The New Directory of Collectorisms...

[Eric72]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

...The one guy I had never bought anything from due to his unreasonable prices, told me he hasn't been 'allowed' (pandemic) to do any shows for two years...I started buying like crazy...

As before, so it is again..and will be in the future, countless times.

Today's high prices are tomorrow's bargains.

[Chicosbailbonds]

Originally Posted by Eric72

As before, so it is again..and will be in the future, countless times.

Today's high prices are tomorrow's bargains.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[JollyElm]

“Life moves pretty fast. You don’t stop and buy some cards once in a while, you could miss it."


I present to you Collectorisms Part XI - Section 1 of 3 (Damn straight it's a trilogy again, as I have had months of down-time with nothing better to do...so stay tuned for part 2!!)


***ALERT!!!!!!*** This is meant for entertainment purposes only!!!! Hopefully, laughs will abound!!!!
Before you do anything, scroll down to #647 and read it, so you will understand what's going on here.

Think doing this crap is easy? Just imagine the time spent spell-checking everything, when virtually every single ‘Collectorism’ is, by design, misspelled!! So, do a guy a favor and frickin' laugh, dammit!!!

Neither the writer nor the owner of the site will be liable for any brain damage arising from reading this nonsense. For comfortable and safe use, please read the Safety & Comfort Guide. Never commit arson. Not even once. If you find yourself so annoyed that you decide to jump into the freezing ocean to end your life, please swim towards the spacious door floating on the surface...but enjoy the coziness alone. DO NOT let anyone named Jack save himself. He's nothing but trouble.


Let's get ready to grumble!!!!!!!!!!!*



*Over the ridiculous amount of silly wordplay. It's quite 'pun'-ishing (get it?)!!



635. Slapnickerhappy (also Slapnick Comedy) (eponym)
The group demeanor of net54 members anytime an obvious scam jockey shows up and laughably thinks he can swindle the collectors here without everyone exposing him.

See also: A Show of Farce - a thread started to allow everyone to point out what a clown the scammer is.

See also: Acupuncturbulence - members systematically poking holes in this idiot’s claims.

See also: F*ck-It Brigade - the members all lining up to join the fray and pour crap on the scammer.

See also: Splat Personality - when this offender tries to pretend he is not the very person everyone in the thread is referring to, and his attempt fails miserably.

636. Youfirstniac (also Feedbucker)
A seller who, although you paid promptly for the card you won, will not leave you feedback until after you’ve received the item and left him positive feedback first.

637. Opinionomics
The determination of a card’s value based not on inherent market factors such as the give and take of supply and demand, or the specific attributes of the individual card, but solely and blindly on the number assigned to it by a Third Party Grader.

638. D.B. Recouper
Anyone attempting in vain to resell a card for a profit that he paid much too much for to begin with, not seeming to comprehend that his money is simply lost in the wind and it ain’t coming back.

639. Rawlings Stoned (also Leathereal)
The incredibly rejuvenating and nostalgic high felt by breathing in the unparalleled delicious aroma of a brand new leather mitt.

640. High Scroller
Any collector who has the sheer audacity to set his eBay searches on the “Price + Shipping: highest first” option.

641. Cream of the Crap
The most important Hall of Famer or rookie cards, etc., from an inconsequential, inexpensive set.

642. The Golden Drool
In polite collecting society, when a member offers you enthusiastic props for a card you posted in the new pick-ups thread, it is encumbent upon you to return the favor and show equally great exuberance when he posts a new pick-up of his own.

643. Whetting Zoo
The first tables filled with incredible stuff that you immediately encounter as you walk into a card show, and they get your juices flowing.

See also: Swoop Kitchen - the state of being among the first collectors through the doors at a card show, greatly increasing your chances of grabbing an early cardboard feast before anyone else has a chance to even look at the menu.

644. Hardy Harchivist
Anyone bringing up (for a laugh) the infamous time a board member threatened a member called ‘Archive’ with legal action over a post, even though the guy issuing this threat was actually the very person who many years earlier wrote the now ‘archived’ post that is causing his current consternation.

645. Slambivalence
The happiness you feel when finally getting your cards back from a TPG, while also being quite depressed by how badly you got hammered on the grades.

See also: SSI (Slab Scene Investigation) - using all of the tools at your disposal to closely examine your newly graded card in an effort to decipher how it could’ve received the low grade it did.

646. Far Mint (FM) (slang)
A card in such horrifically bad shape that even its own mother couldn’t love it. The exact opposite of ‘near mint.’

647. Playoffrising
The sudden, marked increase in exorbitantly priced cards appearing on eBay of players who are currently excelling in the post-season.

See also: Playoffloading - the ultra-quick drop in asking prices when the player’s team has been eliminated.

648. Fanishment
When you are once again so annoyed by how your team’s season ended, that you angrily exclaim you will never root for them again.

649. Grinner Child
The heart-melting joy and happiness you still feel every time you catch a glimpse of a card that was a favorite of yours while growing up.

650. Coupon de Grâce
Any small and merciful reduction in price an inflexible seller finally agrees to which grants you the satisfaction of pretending you actually ‘won’ the negotiation.

651. Secret Highdentity
After many decades, it has still not been resolved with any certainty which high numbered cards in certain Topps sets were truly single/short prints.

652. Dinosourcing
Any old school seller still using Beckett and/or other printed reference guides to price his cards, when buyers have instant access to pertinent, in-depth and up-to-date data at their fingertips via their phones.

653. Snaggregate
The exact, pre-determined amount you are willing to bid to grab a card in an auction by already including all of the eventual fees - such as BP, taxes, shipping, etc. - for that maximum bid amount in your calculations.

654. Sock Schlop
The bizarre, random appearance of a foot or feet in an auction photo.

See also: Hoof Wit - a seller who allows this to happen.

