate.

505. Buy Diver (also George Washington Conniver)
Economics 101 aside, someone who’s always listing cards at sky high prices, but when he contacts you about one of yours, he insists on getting it for mere peanuts.

506. Ghostboxed
Opening a newly delivered auction win, only to find you were presumably sent an empty package by the seller himself, because there is no evidence of tampering present anywhere on the mailer.

507. Valchemist
Someone trying to turn cardboard into gold by pricing an SGC or BVG card at the much higher value of what the same card with the same number would go for in a PSA holder.

508. Holigraze (also Thankstaking Feast)
The great purchases you’re able to make, because ‘no one’ else is paying attention to eBay that day due to it being a major holiday or some other attention-grabbing event or occurrence is taking place.

See also: Grafternoon Delight - feeling like you commited a crime, because you won a card at such a low price only because of the early, extremely-low-traffic time of day the auction ended.

509. CSI-Don’t-Think-So!
The shock of seeing an eBay seller wearing serious medical or museum curator quality gloves while holding the card in the auction pic, and immediately knowing this thing is gonna be way beyond your budget.

510. Packne Scar
When a supposedly reputable seller of unopened material’s reputation becomes sullied due to a highly visible mistake.

511. Evolutionary Cardwinism
The incremental change in valuation from, say, a Hank Aaron card being worth, “My friend’ll give me three Mets for it! Dyn-o-mite!!!” when you were a kid, to putting it under a blacklight to root out any unseen flaws, using calipers to measure centering, and so on, to formulate a specific monetary dollar value for it today.

512. Puncertainty Principle
The fact that whenever a thread is meant to be, or turns out to be, humorous, one thing is undoubtable - as the witty remarks come, trite plays on words and double entendres will abound.

513. Wahoo-Turn
Trading for a Sam Crawford card.

See also: Love ‘em and Heave ‘em - a trade including a Paul Casanova or Ron Darling card.

514. Upgrift
Auctions employing deceptive tactics to meet hidden reserves.

515. Window Hopping
When you have nothing against a particular seller in the B/S/T, but you know everything he lists is very overpriced, so you just skip past his FS threads as you’re looking for cards to buy.

516. Ex-Postage-Facto
The listing of a single card for sale at, say, $50, then including at the very end of the post, “Add $4 shipping,” instead of just saying, “$54 Dlvd.” right at the top to begin with.

517. Slabbetizer
A card or autograph which has gotten a PSA ‘Quick Opinion’ or Beckett ‘Raw Card Review.’

518. Pokémonstrosity
The disappointment of walking into a baseball card show to find that 95% of the tables are hawking nothing but modern day items and non-sport cards.

See also: Pika-ching! - a quite valuable Pokémon card.

See also: Yenolds Rap - happily belting out the beats after you’ve ripped a pack and acquired a very pricey foil parallel card.

519. Fool’s Sold
Adding a new post to your own thread (that everyone is now forced to read) to declare that the card has been sold, instead of simply editing the title to reflect this fact.

520. Bickerton Annoyance Ratio (BAR)
A mathematical assessment of a net54 member’s overall nuisance factor, stated in the argument to post quotient of b = a ÷ r, wherein a = the total number of posts by a member in a single month that are argumentative, contrarian or otherwise negative, and r = the total number of all posts by said member in the month.

See also: Hyber (palatalization of “High BAR”) - anyone with a BAR that doesn’t have a minimum of one or two zeros to the immediate right of the decimal point.

See also: Flaming Snowball - like the proverbial snowball endlessly rolling down the hill, someone who never tires of being argumentative in seemingly every thread in which he appears.

See also: Reverse Avalanche - the people who plainly have had more than enough, and start loudly telling ‘Mr. Snowball’ to go back from whence he came.

521. Grody to the Packs! (informal)
A great enthusiasm for 1980’s-era junk wax.

See also: Hijunx - the sheer delight of ripping open any wax pack from any manufacturer from any year.

522. Moppetroglyphs
The random words, numbers, etc., written on a card by a kid back in the day.

See also: Boyjotting - attempting to decipher, when not readily apparent, the possible meaning of, or the reasoning behind, the specific scribblings on an old card you own.

See also: Defacelift - any attempt to remove ink or pencil marks from a card.

