The New Directory of Collectorisms...

[robw1959]

I can't believe I've been here since 2012, but just came across this thread for the first time! Ailing a little bit today, but the first 50 put a smile on my face. I actually copied and pasted everything - to the tune of 182 Word document pages on my hard drive, so I'll have plenty of perusing to do in the days to come. Thank you, my brother, for this labor of love. It is right in my wheelhouse, personally, and so amazing to behold. I need time to take it all in.

[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by Yoda

Derek, I think it is time to find a literary agent and then a niche publishing company and allow these pearls of collecting jargon loose on unsuspecting public. I think it would be a runaway best seller among card addicts if not a candidate for a Nobel Prize for literature. If nothing else, it would bring smiles to many, like myself.

Originally Posted by robw1959

I can't believe I've been here since 2012, but just came across this thread for the first time! Ailing a little bit today, but the first 50 put a smile on my face. I actually copied and pasted everything - to the tune of 182 Word document pages on my hard drive, so I'll have plenty of perusing to do in the days to come. Thank you, my brother, for this labor of love. It is right in my wheelhouse, personally, and so amazing to behold. I need time to take it all in.

I gotta be honest, guys, I've just assumed no one reads any of this stuff anymore, but I still plug away trying to make a little fun of us all. And the revisions keep coming in an attempt to continually improve/update what's already here.

So, thank you, Yodes & Rob (whoa...sounds like a 1970s singer/songwriter duo), you've given me the strength to carry on.

With appreciation,
Elms (or is it, perchance, Derek?)

[JollyElm]

It's that gloriously delicious time of year again...



...you know, when you burrow under the huge pile of coats amassed on the bed and slowly wait for all of your relatives to eventually hit the road.


Presented for both white meat and dark meat fans alike (and for those who don't give a flying f*ck either way), a very special Collectorisms Part XIX, now stuffed (get it?) with more puns and wordplay than ever before!!!!


Collectorisms will not interfere with Thanksgiving football game viewership. We suggest you ask a young niece or nephew to read them aloud to you as you scream at your fantasy football players on the TV.




First, let's start with some small appetizers...


1123. Eat, Drink & Be Wary
The way in which collectors celebrate holidays, enjoying themselves while always being mindful that they can never take their eye off of the ball and miss out on opportunities that may present themselves that day.

See also: Gobble Hobbled - losing your sense of time in the wake of a tryptophanic stupor on Thanksgiving Day, which causes you to completely miss the ending of an auction you were hoping to bid in and win.

1124. Bring Your Yappetite
The excitement of knowing that the family event you’re attending will have other collectors there, so you’ll finally be able to gloriously chat away with like-minded folk.

1125. Counting Your Lessings
The disappointment of seeing the low, sub-par winning bid of an auction that you inadvertently scheduled to end on a major holiday, when eBay traffic is presumably at its lowest.

1126. Turkey Chaster
Someone who decides that Thanksgiving is a day for family, so he’ll remain righteous and chaste and not sully it by hunting for cardboard on any of his devices.

1127. Snarecrow (slang)
Anyone putting a huge, early auction bid stake in the ground to warn potential competitors, “You better stay far away! This card will be mine!”

1128. Smashed Potaters
Any cards which feature and celebrate players blasting historic home run ‘taters.’


And now on to the main course..


1129. Maizmantelaron (“Mays/Mantle/Aaron”)
A descriptor used to generally indicate the types of vintage Topps-era cards to be found.
“The card show was cool. ‘Maizmantelaron’ as far as the eyes could see.”

1130. Bogus Halfsies
The silly “Take 50% Off Marked Prices!!” bins sighted at card shows, when anyone who hasn’t failed first grade math understands that taking half off of something that’s priced three or four times as much as it should be doesn’t magically turn it into a bargain.

See also: Hypercentaging - the act of dealers ensuring that every card found in their “Take 50% Off Marked Prices!!” sections has an excessively high, fake ‘regular price’ attached to it.

1131. On-Hand/In-Handing
The card show sales tactic of justifying much higher than eBay prices by telling customers, “It’s worth it, because you’re here in person, so there’s no wait time. You can actually take possession of this card right now.”

1132. Card Submission Serenity Prayer
An invocation which helps card collectors remain level-headed and composed when they face the trials and tribulations of the grading process:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the grades I cannot change,
courage to resubmit and change the grades I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.”

1133. Gratifictitious
When someone pretends there’s a lot of interest in a card he’s offering by bumping a thread with, “Thanks for the many inquiries, still available.”