655. Begoodled
When someone describes a card as being in “good shape” and you are unsure if they mean it as a general statement denoting “the card looks really nice” or “good” as in the specific low grade situated between “poor” and “very good.”

See also: Inexacterval - when someone refers to “1960’s cards” and you’re not sure if they mean the decade of the 1960s or the singular year of 1960.

656. Blundervalued
Making an unfortunate oversight when pricing a card, such as failing to realize it has a rare back or is a variation, and it causes you to ultimately let it go at a much lower price than you coulda/shoulda have gotten for it.

657. Fogeyism
Any newly created, semi-clever saying that attempts to mirror the fantastic old-time whimsical musings of Yogi Berra.

See also: Yogi Grinandbearit - the obligatory woeful reaction to one of these new witticisms.

658. Gradio Silence
The act of listing a card for sale with just the TPG’s number grade, and not a single word to actually describe its shape or the pros and cons of the particular card itself.

659. Wikipediot
Anyone who correctly answers an impossibly tough question in a trivia thread, and you know damn well he just looked it up on-line.

See also: Quikipediately - the rate at which any post containing interesting information sends you off to find on-line resources to read up more on this cool player or topic.

See also: Alex Trebeckon - who is someone that is always starting enticing trivia threads?

660. Goosegeese
Having multiples of Leon Goslin cards.

661. Perfect Lame
When not a single person shows interest in the card or cards you posted for sale or trade in a thread.

662. Subtotalitarian
A collector using whatever means necessary to avoid paying taxes on a card purchase.

See also: Alcaponecating - a collector who refuses to risk legal jeopardy, so he makes sure each of his transactions is completed with every penny of proper taxes being collected or paid out.

See also: Tariffraff (slang) - the collectors looked down upon by others for insisting that taxes must be paid on card purchases.

See also: Feefalling - when a seller reluctantly agrees to allow you to use the taxless PayPal Friends & Family instead of Goods & Services.

663. Heir Supply
Those random boxes of cards and other items kept in the attic, basement or garage that you know you will never go through, so they will become someone else’s problem eventually.

664. Venewfangled
How ballfields went from having wonderfully enduring names that lit up a fan’s heart with nostalgia, to being renamed merely to reflect who’s ponying up the huge sponsorship fees that year.

See also: ‘My Corporate Bank Account is the Largest’ Arena (also Swankee Stadium) - any ballpark that was renamed to reflect a new corporate sponsor.

See also: Shea-What?! Stadium - when someone uses the ‘updated’ name of a ballpark and you have absolutely no idea what field it ‘used to be,’ what city it’s located in or even what team plays there.

665. Carpetbragger
The annoyance of someone snarkily boasting about a new player who just signed with his favorite team via a huge free agency deal, when you’ve been rooting for that guy for years on your team.

666. Fraudian Slip
When a scammer’s words or approach accidentally make his motives for deceit and trickery perfectly obvious for all to see.

See also: Swindling Kindling (also Scambit) - the initial message sent out to a potential target by a scammer to see if he’ll be able to burn you.

See also: Bufakke - when you become a target of scammers, possibly through on-line mistakes of your own, and the attempts to sell you bogus cards start hitting you in the face from all directions.

See also: Deep Fraud Turkey - any victim of a scam who missed all of the obvious signs and indications of deception.

See also: Tattoo-Timer - any scammer who has been outed to the collecting community and marked as a con artist.

See also: Scambusher - someone who derives great fun from screwing with an obvious scammer.

See also: Nigerian Princely Sum - the amount of money lost when a scammer gets the better of you.

667. “Is that a wax pack in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”
What every collector hopes the hot girl at the dealer’s table (Where did she even come from??) will ask him with an earnest glint in her eye.

668. ‘Attic’ Condition
Long forgotten cards and memorabilia remaining in decently high condition due to being stored and preserved in a more dry, secure environment.

See also: ‘Basement’ Condition - long forgotten cards and memorabilia in lower, throwaway condition, as a result of being stored in damp, unkempt, moldy environs.

669. Spendurance
When your original bid doesn’t get bettered by someone else during the course of an auction’s run, and you end up taking the win.

670. Autograffliction
A disease causing people to exuberantly chase down and collect signed pieces.

See also: Hifalutink - a rare and pricey autograph

671. Pee-Emonition
The assumption that the person who wrote “PM sent” in the 'For sale' thread you’re viewing has bought the card.

See also: Mute Mate - a member who curiously posts “PM sent” in your thread, but you never actually receive a message from him.

672. The Lord of the Swings
Any thread centered around the eternal, contentious question of, “Who was the best hitter in the history of the game?”

673. Florazontal
The engaging, wildly colorful layouts of 1955 and 1956 Topps cards.

674. I, Robought
Any card won through the utilization of a snipe app.

675. Flair Assumption
The supposition that some Hall of Famers whose career numbers do not seem stellar enough when compared to others to merit inclusion in Cooperstown, had their larger than life personalities to thank for their induction.

676. Environminty
Cards that may be technically off-center, but since they do not have four delineated borders and/or were designed with backgrounds that go fully to the edges - like 1962, 1963 and 1968 Topps sets - it’s not readily apparent or in any way concerning.

677. Nulti-Player
A vintage league leaders card that doesn’t have a single HOF’er pictured on it.

678. Dorsal Find
An amazing card you spot sticking out of the jumbled mishmash of stuff crammed inside an overflowing ‘discount’ box at a card show.

679. Buy Appeal
The internal debate of seeing a card at a great price for the particular grade, but knowing it is clearly ‘over-graded’ and would never receive the same number were it submitted today, and deciding if it’s a good move to buy it.

See also: Straitjacket Grade - a card that is criminally, insanely over or under-graded. “It looks nothing better than a straight 4, but it got a straitjacket 7!!”

See also: Low Grrrade - a card of yours so clearly undergraded that it makes you growl.