523. Rubicontract
The implied agreement that once the ‘official’ taped seal securing a card inside of a toploader is breached, any attempts to return the card to the seller for a refund are null and void.

524. Float Earthers
Rookie cards, leaders cards, or team cards that picture nothing but the disembodied heads of the players.

See also: Heliuminary - when one of these ‘hovering heads’ is an all-time great.

525. Auction Grouse
Anyone who rightfully badgers an auctioneer to take down a deceptively-listed item currently active and being bid on.

526. The Odes of March
Warm remembrances of your youthful self being all excited that winter was finally abating and the turning weather meant a new baseball season was on the horizon.

527. “You never walk into the same card show twice”
A time-honored expression marking the fact that the beloved hobby is and always will be in a perpetual state of change.

528. Killebrewmaster
An ardent collector of all things Harmon Killebrew.

529. Theoretical Bizz-Assist
Someone expressing their strong opinions on what exact changes must be made to a TPG’s business model to help right the ship.

530. Brandwagoner
A collector who suddenly becomes interested in the charms of an old set from a secondary manufacturer that other people have been marveling about forever.

531. A Life Sentence for Driving 56 MPH (metaphor)
The ludicrous assertion that the sins of players who completely ruined the very meaning of statistics due to a daily diet of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) are somehow comparable to players who popped stimulants in the old days.

532. Potato Sacker
An ardent collector of 1968 Topps cards.

See also: Burlapses - the empty spaces in the pages of your 1968 Topps set binder.

See also: Knit Captivating - Johnny Bench’s appearance on his rookie card.

533. Coroner’s Tablers
Fans of the cold, dull, gray 1970 Topps set.

534. Kiblitzer (Yiddish)
Someone who seemingly has a front row seat to every thread in the B/S/T, and rushes in to buy up everything before anyone else has a chance to even view it.

535. Primarinara
The extra ‘sauce’ of value that is associated with a card being numerically first in a set.

See also: Primarigold - one of these cherished cards that is in fantastic shape.

536. Coin Flakes
Any prized and valuable card that was originally found inside of, or printed on, a box of cereal.

See also: The Breakfast Snub (or “Snap, Crackle, Flop”) - the complete letdown of your young self digging through a box of Kellogg’s to get to the 3-D treasure at the bottom...only to find the card is a random player you’ve never heard of on a team you have no interest in.

537. Perfecstration
The irritation of trying to remove a newly delivered card from an overly snug ‘Perfect Fit’ sleeve without causing damage.

538. Zamcronies (also Wintree-Huggers)
Avid collectors of hockey cards and memorabilia.

See also: Smugshots - the smiling, toothless faces pictured on any vintage penalty minutes leaders hockey card.

539. Packwards
Describing a card that was never issued in packs as “Pack Fresh!”

See also: Fresh Cents - the use of “Freshly Graded!!” in a listing, in the strange hope that those words alone will help the card sell for more money.


End of section 1, so go take care of your St. Patty's Day hangover...

[JollyElm]

"When I buy a new set, I look at the last card first. That way, in case I die before I finish, I know how it ends. That, my friend, is a dark side."

I present to you 2022's Collectorisms Part X - Section 2 of 3


"I made him an offer on a card he couldn't refuse..."


540. Jiggle Junkie
A spirited collector of Jell-O cards and boxes.

See also: Dessert Chopping - any card cut from a Jell-O box.

See also: Snipped Cream - a valuable card cut from a Jell-O box.

See also: Wiggle Warrior - a person always in pursuit of advancing the collecting community’s knowledge and understanding of vintage Jell-O sets.

541. Gloatin’ Free
The showing off of great cards, not because of some self-serving ‘look at me’ mindset, but simply because you know other collectors really enjoy seeing them.

See also: Gemissary - a high-minded collector who derives great pleasure from seeing other people’s enjoyment of his rare ‘jewels.’

542. Tedhead
An enthusiastic collector, follower and enthusiast of all things Theodore Samuel Williams.

See also: Ted Honcho - any very rare or valuable Ted Williams card.