1134. Alreadyhads
Cards that are shown off in the new pick-ups thread which aren’t technically new, such as cards of yours that just came back from being graded, etc.

1135. Sacramentality (also Godspiel)
The mindset of using “God bless!,” “Shalom!” or other brief religious phrases in an eBay listing to give the impression that you’re a virtuous and reliable seller.

See also: Flock Fleecer (or The Passion of the Heist) - when such usage is obviously nothing more than an unholy pretense to sucker ‘believers’ in and take their money.

1136. Trapdoorsman
Someone bumping their ‘for sale’ thread with an ominous “Final price drop.”

1137. Happy Scour
Taking an optimistic final lap around the floor in the waning hours of a card show to look for dealers - readying to pack up their tables - who might now be willing to drop the prices on their unsold cards, so they can score some quick and easy last-minute cash before heading out the door.

See also: Loss Weeders - the cards a seller accepts lowball offers on at the end of a show to add some final greenbacks to his coffers, while also thinning out his unsold inventory a bit.

1138. Golden Chimney
The additional premium you know you’ll pay when bidding on an item being offered by an eminent, highly advertised auction house, because they get more traffic and consequently more bidding competition than smaller auction houses do.

See also: Victory Penalty (VP) - the buyer’s premium paid on top of the ‘hammer price’ in an auction.

See also: License to Shill - any auction outfit that allows consigners (and/or people directly connected to them) to bid on their own pieces.

1139. Lostponement
When a card that has been lost in the mail forever and forgotten about suddenly decides to turn up in your mailbox out of nowhere a long time later.

See also: Prodigal Card - the item residing in such a package.

1140. Paranoia is a collector’s best weapon (truism)
If your first thought about each and every collecting interaction is, “This frickin’ guy is trying to pull a fast one on me,” then you’re going to go far in the cardboard world, kid.

1141. Deadboarding
Someone thinking they’re clever by once again trotting out the tired old phrase “buying pictures of dead guys on cardboard” to refer to card collecting.

1142. “He’d hit the ‘Buy It Now’ button for the Brooklyn Bridge.”
An expression noting how someone seems to be especially clueless, gullible and ready to fall for scams.

See also: Brooklynbridgiot - a less than charitable description of such a person.

See also: Schadenfraud (German derivative) - experiencing feelings of pleasure or self-satisfaction after learning someone got taken by a scammer, because all of the signs were there from the get-go and the fool obviously should’ve known better.

See also: Infomerciful - the compassionate act of seeing someone clearly not in the know and about to make a huge purchasing or selling mistake, and stepping in to save him by sharing insights as to why it would be a very bad move to make.

1143. Upslope/Downsloping
The strategic approach of not only seeing if the asking price of a card is in line with recent sales, but digging a bit deeper to determine if that data reflects a card whose value is on the rise or in a troubling decline.

1144. Absent Finded
Unexpectedly stumbling across a card in your home that you have no recollection of ever putting in its current location and were quite convinced you had lost long ago.

1145. “Tomb for one more, honey!”
A phrase denoting you’ve found yet another card to add to the growing TPG submission order you’re assembling.

1146. Green Eyedometer
A measure of the degree of personal jealousy and envy felt by a collector after being blown away by a pick-up made by someone else.

See also: Impressure Gauge - wondering, after making an incredible pick-up, how strong the awed and dazzled reactions are going to be after you post the pics of your new acquisition.

See also: Acclaimpishment - posting a pick-up, not because of your excitement over it, but just to bask in all of the pats on the back that are surely to come from everyone.

1147. Snark Shield
When a member feels compelled to start his post by expressly stating that he’s asking a “Serious question,” so as not to be on the receiving end of the sarcasm to come.

1148. Vision Guessed
The quest to zero in and determine what grade a card ‘should’ receive based on nothing beyond closely examining it with your own two eyes and perhaps using a magnifying lens.

1149. The Rising Tide Sinks All Boats (maxim)
When the continuing rise in prices of mainstream card sets forces collectors to shift their focus to other more affordable pursuits, they find the prices of those cards have climbed way up into the stratosphere as well.

1150. Fullblack Position
The involuntary (wrongful) assumption that if a 1971 Topps card has fully black and unblemished coverage on all sides, corners and edges, then no other aspects of it matter and it will come back with a high number grade.

See also: Blackstabbed - the angry feeling of betrayal when a richly black 1971 card comes back graded lower than it should’ve been, usually accompanied by an utterance of, “But...but there’s not a single bit of white wear in the black!!”