680. Glut Feeling
The worry that now is probably not the right time to try to sell a card and get your target price, because there is already an overabundance of the same card on eBay.

681. Faux Derek
A card curiously graded a 9.5, as there is nothing detectable to the human eye to separate it from a 10

See also: Boderek Jeter - any Derek Jeter card that is graded a perfect 10.

682. Record Crooks
The players either holding all-time records or being near the top of career lists, who got there by cheating.

683. “And thus it is written, the man able to remove creases from cards shall rule the world!”
A piece of wisdom found inscribed on an ancient cuneiform tablet.

684. Testimoney
The theoretical belief that at some point in the future a free agent will actually answer the question, “What made you decide to sign with the (name of team here)?” by stating, “For the gobs and gobs of money. A-duh!!!!!”

685. Neandertalk
When an old-time vintage card collector chats with a young, modern card collector about what things were like back in the good old collecting days and the kid doesn’t have a clue what the old guy is talking about.


End of section 1, so get a jump on inserting razor blades into candy bars. Halloween is almost here...

[Leon]

See also: Scambusher - someone who derives great fun from screwing with an obvious scammer.

Guilty as charged!

Originally Posted by JollyElm

“Life moves pretty fast. You don’t stop and buy some cards once in a while, you could miss it."


I present to you Collectorisms Part XI - Section 1 of 3 (Damn straight it's a trilogy again, as I have had months of down-time with nothing better to do...so stay tuned for part 2!!)


***ALERT!!!!!!*** This is meant for entertainment purposes only!!!! Hopefully, laughs will abound!!!!
Before you do anything, scroll down to #647 and read it, so you will understand what's going on here.

Think doing this crap is easy? Just imagine the time spent spell-checking everything, when virtually every single ‘Collectorism’ is, by design, misspelled!! So, do a guy a favor and frickin' laugh, dammit!!!

Neither the writer nor the owner of the site will be liable for any brain damage arising from reading this nonsense. For comfortable and safe use, please read the Safety & Comfort Guide. Never commit arson. Not even once. If you find yourself so annoyed that you decide to jump into the freezing ocean to end your life, please swim towards the spacious door floating on the surface...but enjoy the coziness alone. DO NOT let anyone named Jack save himself. He's nothing but trouble.


Let's get ready to grumble!!!!!!!!!!!*



*Over the ridiculous amount of silly wordplay. It's quite 'pun'-ishing (get it?)!!



635. Slapnickerhappy (also Slapnick Comedy) (eponym)
The group demeanor of net54 members anytime an obvious scam jockey shows up and laughably thinks he can swindle the collectors here without everyone exposing him.

See also: A Show of Farce - a thread started to allow everyone to point out what a clown the scammer is.

See also: Acupuncturbulence - members systematically poking holes in this idiot’s claims.

See also: F*ck-It Brigade - the members all lining up to join the fray and pour crap on the scammer.

See also: Splat Personality - when this offender tries to pretend he is not the very person everyone in the thread is referring to, and his attempt fails miserably.

636. Youfirstniac (also Feedbucker)
A seller who, although you paid promptly for the card you won, will not leave you feedback until after you’ve received the item and left him positive feedback first.

637. Opinionomics
The determination of a card’s value based not on inherent market factors such as the give and take of supply and demand, or the specific attributes of the individual card, but solely and blindly on the number assigned to it by a Third Party Grader.

638. D.B. Recouper
Anyone attempting in vain to resell a card for a profit that he paid much too much for to begin with, just not comprehending that his money’s simply lost in the wind and it ain’t coming back.

639. Rawling’s Stoned (also Leathereal)
The incredibly rejuvenating and nostalgic high felt by breathing in the unparalleled delicious aroma of a brand new leather mitt.

640. High Scroller
Any collector who has the sheer audacity to set his eBay searches on the “Price + Shipping: highest first” option.

641. Cream of the Crap
The most important Hall of Famer or rookie cards, etc., from an inconsequential, inexpensive set.

642. The Golden Drool
In polite collecting society, when a member offers you enthusiastic props for a card you posted in the new pick-ups thread, it is encumbent upon you to return the favor and show equally great exuberance when he posts a new pick-up of his own.

643. Whetting Zoo
The first tables filled with incredible stuff that you immediately encounter as you walk into a card show, and they get your juices flowing.

See also: Swoop Kitchen - the state of being among the first collectors through the doors at a card show, greatly increasing your chances of grabbing an early cardboard feast before anyone else has a chance to even look at the menu.

644. Hardy Harchivist
Anyone bringing up (for a laugh) the infamous time a board member threatened a member called ‘Archive’ with legal action over a post, even though the guy issuing this threat was actually the very person who many years earlier wrote the now ‘archived’ post that is causing his current consternation.

645. Slambivalence
The happiness you feel when finally getting your cards back from a TPG, while also being quite depressed by how badly you got hammered on the grades.

See also: SSI (Slab Scene Investigation) - using all of the tools at your disposal to closely examine your newly graded card in an effort to decipher how it could’ve received the low grade it did.

646. Far Mint (FM) (slang)
A card in such horrifically bad shape that even its own mother couldn’t love it. The exact opposite of ‘near mint.’

647. Playoffrising
The sudden, marked increase in exorbitantly priced cards appearing on eBay of players who are currently excelling in the post-season.

See also: Playoffloading - the ultra-quick drop in asking prices when the player’s team has been eliminated.

648. Fanishment
When you are once again so annoyed by how your team’s season ended, that you angrily exclaim you will never root for them again.

649. Grinner Child
The heart-melting joy and happiness you still feel every time you catch a glimpse of a card that was a favorite of yours while growing up.

650. Coupon de Grâce
Any small and merciful reduction in price an inflexible seller finally agrees to which grants you the satisfaction of pretending you actually ‘won’ the negotiation.