See also: Ted Fake - momentarily thinking you hit it big by scoring a 1959 Fleer Ted Williams #55 ‘1955 - Ted Decides Retirement Is “No Go”‘ card...until you realize that although Ted sits in street clothes at a table next to an executive with papers to sign, it is not the coveted #68 ‘Jan. 23, 1959 - Ted Signs For 1959’ card.

543. Quadroptics
The quick, involuntary way your eyes inspect a card by focusing first on a single corner area, then moving on to the next one as you go around the horn examining all four corners to make an overall assessment of the card’s condition.

See also: Bumper Snicker - the reaction to discovering three beautiful corners in a row, only to find the last one viewed is dinged, rounded or overly soft.

544. Lickety-Split Personality
Someone who puts a tremendous amount of importance on receiving his auction wins as quickly as humanly possible.

See also: Grab Lag - when checking on the delivery status of a card, and it continually says “SHIPPING LBL CREATED USPS AWAITS ITEM” and never seems to advance into the “USPS IN POSSESSION OF ITEM” phase.

545. Two-Card Garage
Any TPG slab that wasn’t created to specifically house a certain sized card, so it remains unsecured, sliding around inside of the expansive holder.

546. Amazenith
The ridiculous, over-the-top high prices of cards listed on Amazon.

547. “When I say bump, you say how many times!”
The seeming arrogance of members sending their threads to the top much too often for anyone’s liking.

548. Sourglow
When putting a card under a blacklight reveals hidden problems or evidence of doctoring that you were unaware of.

549. Kigh Anxiety
The distress felt by any well-versed baseball fan upon hearing Kiki Kuyler’s name once again being mispronounced.

550. Bad Breadth
A card notorious for ‘always’ being terribly off-centered to one particular side.

See also: East-Slider - one seemingly found 99% of the time with the image just about falling off the right side of the card.

See also: West-Slider - one seemingly found 99% of the time with the image just about falling off the left side of the card.

See also: The Overly Brothers - the other cards that shared the same row on the print sheet and sing from the same excessively off-centered songbook.

551. Undeadline
The continually reanimated ending time of an auction with “extended bidding” rules in play.

552. Backpedestaling
The act of quickly hiking the prices of cards to reflect the newfound status of an old ballplayer who has finally become a Hall of Famer, a marked change from him sitting in the ‘dollar box’ just a week earlier.

553. Flip Floptimistic
A person hoping the prices of the cards he wants to buy drop back down to pre-COVID levels, while also wishing the prices of the cards he wants to sell continue to rise exponentially.

See also: “The best day to sell your cards is yesterday.” (adage) - the unavoidable fact that when you finally decide to auction off your cards to take advantage of crazily high prices, the market will always drop the moment you list them.

554. Etchebarrened
The surprise of seeing a player on an old card wearing a uniform number that has been forever intrinsically linked to an all-time great who played for the team later on.

555. Boxymoron
The odd absurdity of blacking in the box on a checklist card which is the number of the very checklist card you are holding in your hand and marking.

556. Pacademic
An expert at identifying and categorizing vintage baseball card wax pack wrappers.

557. Niels Bohring
Anyone whose assessment of players from long ago is focused solely on cold, hard stats, while ignoring all of the non-tangible and emotional aspects of the game, like what their contemporaries said about them as players, teammates and rivals.

558. Hubbug Out
Seeing a beautiful, newly listed card at such a great price that you’re basically knocking things over as your hand races to click on the auction and hit ‘Buy-It-Now’ before someone else beats you to it.

559. Joining Hate Watchers
Sitting on the couch, stuffing your face with junk food as you tune into a game for no other reason than to loudly root against the team and players who knocked your favorite team out of the playoffs.

See also: “The eliminator of my team’s eliminator is my friend” - no matter how much you despise a certain team, once they step up and defeat the squad who sent your team packing, you immediately give them a hearty thumbs up.

See also: Human Anti-Bradys - all of the people across the world who shout to the heavens year after year beseeching the gods to deliver Tom Brady a loss on Super Bowl Sunday.

See also: Winoculation - how some of the storied NFL franchises seem to have an immunity to becoming Super Bowl champions.

560. Ignormalcy
How placing the right member on your ‘ignore’ list returns a sense of harmony to the site and increases your enjoyment of it exponentially.

See also: Quotetails - when someone quotes one of those guys in their post, so you are forced to see whatever garbage is coming out of his keyboard now.