1151. Obsolentimental
When a very old, long-dead thread is suddenly brought back to life via a new post.

See also: Howard Carder - the member who is responsible for digging up and bringing the ancient thread back from the dead.

1152. “Collectito, ergo sum.” (loose Latin)
The philosophical dictum stating that the very act of realizing you are seeking out new collectibles to obtain indubitably proves that you do, in fact, exist.

1153. PeeCeeing
The act of buying something for your personal collection, and not for resale.

1154. Minimaxification
The purchase of a card deemed ungradeable by one TPG - because it didn’t meet the minimum size requirements - in the hopes that another TPG will see it differently, put a number on it and ultimately turn it into a big moneymaker for you.

1155. Affordignoredability
As people complain that certain underappreciated HOFers’ cards ‘should’ be much more expensive than they are, the wise collector stocks up on those cards for the very fact that they’re still quite modestly priced.

1156. Melidoing (eponym)
The act of laying a vintage card you’re getting ready to submit for grading on top of a modern card to ensure it measures out properly.
(Etymology - derived from the use of a 1993 Topps Melido Perez card in this fashion.)

See also: Thinnocuous - any cards that came out of the factory naturally cut a little shorter top-to-bottom or side-to-side than what they were ‘supposed’ to be.

1157. Shaken, Not Blurred
An explanation noting that the image on the card you’re showing on-line is properly focused and not blurry in real life, and the only reason it doesn’t look sharp is a result of your poor, shaky-handed picture taking efforts.

1158. Toutlook
The Topps method of always including the next series checklist in with the current series of cards to tell kids, “Better save up your pennies, because look at what great things are coming next!”

See also: On Side Kick in the Ass - seeing all of the magical cards in the high series on the last checklist, but when you hit the store to spend your allowance and finally complete your set, you’re crushed to find all of the baseball has been done away with and replaced with new boxes of football cards.


And on that appropriate football note, this chapter comes to an end.


Happy Thanksgiving, Everybody!!!!!!!!!

[JollyElm]

SEX Sells...ummm...I mean...It's Almost Bikini Season...

mycardsareupheregraphic.jpg

...so it's time to get your collecting muscles in shape!!!!


Presented for gawkers and buyers alike (for the former, I'll give you a minute to stare before I proceed...but you can always scroll back up to take yet another look...I mean, who the heck wouldn't, right?), here is Collectorisms Part XX - Section 1.


Whether it’s the philosophy, (attempted) humor, insights, criticism, realism, or the utter stupidity itself, if you don’t see your own face staring back at you in the ‘Collectorisms’ mirror, then you simply aren’t collecting hard enough.




1159. Tedzantic (eponym)
The free and unselfish sharing of one’s own vast wisdom, expertise and mastery of specific card sets, as well as other hobby insights, to help expand the knowledge base of the collecting community as a whole.

1160. Redumbdancy
When the topic of a new thread is something that’s been covered a bazillion times before and you just can’t believe that yet another person is trying to lead everyone down that same worn out, heavily potholed road.

1161. Wrinkle Shot
The picture of a card purposely taken on an angle in the light to highlight to the viewer the creases, ripples or other surface issues that wouldn’t be readily apparent were it photographed lying flat.

1163. “You get a NO on 100% of the offers you DON’T make.” (proverb)
An advisory reminding collectors to never be afraid of taking shots at creating opportunities for yourself, so use every chance you get to make offers on cards you want, because the worst a seller can do is say no.*

*Not entirely true, because he may put a curse on your family, but let’s not dwell on the negative.

1164. The Soak City Incongruity
The contradictory nature of collectors having no qualms about soaking and/or minorly ‘improving’ the condition of cards themselves, but becoming ethically outraged if they discover a card they bought had been bettered in the same fashion by someone else.

See also: Compressidue (also Sootangle) - the rectangular area of discolored build-up appearing on a paper towel after a card has been soaked and weighed down on it to dry.

1165. Postalponement
When the tracking of a card in the USPS system shows it to be traveling via a bewildering and irrationally circuitous route to its final destination.

1166. “One Slab to Rule them All” (cautionary maxim)
The depressing portent that PSA seems to be intent on forging an ‘evil’ monopoly in the card grading world.

1167. Grailvitational Pull
The unyielding force in your collecting soul which causes you to forever keep fruitlessly looking to finally land the card or cards you covet far above and beyond anything else.

1168. Hunting the Glass (slang)
A general term for walking around a card show and examining the cards in sellers’ displays.