651. Secret Highdentity
After many decades, it has still not been resolved with any certainty which high numbered cards in certain Topps sets were truly single/short prints.

652. Dinosourcing
Any old school seller still using Beckett and/or other printed reference guides to price his cards, when buyers have instant access to pertinent, in-depth and up-to-date data at their fingertips via their phones.

653. Snaggregate
The exact, pre-determined amount you are willing to bid to grab a card in an auction by already including all of the eventual fees - such as BP, taxes, shipping, etc. - for that maximum bid amount in your calculations.

654. Sock Schlop
The bizarre, random appearance of a foot or feet in an auction photo.

See also: Hoof Wit - a seller who allows this to happen.

655. Begoodled
When someone describes a card as being in “good shape” and you are unsure if they mean it as a general statement denoting “the card looks really nice” or “good” as in the specific low grade situated between “poor” and “very good.”

See also: Inexacterval - when someone refers to “1960’s cards” and you’re not sure if they mean the decade of the 1960s or the singular year of 1960.

656. Botchslapped
Making an unfortunate oversight when pricing a card, such as failing to realize it has a rare back or is a variation, and it causes you to ultimately let it go at a much lower price than you coulda/shoulda have gotten for it.

657. Fogeyism
Any newly created, semi-clever saying that attempts to mirror the fantastic old-time whimsical musings of Yogi Berra.

658. Gradio Silence
The act of listing a card for sale with just the TPG’s number grade, and not a single word to actually describe its shape or the pros and cons of the particular card itself.

659. Wikipediot
Anyone who correctly answers an impossibly tough question in a trivia thread, and you know damn well he just looked it up on-line.

See also: Quikipediately - the rate at which any post containing interesting information sends you off to find on-line resources to read up more on this cool player or topic.

See also: Alex Trebeckon - who is someone that is always starting enticing trivia threads?

660. Goosegeese
Having multiples of Leon Goslin cards.

661. Perfect Lame
When not a single person shows interest in the card or cards you posted for sale or trade in a thread.

662. Subtotalitarian
A collector using whatever means necessary to avoid paying taxes on a card purchase.

See also: Alcaponecating - a collector who refuses to risk legal jeopardy, so he makes sure each of his transactions is completed with every penny of proper taxes being collected or paid out.

See also: Tariffraff (slang) - the collectors looked down upon by others for insisting that taxes must be paid on card purchases.

See also: Feefalling - when a seller reluctantly agrees to allow you to use the taxless PayPal Friends & Family instead of Goods & Services.

663. Heir Supply
Those random boxes of cards and other items kept in the attic, basement or garage that you know you will never go through, so they will become someone else’s problem eventually.

664. Venewfangled
How ballfields went from having wonderfully enduring names that lit up a fan’s heart with nostalgia, to being renamed merely to reflect who’s ponying up the huge sponsorship fees that year.

See also: ‘My Corporate Bank Account is the Largest’ Arena (also Swankee Stadium) - any ballpark that was renamed to reflect a new corporate sponsor.

See also: Shea-What?! Stadium - when someone uses the ‘updated’ name of a ballpark and you have absolutely no idea what field it ‘used to be,’ what city it’s located in or even what team plays there.

665. Carpetbragger
The annoyance of someone snarkily boasting about a new player who just signed with his favorite team via a huge free agency deal, when you’ve been rooting for that guy for years on your team.

666. Fraudian Slip
When a scammer’s words or approach accidentally make his motives for deceit and trickery perfectly obvious for all to see.

See also: Swindling Kindling (also Scambit) - the initial message sent out to a potential target by a scammer to see if he’ll be able to burn you.

See also: Bufakke - when you become a target of scammers, possibly through on-line mistakes of your own, and the attempts to sell you bogus cards start hitting you in the face from all directions.

See also: Deep Fraud Turkey - any victim of a scam who missed all of the obvious signs and indications of deception.

See also: Tattoo-Timer - any scammer who has been outed to the collecting community and marked as a con artist.

See also: Scambusher - someone who derives great fun from screwing with an obvious scammer.

See also: Nigerian Princely Sum - the amount of money lost when a scammer gets the better of you.

667. “Is that a wax pack in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”
What every collector hopes the hot girl at the dealer’s table (Where did she even come from??) will ask him with an earnest glint in her eye.

668. ‘Attic’ Condition
Long forgotten cards and memorabilia remaining in decently high condition due to being stored and preserved in a more dry, secure environment.

See also: ‘Basement’ Condition - long forgotten cards and memorabilia in lower, throwaway condition, as a result of being stored in damp, unkempt, moldy environs.

669. Spendurance
When your original bid doesn’t get bettered by someone else during the course of an auction’s run, and you end up taking the win.

670. Autograffliction
A disease causing people to exuberantly chase down and collect signed pieces.

See also: Hifalutink - a rare and pricey autograph

671. Pee-Emonition
The assumption that the person who wrote “PM sent” in the for sale thread you’re viewing has bought the card.

See also: Mute Mate - a member who curiously posts “PM sent” in your thread, but you never actually receive a message from him.

672. The Lord of the Swings
Any thread centered around the eternal, contentious question of, “Who was the best hitter in the history of the game?”

673. Florazontal
The engaging, wildly colorful layouts of 1955 and 1956 Topps cards.

674. I, Robought
Any card won through the utilization of a snipe app.

675. Flair Assumption
The supposition that some Hall of Famers whose career numbers do not seem stellar enough when compared to others to merit inclusion in Cooperstown, had their larger than life personalities to thank for their induction.

676. Environminty
Cards that may be technically off-center, but since they do not have four delineated borders and/or were designed with backgrounds that go fully to the edges - like 1962, 1963 and 1968 Topps sets - it’s not readily apparent or in any way concerning.

677. Nulti-Player
A vintage league leaders card that doesn’t have a single HOF’er pictured on it.

678. Dorsal Find
An amazing card you spot sticking out of the jumbled mishmash of stuff crammed inside an overflowing ‘discount’ box at a card show.