See also: Dismishugener (Yid.) - the gumption of someone who is found on countless members’ ‘ignore’ lists talking about the members he himself put on his own ‘ignore’ list.

561. Wear is Over (If You Want it)
Since modern day pack rippers completely ignore everything but the ‘money’ cards, which are immediately put into protective toploaders or albums before quickly being sent off to be graded, there will never again be stacks of cards showing the traditional wear and tear from kids excitedly, repeatedly handling them.

See also: Packslabbing - removing new cards from packs and immediately getting them ready to be sent off for grading.

562. Chaperonus (more familiarly Chaperanus)
Someone who feels it’s his duty to constantly complain about threads that he alone feels are posted in the wrong sections.

563. Replicandy
The magnificent cards that you have multiple copies of.

564. Centerrifical Force
The way your eyes immediately tell you if a card is rightfully centered enough for you personally, independent of what other collectors or TPGs may think.

565. Teambiguous
Looking at a card where the player can be found as a member of one of two different clubs, but you can’t recall if the one you’re viewing is the prized variation or the ‘normal’ one.

566. Crock and Pull Story
Someone joyously posting a card in the new pick-ups thread with a story about how excited he is to finally have one and it took forever to finally pull the trigger, etc...then a few scant days go by and you see he has the card for sale in the B/S/T section.

567. Strike Hike
How a dealer insists on getting the much better end of whatever trade deal may be struck at a card show, and cites a litany of reasons for it, such as the cost of his table, he’s there to make a profit, etc.

See also: Trytanic - when your perceived ‘low ball’ offer on a tremendously overpriced card at a show is met with nothing but an icy stare of death from the dealer.

568. Upsidentical Twin
An otherwise high-grade card that has a small, but fatal, flaw (such as a pinhole or writing) that you grab, because the trade-off of paying just a fraction of the price of what one without such a defect costs is too good to pass up.

See also: Ninesense - smartly grabbing a high grade card with a qualifier, because the visual difference between it and a straight grade is minute enough that spending a crapload more on one without the qualifier would be idiotic.

569. Sugarcoaxing
The emerging practice of craftily listing a card on eBay at a low Buy-It-Now price to draw buyers in, only for them to discover that the ridiculously exorbitant shipping cost actually makes the final price higher than the ‘expensive’ listings of the same card.

See also: Ployboy - a seller who works this kind of scheme.

570. Brandy New Collector
Anyone who has returned to the hobby after a long time away and is so drunk with enthusiasm that he makes all sorts of rookie mistakes right out of the gate.

See also: Empty Feathering-the-Nester - someone who has cleared out his entire collection...only to suddenly find himself buying a coveted card and jumping right back into the collecting game again.

571. PTVSD (Post-Trade-Value Stress Disorder)
How a trade you made many years ago, which in the end proved to be a horrendously bad move, still haunts you to this very day.

572. Windy-Wendy
A San Francisco Giants enthusiast with a special affection for all things Candlestick Park.

See also: Fenwicked - for good or bad, any of the momentous baseball events that took place on Boston’s home turf.

See also: Soapbronxing - anyone expressing his undying adoration for the New York Yankees team or players.

573. Stamp Scamp
Someone immediately looking at the cost of the postage on a mailer he received, then doing the quick math in his head to see if the shipping cost (plus materials, etc.) charged by the seller was close enough to be considered fair.

See also: Mailarkey - when the shipping charge proves to be nothing short of a rip-off.

See also: Bendvelope - a mailer contaning a card inside of a flexible Card Saver holder with nothing else used as a stiffener to better protect the cargo.

574. Musialeum
A collection of ‘Stan the Man’ cards and memorabilia.

575. Barefaced Buy
The purchase of a 1967 Topps ‘Who Am I?’ card where the creative ‘disguise coating’ had been scratched away long ago.

576. April Scour (also Spring Bling)
How a player’s card became hugely desirable to kids as they ripped open new packs searching for it the spring following his incredible exploits in last year’s regular season, playoffs or World Series.

See also: Zoilologist (eponym) - someone eagerly trying to get his hands on one of these new, highly sought-after cards.

See also: Donlarceny (eponym) - the act of taking advantage of someone else’s newfound fervency and scoring great cards off of him by trading one of your ‘new hero’ doubles.