See also: “Clearing the Cases!” - a celebratory exclamation for making a great purchase at a show.

See also: Urinullification - the universal problem of being at a show and needing to take a whiz, but the thought of trying to secure everything you’re holding while fiddling with your zipper at the crowded urinals, tells you to bite your lip and just hold it in.

1162. U-Turn on Investment (UOI)
A ‘colorful’ term for taking a serious loss on the sale of a card.

1169. Retrospectator Sport
The mournful watching of a card you once owned, but sold too soon, being auctioned off as its price continues to climb higher and higher into the stratosphere.

1170. Kaynoter
A proprietor dealing in such valuable cards that he simply needs to use a ‘K’ after the number on each of his price stickers to denote “thousands” of dollars.

1171. Chucky Chewzmoor (sobriquet)
That one kid among all of your fervid pack-opening buddies who took an extreme delight in shoving as many planks of pink gum into his trap as it could hold.

1172. Pompeiisity (or Covered in Snoot)
When a slew of threads have all become active due to new posts appearing, but you see it’s the same sanctimonious know-it-all who loves the sound of his own keyboard who’s responsible once again for blanketing the site in a tiresome layer of his typed-out slag.

See also: Hardcore Yawn - the utter boredom that comes from seeing more posts from this type of individual, and you just shake your head and scroll right past them without giving it a second thought.

1174. Infernoise
The silly use of fire icons in an auction or sales listing title to denote how intensely smoking hot and awesome the card is.

See also: Flame-Flam Man (or Blaze Bloke) - anyone employing this particular tactic in their listings.

1175. Prognostigrader
Someone examining and asessing their cards to determine what grades he believes they will get in his TPG submission.

1176. Newbonic Plague
The pestilence of a bunch of newly joined members all coming out of the gates trying to scam people.

See also: Crocodile Dundeeviant - any of these new wave of scammers who oddly claim to hail from the ‘Land Down Under.’

See also: First-Cozener (also Bluffer-in-Law) - that fictitious, invented ‘relative’ of his that a swindler claims just happens to own the very card you’ve been searching for.

See also: Stepdadification - when one of these deceivers specifically pretends it is his adoptive father who possesses these wondrous baseball cards you seek.

1177. Oxfraud English
The utterly nonsensical and seemingly random wording and phraseology in the messages sent out by scammers, indicating only a hazy, at best, familiarity with English grammar or western culture itself.

See also: Drivel Engineer - the person responsible for creating these types of ridiculous, perhaps AI-aided, scamming messages.

1178. Ignorance is Blistery (idiom)
A warning of the perils of getting burned by diving too quickly into a new area of collecting without first possessing enough of a rudimentary understanding of the unfamiliar terrain.

1179. Mikey Mantle
The term for a card of any player being an obvious forgery.
“Yup, that one there is definitely a Mikey.”

1180. “Bring Out Your Dread”
Any thread which is started for the express purpose of eliciting complaints from other members about someone or something.

See also: Camplaigning - being on a crusade to convince the masses that you are right about whatever it is you’re bitching about.

1181. Off-Track Abetting
When someone claims to ‘not have a horse in the race’ when posting in a contentious, argumentative thread, but his obviously one-sided support of one of the ‘combatants’ tells quite a different story.

See also: Paddock Peeps (or Secretarianots) - those whose assertions of not having a horse in a particular race are legitimately forthright and honest.

1182. The Doctrine of Exceediency ("Being Exceedient")
The unwritten rule that if you make an unsolicited attempt to get someone to trade you a card of theirs you want, it is incumbent upon you to make sure anything you offer in return clearly surpasses the ‘value’ of their card, thus ensuring he’ll do well on his end were a deal to be reached.

See also: “You gotta swap him off his feet!” - a homespun adage relating this foundational necessity.

See also: Surpassionate - a trade proposal which easily eclipses the ‘much higher value’ threshold and plainly expresses a deep desire to land a targeted card.

See also: YAMBasting (acronym-ish) - when the frustration over the low-ball trade offers coming from someone (who reached out to you first) reaches a boiling point, and you exclaim, “You approached ME, buddy...not the other way around!!”

1183. Cashcrowning
It doesn’t matter how loathsome of a creature the buyer in front of you may be, a seller must leave emotion out of the equation, so if he has the money, then cash is king and he’s the ‘right’ buyer.

1184. Offtabling
Approaching someone who's been attempting to sell his old cards to various dealers at a show, and asking if you can check out and possibly make an offer on his stuff.