679. Buy Appeal
The internal debate of seeing a card at a great price for the particular grade, but knowing it is clearly ‘over-graded’ and would never receive the same number were it submitted today, and deciding if it’s a good move to buy it.

See also: Straitjacket Grade - a card that is criminally, insanely over or under-graded. “It looks nothing better than a straight 4, but it got a straitjacket 7!!”

See also: Low Grrrade - a card of yours so clearly undergraded that it makes you growl.

680. Glut Feeling
The worry that now is probably not the right time to try to sell a card and get your target price, because there is already an overabundance of the same card on eBay.

681. Faux Derek
A card curiously graded a 9.5, as there is nothing detectable to the human eye to separate it from a 10

See also: Boderek Jeter - any Derek Jeter card that is graded a perfect 10.

682. Record Crooks
The players either holding all-time records or being near the top of career lists, who got there by cheating.

683. “And thus it is written, the man able to remove creases from cards shall rule the world!”
A piece of wisdom found inscribed on an ancient cuneiform tablet.

684. Testimoney
The theoretical belief that at some point in the future a free agent will actually answer the question, “What made you decide to sign with the (name of team here)?” by stating, “For the gobs and gobs of money. A-duh!!!!!”

685. Neandertalk
When an old-time vintage card collector chats with a young, modern card collector about what things were like back in the good old collecting days and the kid doesn’t have a clue what the old guy is talking about.


End of section 1, so get a jump on inserting razor blades into candy bars. Halloween is almost here...

[JollyElm]

"Just when I thought I was out, the cardboard keeps pulling me back in."

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


“Heaven is full of threads for which nobody ever bothered to ask..."


686. Portly Party (also Chub Club)
Looking at photos from a card show and giggling at the overabundance of balding, hat-wearing, middle-aged fatties walking around.

See also: Self-Factualization - when viewing these types of pics and you come to the sudden, horrific realization, “Wait...that’s EXACTLY what I look like these days!!"

687. Squeeze Pray
Trying to exert the perfect amount of finger pressure to the sides of a Card Saver to get it to stay open long enough to allow the comfortable insertion of a card without it snapping shut halfway through and damaging said card.

See also: Pliantagonist - a Card Saver that simply refuses to fall in line and properly remain open.

688. Thinker to Nevers to Perchance
The three stages of a collector’s purchasing decision:
1. “Wow...that’s a pretty nice card. I should consider grabbing it.”
2. “Whoa...no way!! That price is way too expensive.”
3. “Hmmm...you know what, I really want it. Maybe I can find a way to afford it.”

689. Six-Legged Paperweight
The guy planted in a chair in front of a table at a show, head tilted, staring down as he endlessly rifles through stacks of cards taken from the dealer’s large count storage boxes.

See also: SpongeBlob - when one of these self-important guys takes up a ton of space in front of a table and won’t cede ground to anyone else wanting to look at the dealer’s offerings.

690. Uppercrushment (also Starfoul)
The undeniable existence of a two-tiered grading system, wherein if you submit a valuable Hall of Famer and a common that are both in the exact same shape, the HOF’er will undoubtedly come back with a lower number on its slab than the nobody.

See also: Dearth Grader - the villainous way TPGs seem to purposely and consistently give lower, harsher grades to certain specific cards, creating a false scarcity of high grade examples.

691. Eye Deafness
The inability of any collector to accurately assess what grades his own cards will receive when being sent off to a TPG.

692. “Bubble, Bubble, Foil and Trouble”
A Shakespearean lamentation warning of the burst to come if you pursue shiny, newly-released modern day chase cards too vigorously as their prices quickly and unrealistically surge due to an inordinate amount of early collector enthusiasm.

See also: “Et Tu, eBay?” - the sorrowful reaction when your attempt to unload a card you greatly overpaid for falls way short of the price you really needed to get for it.

693. Sixodus
The huge, fresh glut of newly graded cards flooding eBay, all having ‘cert numbers’ beginning with the number 6, that are a result of PSA finally working their way through the massive, years long pandemic backlog.

See also: Frontsixer - any of these newly graded cards.

694. The Win Beneath My Wings
The appreciation for a friend or collecting colleague who purposely forgoes bidding in an auction to avoid screwing you over in an unnecessary bidding war, thus giving you a better chance of carrying the day.

695. Writed G
Using asterisks or other characters to replace certain letters in curse words to make them more reader-friendly.

696. Pat Benatarandfeather (slang)
Any thread that starts with someone singing the praises of a person, player, company or some other entity, but quickly devolves into others turning it into a festival of scorn and derision. (Come to think of it, this actually describes EVERY thread.)

697. Intentional Walk-Away
When you’ve set a maximum bid amount for something and once that price is met, come hell or high water, you will not bid another penny more.

See also: Retreating for Two - when the thought of the hell that will be unleashed on you by your wife for spending too much money on a silly little card causes you to stop bidding in an auction.

698. Plunkdrunk
The high that results from getting carried away by emotion and winning a card by bidding much more than you promised yourself you would.

See also: Yupswing - the moment you place the bid which takes you beyond your pre-established limit.

See also: Gung Ho No!!! - the cry of despair resulting from stupidly winning an auction through an incredibly high, nearly self-bankrupting bid.

699. Gunslingering Doubt
The painful regret of not throwing caution to the wind and pulling the trigger on a much higher bid amount than you had planned, because overpaying for a card that rarely comes up for auction is always the right move.

700. Deflation Inflation
When sellers still insist on listing their cards at exorbitantly high prices, seemingly refusing to acknowledge how values have come down significantly since their pandemic highs.