577. Casual Loathing
Not being a fan of Babe Ruth cards and memorabilia where he is dressed in street clothes and not in his legendary baseball uniform.

See also: Mis-Taking Identity (or Ruth-Less Seller) - someone pretending to be slyly ‘unaware’ that the card he’s selling with a label stating it is Babe Ruth pictured on it, clearly shows someone other than ‘The Babe.’

578. Slabdication
When the anger over ridiculously long delays, coupled with the grading company’s poor attitude towards its own customers, grows so intense that you swear you will never spend another dime sending cards their way.

See also: The Vainglory of their Times - the smugness of PSA not giving a rat’s ass about the pathetic length of time it takes for them to grade and return the cards of loyal customers.

579. Omentum
When an auction has such an unusual amount of early activity/bidding that it serves as a bad sign that the price of the lot is going to be driven much higher than you could’ve imagined.

580. Fuzzcuts
The roughly sliced edges of O-Pee-Chee cards.

581. Whale Grail
When a pick-up is so epic that neither “White Whale” nor “Holy Grail” comes close enough to describing how magnificent of a grab it is.

See also: Gloatation Device - a card or piece of memorabilia so monumental that not a single person will ever take exception to the owner loudly boasting about it.


End of section 2, so keep mining for gold so you can afford to fill up your gas tank...

[Leon]

Nice update, Darren,

I especially like this one as I do it daily

See also: Gloatation Device - a card so monumental that not a single person will ever take exception to the owner loudly boasting about it.

[SyrNy1960]

This is amazing, funny, and so true in many cases. Great job!

[JollyElm]

"Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Collectorisms-man!!"

I present to you 2022's Collectorisms Part X - Section 3 of 3


"Never trust a card collector who says he isn't angry..."


582. Tacticalculus
Quickly crunching the numbers to determine if the price of an ungraded card is a good deal, based on what its value would be if it came back from a TPG at the grade it ‘unquestionably deserves.’

583. Freewheeler-Dealer (also Shopcreeper)
Someone who contributes nothing to the site and is only here to continually tally up sales by peddling their cards in the B/S/T marketplace without having to worry about paying fees to do so.

See also: Vulture Club - a group of such members.

584. Lessing in Disguise
When purchasing a card outside of eBay or an auction house, the wonderful surprise of finding that tax isn’t being added to the final price at check-out.

585. Data Maligning
The refusal to believe or accept that the low price numbers of the past sales statistics you are looking at truly reflect how little your card is ‘worth.’

586. Clapprehension
When someone excitedly posts a new pick-up, but since you are unfamiliar with the card, the set or the player, you have no idea how big your reaction should be.

587. Timefoolery
Running across an old ad or catalog for ‘The Card Collector's Company’ (or other such places) from the 60’s or 70’s and immediately getting lost in imagining how great it would be to go back in time and buy up everything at those incredible prices.

588. Grass Half Empty
Any card or photograph which allows you to catch a glimpse of how awful the field conditions got back in the old days.

589. Upshelfing
When a seller describes a graded card using verbiage such as “Only 15 higher!!” in an attempt to give it some sort of additional prominence it doesn’t deserve.

See also: Glampifying - romanticizing a pile of old cards in bad shape for sale by referring to them as being in “Collector’s Grade.”

590. Sheetwise
Being well-schooled in the ways that vintage card print sheets were organized, laid out, printed with SP’s and DP’s, and ultimately cut.

See also: Slit-Talker - a playful term for someone having an advanced knowledge of these vintage print sheet methodologies.

See also: Chompromised - cards that due to the detrimental positions they occupied on the print sheets, are much more susceptible to being found very off-centered, short side-to-side, or generally miscut due to the sheet cutting process.

591. Incrementarian
Someone who habitually adds a specific number of cents to each of his bids (i.e. $18.44, $72.44, $109.44), so it'll give him a better chance of beating out standard, whole dollar amount bidders.

See also: Wholesum Bidder - one who purposely bids only in whole integer amounts without random cents added on.

592. Socialrelist
A seller who after no one pulls the trigger on his high price, decides to relist the card at an even higher Buy-It-Now amount.