1185. No Crest for the Wicked
It doesn’t matter how ridiculously high prices get in general, the noted extortionate sellers on eBay or at shows will keep making their prices even more and more ‘ridiculouslyer’ higher without a top ever to be reached.

See also: “Apogeezus!!” - an exclamation which expresses, “For the love of God, how freakin’ high can their prices go!!!!!!!”

1186. High Thriced
The reality of going to a show and knowing that every single card for sale there will be overpriced by a minimum of three times what it ‘should’ be.

See also: “Dean-Age Wasteland” - a term for this sad reality as a play on a certain eBay seller’s name.

See also: “A Card in the Hand is Worth Two on the ‘Bay” - the justification for willfully overpaying for a card at a show, so you can take it home and own it right now.

1187. Flipcornering (truism)
The best way to judge the condition of a card’s front corners is to flip it over and examine its back corners.

1188. Sold Wives’ Tale
Any telling of a suspiciously fantastical story invoving the sale of a card - whether he was the buyer or seller - that just doesn’t seem to add up to anyone paying attention.

See also: Toast Story - any spooky retelling of the time you got burnt on the sale of a card that chills listeners to the bone.

1189. Hi-View No-Queue (Brit.)
When you see a major card (Cobb, Jackie, Mantle, etc.) listed for sale in the B/S/T Forum that has all sorts of views tallied up, but a zero in the ‘Replies’ column, you know without clicking on it that no one’s lining up to grab it because the seller’s price must be too unreasonable.

See also: Pricing Yourself in the Foot - when you post something for sale and it gets immediately snapped up, you gloomily realize the asking price was much too low and you left a lot of money on the table.

1190. Cronyological
The addition of less-than-ideal candidates to Cooperstown by Hall of Fame veterans committees, which seems to be based solely on the voting members’ relationships and kinships with the nominated players.

1191. Boothmark
The specific features, signage, etc., a seller utilizes to set his booth apart from the multitude of others crowding the card show floor, and let showgoers know exactly whose set-up it is.

1192. Value-Padded
The simple fact that for innumerable reasons and personal attachments (a favorite player, great centering, a cool print oddity, etc.), certain cards of yours are worth more to you than what any honest assessment of their monetary value ‘should’ be.

See also: Overdevaluation - the human frailty of always readily assigning greatly inflated values to your own cards, while considerably undervaluing everyone else's cards.

1193. Rarefied Blare
The seemingly obligatory and knee-jerk practice of exclaiming “Rare!!!” to describe any card that clearly is nothing of the sort.

See also: Rawmeater (slang) - a seller who habitually overuses the word “rare” in his listings.

1194. The Fright Stuff
How the techniques of altering, doctoring or creating cards to fool potential buyers have scarily improved by leaps and bounds in recent times.

1195. Gem-D
A card doctor specializing in teaching people how to ‘professionally’ alter cards to make them more ‘minty.’

1196. White Color Criminal
A pathetic seller who attempts to deceive people through the undisclosed bleaching of a card.

See also: Bleach Conned - someone who’s duped by such a scammer.

1197. Control Patcher
An expert in ‘improving’ old cards by deceptively recoloring them.

See also: Repainting the Corners - the work he does.

1198. Kamera Chameleon (refer to #50)
Someone quite adept at deceptively altering photos and scans of cards to make them appear to be better than they are.

1199. Speed Ablating
Deceptively aging a fake card to make it appear to have natural wear, although such decay doesn’t occur over the course of a century, it occurs during an afternoon spent in a card doctor’s hands.

1200. Tamper Tantrum
A seller angrily taking exception to people calling him out on the laughably obvious fake piece of crap he’s pushing.

1201. Lotglutted
When an auction has a great overabundance of pieces listed, so some consigners are left fearful of their items being drowned out in the metaphorical flood.

See also: “Beating a Dead House” - the manner in which the same belabored and consistent complaints about an auction house continually re-emerge in the wake of yet another one of their auctions ending.

1202. Trickled to Death
The lamentable fact that although when you were young it was accepted that all of the players on old cards were long dead and gone, you now realize the cold hand of death has already claimed a huge percentage of the players you grew up watching, and the list continues to grow every day.


Whoa, what an incredibly depressing way to end this section. Maybe we should all just take a moment and call our primary care physician...just saying.

[NiceDocter]

Suggest an edit of #1002 from CobbSlobb to CobbSnob.

[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by NiceDocter

Suggest an edit of #1002 from CobbSlobb to CobbSnob.

I was shooting for a playful rather than scornful rhyming vibe there.