701. Contemporary Insanity
The disbelief over seeing the stunning king’s ransoms being paid for some modern day cards.

702. Hearticulation
Being a lifelong fan and refusing to call your beloved team by the random, ‘politically correct’ moniker it was suddenly changed to, and sticking with what the franchise has always been called.

See also: Wokerevokers - people who aren’t necessarily fans of the team, but have a love for the game’s traditions and team identities, and refuse to use the silly new name.

703. Flipper Upper
Any affordably priced card that you believe to be a strong candidate for a resubmission upgrade to a higher number.

See also: Uppraisal - the examination of a card to determine if it’s suitable for a resubmission attempt.

See also: Bumplump - a card selling for a higher price than it should, most likely due to the feeling it very well should be broken out and resubmitted for a higher grade.

704. Jigsawkward
Vintage cards that were issued as rectangular picture puzzle pieces, but when laid out do not come close to seamlessly fitting together to form the intended whole, due to the wildly inconsistent factory cutting practices of the time.

705. Spurnaround (also Reincardnation)
Taking items that for various reasons were originally rejected by PSA, and now sending the cards in to a different TPG for a new and deserving shot at slab life.

See also: Snubbish Bin (or Snuffedstuff) - the group of cards shunned by PSA that sit in Card Savers donning stickers indicating “MISCUT,” “MINSIZERQ,” etc.

See also: Dismissal Launch - the act of sending out these cards to the ‘new’ TPG.

See also: Gleevival - when your cards now come back slabbed with number grades.

See also: Lazarush - the thrill of having one of your cards rightfully coming back to life.

706. Promissory Bloat
When a seller’s description of the condition of the cards you bought from him turns out to be very understated and everything looks much better than expected.

See also: Midloweight - the importance of understanding that when someone lists a group of cards as being “mid-grade,” you shouldn’t be surprised if the majority of them turn out to be lower grade stuff.

707. Swishful Thinking
The realization that although it was never a rare card, your dream of owning a nice and affordable 1986-87 Fleer Michael Jordan rookie will never come to pass.

708. Thwarthanded (informal)
A vintage card forever ruined by an inauthentic, perhaps secretarial or ink stamped, signature on it.

See also: John Hancrock - the fake autograph found on one of these pieces.

See also: Posticide or Boooo! The Mail - when a card was ruined long ago in this manner after you requested an autograph through a fan letter.

709. Chi-Town Kubobs
The curious way Topps kept designing 1970’s-era Chicago Cubs team cards to be nothing but the ready-for-the-skewer floating heads of the players and coaching staff.

710. Dagnabbit Hole
A busy thread that has a link to a card, picture or something else that everyone’s talking about, but no one has added the actual image to the thread to make it easy for everyone to know what’s going on...so you annoyingly have no choice but to start clicking and following links to get up to speed.

711. “How could you tell he was a scammer?” “Simple. His asking price was quite reasonable.”
A plaintive gripe reflecting the state of baseball card sellers these days.

See also: Sense of Misdirection - the simple smarts and sound judgment which easily allows you to steer clear of card scammers.

712. The Grand Tillusion
The myth that selling your cards on eBay will be an easy way to get your coffers overflowing.

See also: The Point of No Returns - the confusion of seeing an eBayer stating that he doesn’t accept returns, when you’re pretty sure that everything on the site can be sent back for a refund if you follow proper protocols.

See also: Bridge Over Troubled Slaughter - saving yourself from heartache by setting up your auction with a reserve.

See also: Dark Side of the Boon - how the IRS is now forcefully inserting itself into your low value selling efforts made through PayPal and eBay.

See also: Stop Faking Sense - the wish for eBay to quit making nonsensical, unnecessary, and even harmful changes to their platform when nobody asked for them in the first place.

See also: Textile On Main St. - picking up a great, vintage game-worn uniform off of eBay.

713. Guano-it-All
Anyone posting their opinion in an opinion-based thread and concluding with, “End of discussion.”

714. Frank Flawed Wright
If you listen to the loud opinions being voiced in the collecting world, the apparent designer of each and every new TPG slab.

See also: Shabitat - the expressed disdain for a particular TPG’s holder.

715. Middlemerch
The prominent, drool-worthy cards kept front and center beneath the glass at a dealer’s table.

See also: Unobtaina-Table - a seller’s set-up at a show that has nothing but cards which are way beyond your means, but it’s exciting just to catch a glimpse of them anyway.

716. Booby Scratch
Seeing an otherwise gorgeous 1964 Topps card, only to turn it over and discover that some kid followed the directions and rubbed a coin across the blank box to reveal the cartoon answer.

See also: Scrapeheap - a group of these cards.

See also: Scratchscreech - the unhappy reaction to coming across such cards.

See also: Pristingy - the sacrifice of giving up knowing the answer to the tantalizing trivia question on the back of a 1964 card in order to keep it unscratched and unblemished.

See also: Drowntowner - any of the scant few 1964 Topps cards that do not feature the subject player breaking the surface of the photograph and jutting out into the ‘air’ of the white area.

717. Eightyoneing
No matter how great your favorite team is doing, you can never breathe securely until they meet the 81 victory threshold, ensuring they will NOT have a losing season.

718. Ownerslip (also Ransom Notation)
As the cardboard seller’s version of ‘proof of life,’ having your name and today’s date written on something in the picture next to the card you’re offering for sale, for the express purpose of proving to the viewer that not only do you own the card, but you have it in hand.

See also: Proofessor - someone who engages in this activity.

719. Disrobing the Piece
Presenting convincing evidence that a supposed game-worn item found as part of a relic card doesn’t comport with the facts and surely could not have been legitimately worn by the player.

720. Tempty Promise
When a dealer allays your fears by guaranteeing that if you send the card he’s offering to a TPG, it will come back graded.

See also: Stickinthecrawthentic - when the seller informs you that being slabbed as ‘authentic,’ and not receiving a number grade, does indeed count as fulfilling this pledge.