593. Die-Hardcore Collector
A guy who would enthusiastically crawl through broken glass as he battled terrorists if it meant he had a chance of getting his hands on a card he dearly wants.

594. Sticker Sorrow
The depressing feeling of getting an auction win in the mail and the price tag on the toploader (that obviously held the card for a long time as it sat unsold in the seller’s card shop) is a lot less than what you just paid for it.

595. Stackedcourt (also Hofrequency)
The regularity with which two or more Hall of Famers appear as co-stars on action-packed vintage basketball cards.

596. Smaller Famer
Someone trying to grab big-money, top-tier Hall of Famers off of you through offering trades where he only surrenders cards of low-demand HOF’ers.

597. Subdueling
Choosing not to ‘watch’ an auction you’re very interested in, because keeping the number of watchers low might give you an advantage by making others think the number of potential bidders is less than it really is.

See also: The Ole Yazz-A-Ma-Tazz - purposely using slight, subtle misspellings of a player’s name in an eBay search, in the hopes of running across something great where no one else is looking.

598. Upper-Deke
A seller fervently touting how his lot contains all sorts of valuable high numbers, but it's a fake-out as those cards are either in horrific shape or they’re from a set where the high series isn’t in any way, shape or form tough to obtain.

599. Reboot Lickers
Fans of the modern day sets whose designs are throwback reproductions of cards from long ago.

600. Pornucopia
Any pictures of random, jumbled assortments of old baseball cards.

601. Amass Hysteria
Having the so-called ‘collector’ gene, where the act of accumulating cards (and/or other collectibles) is not only second nature, but a very important part of your life.

See also: Ebayla Virus - the malady of consistently spending so much money purchasing new pieces for your collection that it adversely affects other parts of your life.

See also: Gaffe Infection - plagued by the need to accumulate whatever error and variation cards you can get your hands on.

See also: Crossovertigo - the disorder causing you to not be able to see straight unless each graded card you obtain is cracked out of its slab and resubmitted to your preferred TPG.

See also: Back Lung Disease - the uncontrollable urge to continue adding ‘new’ and different tobacco card backs to your collection.

See also: Winsomnia - being unable to sleep due to the need to press on and make it to the end of an auction finishing up in the wee hours of the morning.

See also: Hallstones - the pain in your gut that results from stressing over whether your bid in an auction for a Hall of Famer will remain high enough to win the card.

See also: Hero-Win Addict - a person hooked on collecting a specific player, and always striving to prevail in auctions to grab more and more examples of his cards.

602. Slop-Happy
A card that puts a smile on your face, because although it is in godawfully bad shape, it has the saving grace of being perfectly centered.

See also: Malificentered - when the centering of a card is so garishly awful it hurts your brain.

603. Not Not Joke
Any auction for a card that is obviously a reprint or fantasy piece, but the seller cunningly includes some sort of “I’m not sure if this card is real or not...” verbiage to try to pull the wool over someone’s eyes.

604. Easy Come, Easy Dough (adage)
How incredibly easy it is for TPGs to grade new cards, since they are of extremely high quality to begin with, and go straight from the pack into card savers and then submitted...without the chance of ever suffering wear.

605. Accoladyboys
Kids who chased cards with the ‘All-Star Rookie’ trophies on them, because their young minds believed Topps considered those guys to be the best players around.

606. Perplexistentialism
If a card has a ST qualifier on the label, but no matter how hard you examine it you can’t locate the supposed stain, does said stain actually exist??

607. Flopps (also Bottomms (archaic))
The particular Topps set or sets that each individual collector feels are just a big swing and a miss.

608. Lens Denter (also Helmet Bonker)
A picture on a card that is such an extreme close-up that you can imagine the camera actually coming in contact with the player.

609. Barrage Sale
When someone posts way too many separate FS threads, instead of combining them.

610. Membeer Goggles
When someone claims the stuff he is selling is ‘beautiful,’ when everyone can see the cards are anything but pretty to look at.

611. A Pounce of Prevention
When a card for sale somewhere is just too good to be true, and members immediately jump in to call people’s attention to all of the red flags while warning them to be very, very careful about pursuing it.

612. Unwanted Posters
Manager and coaches cards, because 99.9% of all collectors have nothing but contempt for them and wish some other types of cards were printed in their place.

613. Dread Giveaway
When seeking out opinions on whether or not the expensive card you bought is authentic, and someone points out a specific aspect that 100% proves it is NOT genuine.

614. “Healthy as a Hearse” (aphorism)
The ambivalence of realizing that when an all-time great dies, the great sadness you feel is counterbalanced by the skyrocketing value of the cards you have of him in your collection.

615. Poll Vaulting
Clicking the “View Poll Results” button in a thread to see which way the wind is blowing before actually voting in said poll.

616. High-Grade Low-Brow
Vintage sets where it is very easy to obtain cards cheaply in extremely high grades.

617. Fleermonger
A collector and enthusiast of any vintage Fleer sets.

See also: Cookie Mistake - how Fleer’s 1963 attempt to issue a set of cards featuring current players crumbled under the weight of Topps’ supremacy.

618. PSA 10 OC (slang)
A colorful way of telling someone that their card is a fake. “Yo, dude, that Matty is a 10 OC all the way!”

619. Dem Sums
Any valuable Brooklyn Dodgers cards.

See also: Ebbetts Yield - the increased value of the 1957 Topps #400 Dodgers Sluggers’ card if Carl Furillo ever finds his way into Cooperstown.

620. Reflection Deflection
Using pics of a card still in a penny sleeve or toploader, so the rippled reflections of light off of the plastic obscures issues that would be readily apparent if the card was photographed or scanned outside of the holder.

621. Might O’ Dayers
The lurkers who may consider coming out of the shadows and becoming more ‘fully-fledged’ net54 members and contributors.

622. Brothers-in-Lore
Scammers in the B/S/T who all seem to tell the same story of having siblings with incredible collections that need to be unloaded quickly and cheaply.

623. Brookskeeper
A spirited collector of all things Brooks Robinson.

624. Scambling
Being unsure of whether or not a valuable card is authentic, but rolling the dice and sending it in to be graded anyway, because if it turns out to be real you’ll be rolling in the dough.

625. March Fadness
How the market for a certain emerging player’s rookie cards gets all bonkers with the dawn of the season approaching...only to start losing steam as the season gets under way and he proves to be nothing special.

626. Gripe Left
When a member complains about there being a lack of interest in the attractively-priced (to him) card he’s selling by remarking, “What, no offers??”

627. Single-A Haul
Any pick-up that is great for you, personally, but in the scheme of things may be rather yawn-worthy.

628. Blisstory
The warm retellings of when, where and/or how you picked up a specific card or cards a long time ago.

629. Batsmanalysis
Trying to interpret the subtle clues and determine what old team’s uniform a player is wearing on a card where all team logos and insignias have been either obscured or airbrushed into oblivion by the card company due to a team switch.

See also: Trade-Scoff (or Sigh-Gration) - the godawfully poor job of airbrushing done to the ‘new’ caps of relocated players on vintage ‘traded set’ cards.

630. Farced Perspective
A seller taking a picture of an off-centered card at an angle with the ‘very close to the border’ side in the foreground, giving the illusion that there’s a lot more room there than there actually is.

631. “Fly Me to the Boon”
When a card you saw on eBay (and know how much it sold for) suddenly appears for sale on net54 at two or three times the price it went for merely a week ago.

632. Free Blurred
The use of “FREE SHIPPING!” in an auction title in an attempt to obscure the fact it is a tremendously overpriced card.

633. Half-Ask Effort
When someone posts a WTB thread, but doesn’t include any fundamentally basic information such as what condition they are seeking, etc.

634. Lagflation
When a seller’s prices before the pandemic were stupidly high, but since he hasn’t done a show in a couple of years, the old price stickers on his toploaders remain unchanged and now make the cards look like sweet bargains in today’s market.

See also: Deantrification - when the stupidly high prices of an eBayer seller seem a tiny bit more reasonable to some people, because everyone else’s wildly skyrocketing prices have lessened the gap.

635. Show-Flopper
Buying a graded card at a show, because you thought the price was a steal, but when you got home and checked out the listings on eBay, you saw it could be readily had for half of what you paid.


And that's the end of section 3, so I hope you guys enjoyed it!! (Whoops!! Since I'm not a biologist, I don't actually know if you are "guys.")