721. Applied Reprintsearch
The act of closely examining the back of a seemingly authentic card in hopes of not finding the word “reprint” there.

See also: Backjacked - discovering that the word “reprint” was deceptively removed from a card to make it appear to be a valuable and legitimate original.

722. Cardboard Orphan
Anyone who had to suffer the indignity of knowing his very own mother thew out his baseball card collection without even telling him.

See also: Forfeitorture - the painful realization that your mom suddenly ‘handed down’ your boxes of baseball cards to a family who has younger, more suitable children to enjoy them.

723. Weirdiful
Any cards, sets or other such collectibles that are undoubtedly as ugly as sin to 99% of all collectors, but are fascinating and desirable to you personally.

See also: Hecktacular - a card that is truly a cool pick-up, but not for the usual reasons. Could be a bizarre printing error, a wild miscut, or something else that makes it wonderfully odd.

724. Penny Pinch-Hitting
Wanting to buy a card, but the price is a bit too high for your budget, so you switch your focus and ‘settle’ for a less desirable, but affordable, alternative.

See also: Hoboasting - being excited about scoring something great that was cheap, cheap, cheap.

725. Telegrim
Any type of message, PM or other communication which informs you that you did not win an auction.

726. Aggrievolution (also Mittamorphoshitz)
The stupendously ridiculous MLB rule changes that have come out of nowhere recently and are simply anathema to the traditions and spirit of the beloved national pastime.


End of section 2, so now you have time to go and buy a Lotto ticket, because it's the only way to afford anything on eBay these days...

[JollyElm]

“And then? And then when I walked down the street people would've looked and they would've said, there goes the best there ever was in this game of puns and wordplay.”*

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


*Which is entirely false, because this stuff is just monumentally tiring, amirite (that's a call-back to the first post in this nonsense thread)?


727. Denty-Header
A card having a crease running across the player’s face.

728. Golden Newbies
The cards produced after Topps stopped issuing sets in multiple series that you’ve always considered to be too ‘modern’ to bother getting graded, but now are old enough that they can carry some nice value.

729. “My horsehide is living rent-free in that guy’s mitt”
When one net54 member seems to have a weird obsession with another member, and his attempts to continually go after him are laughably in vain.

730. Brimmortals
The special category of players whose career numbers are a no-brainer for enshrinement in Cooperstown, but whose unforgiveable baseball sins have left them stranded forever on the threshold looking in.

See also: Hofogenous - the proper descriptive term used to indicate that a group of cards is ‘all’ Hall of Famers, except for the fact Pete Rose, Joe Jackson and/or other pariahs are actually a part of it.

731. Dotcomaraderie (also The Fellowship of the Grab)
The joy of different people with different likes, interests and personalities all meeting up on-line for a shared enthusiasm of baseball card collecting.

See also: Ballpayers - the card collecting community as a whole.

See also: Aarpool Lane - the more senior collectors who enjoy looking back and sharing nostalgic stories of the innocent, halcyon days of their card collecting youth.

732. Shtick Figures (also Packsimiles)
The colorful illustrations of baseball players found adorning vintage wrappers, boxes and other packaging which were obviously intended to resemble real major leaguers, but whose facial features were altered slightly to make them ‘different’ people.

733. Weakilateral
Card sets, like 1954 Topps and others, that appear to be off-centered just by the very nature of their layouts.

734. Short Border Crook
A seller on eBay who deceptively crops his picture to eliminate a little bit on all sides of a lower or mid-grade card to make it magically appear to have four perfectly sharp corners.

735. Detourist Trap
When a card gets caught up in the annoying and pointless over-examinations, delays and worries associated with eBay’s authenticity debacle.

See also: Crawlternate Route - when one of these overly-authenticated cards takes much too long to get into the hands of the buyer.

See also: The Set Break Swerve - the crafty inclusion of such algorithm-upsetting words as “set break” or “pack” in an auction listing to avoid leaving it susceptible to eBay's authentication policies.

736. Window Toast
A card in a holder that has become quite faded, most likely due to being regularly burned by the sun’s rays as it sat forever inside of a shopowner’s display case.

737. Mantoll
When trading for or buying a Mickey Mantle card, the need to always buck up more than it is currently worth, because both you and the other guy know full well it will continue soaring up and away in value from the moment you land it.

See also: Multimantler (slang) - a shorthand way of suggesting a card is valuable, in that a trader would have to offer up an assortment of pricey Mantle cards to get it off of your hands.

738. Netflixceptional
Any hobby story or occurrence that is so magnificent, it would make a must-see movie or TV series.

739. Blue Yonderers
The players and cards you can never go wrong with, because they will perpetualy continue to go up, up, up in value.

See also: Blue Chippopotamus - an elite baseball card that not only will always be very desirable and fat with value, but will continually and exponentially fatten in value.

See also: Trajectormenty - when you’ve been meaning to land a key card for some time, but it just keeps getting further out of your reach as it gets more and more expensive.

740. Pafkontrary
The belief that Topps’ 1952 offering counts as their first real entry into the baseball card marketplace, but that requires entirely ignoring the 1951 ‘Red Back’ and ‘Blue Back’ sets which were released just the year before.

741. Imaginotion
Getting lost in revery thinking about what it would be like to possess one of the most historically epic cards known to man.

See also: Boy Meets Grail - any nostalgic recounting of the time your younger self (or perhaps your son) first caught a glimpse of an illustrious, world famous card.

742. Demigodawful (also Halfpointless)
Any card having a numerical grade of 1.5, which means it doesn’t quite have the divine status of being totally, completely horrific, but falls just a hair shy of that dubious status.

743. Buy of the Tiger
The serious landing of a great old card of one of Detroit’s finest players, such as Ty Cobb, Hank Greenberg, Al Kaline or Charlie Gehringer.

744. Blowback to the Future
The anger over Topps ruining great old vintage cards by invasively stamping the fronts for contemporary buyback insert promotions.

745. “Four is the New Seven” (adage)
As old cards are regularly being hammered by the new brutality of the TPGs, lower slab numbers are not only the order of the day, but are now more acceptable to collectors than ever before.

See also: Higher Heightsing - with high grade examples of cards becoming a rarity due to harsher grading standards, when you see a vintage card with a high number sitting inside of a new holder, you know the graders TRULY deemed it to be outstanding.

See also: Apexceptional - a newly graded vintage card with a high number on the slab.

746. Sitcommerce
When apologists for notorious on-line price extortionists claim they have fine business models, and you can’t help but laugh and wonder, “If that’s the case, why don’t they buy up all of the same cards that others list on eBay for 1/4 of their price and sell them for a huge profit??”

747. Tirading Cards
The cards in your collection of players you find completely, utterly repugnant.

748. Sarcophagospel
The accepted belief that in order to sell a card for a decent price these days, you need to have it graded and situated inside of a slab.

749. Fandom Numbers
How a team’s devoted followers can tell you without hesitation what number uniform an average player from decades ago wore.

750. Breaker’s Dozen
The serendipitous discovery that a wax pack you opened up contained an additional card that pushed it past the number of cards the pack was supposed to hold.
Also applies to the insertion of an ‘extra’ chase card in a modern pack.

751. Swellebration
When a rare or expensive card comes up for auction and captures everyone’s attention so much that a thread is started to enthusiastically begin marveling about how high the bids are going and wondering what the final hammer price will be.

752. Slabsolutism
The state of needing to keep a collection uniform by ensuring all cards are only housed inside the holders of one’s preferred TPG.

See also: “Beauty is in the eye of the reholder” - the motto of such collectors.

753. Insamenity
When the same sellers bring the same boxes of ‘looked-through-a-million-times’ cards and the same wildly overpriced superstars to show after show after show and expect different results.

754. Calamnesty
When something goes very wrong during the course of a transaction, but you are satisfied that the other party wasn’t motivated by malicious intent.

See also: Walking on Neggshells - the internal debate of trying to decide if the relatively bad eBay experience you had merits leaving negative feedback for the seller.

755. Goncore
Any regular issue, not a tribute or special, card of a player appearing in a set the year after he had actually played in his final career game.

756. Batters Not Included
When an eBay seller has multiple cards showing in his pics, but issues a disclaimer stating that the auction is only for the single card listed in the title and not the other ones pictured.

757. Siameasly Twin
That no good so-and-so who collects the exact same stuff as you, and he’s seemingly always able to grab the cards you lust after right from under your nose.

See also: Caintemptible - when you become filled with a murderous rage as your ‘collecting brother’ smugly posts yet another new pick-up.

758. Fraughtical
The inherent issues and dangers faced when attempting to make a purchase from overseas.

759. Pigmentality
Using your familiarity with the specific colors Topps assigned to each team’s players in certain sets to quickly determine if the small portion of a card you can see popping out of other things has the right hues to potentially be an important card.

760. Booster Rooster
A member crowing words to the effect of, “What a great card! I can’t see this one lasting very long,” in someone else’s FS thread.

See also: Whine Seller - anyone who expresses disdain for the fact that no one is jumping on the cards he has put up for sale.

761. Close Horse
How cards of Hall of Fame relief pitcher, Hoyt Wilhem, always seemed to have him sporting yet another new team’s uniform each season.

762. Prigonometry
When a superstar switches teams via a trade or a huge free agency deal, and he simply expects the current wearer of ‘his’ uniform number on the new team to hand it over.

See also: Centeryielder - a player who willingly agrees to surrender his number to the new guy.

763. Plundervalued
An accounting term referring to buying a sizeable lot of cards with some pricey ones mixed in, and by applying the money spent across everything, including the commons, you are able to tell yourself you got the big cards at a super price.

764. Endless Cardboard in a Cardboardless World
The future of the card collecting hobby.

765. Prebay Rare
Cards that used to be crazy cool, because they were so scarce you would never catch a glimpse of one except in a baseball card magazine or price guide, but now can be readily seen anytime you want on eBay.

766. Weedsteed
When a section is overcrowded by newer and newer threads being started, but you have the guts to face it head on and post your new thread anyway.

767. Marital Defrayal
After buying an expensive card, swearing to your wife that it’s your full intention to ‘try’ to sell off other things of yours to get the money back.

768. The Gift of Grab
The ability to use your amiable personality and people skills to pursuade a seller to lower his price down closer to where you want it to be.

769. Bypasstros (also Living in the Pastrodome)
When you hear the Houston Astros mentioned and your brain skips past and can’t seem to acknowledge the fact that the team is ‘now’ an American League squad.

See also: Wisconsolable - still not being able to understand how, why or when the Milwaukee Brewers became a National League franchise.

770. Bent Grade
The way to differentiate slabbed cards with qualifiers from those having ‘straight’ grades.
“It’s OC, a bent 9.”

771. Scamputee
Any lovable card you own which has significant portions of it missing.

772. Platinum Bland
That certain highly valuable and treasured card which every collector is ‘supposed’ to drool over, but really does nothing for you personally.

See also: Desirablasphemy - making the mistake of voicing this opinion to other serious collectors.

773. Grift Basket
A large box of cards for sale that the dealer claims hasn’t been searched through or cherry-picked, but you know darned well every decent card above ‘common’ status has been summarily removed.

774. Unreasonable Reasonableness
When a seller who always lists his cards at ridiculously high prices says he is open to reasonable offers, but you have no idea what his definition of ‘reasonable’ could possibly be.

775. Refried BINs
When you message a seller offering to buy his card for a little bit less than what he’s listed it for, and his response is to immediately raise the Buy-It-Now price on the already overpriced card.

776. D.H. Flawrence
Anyone who actively writes, compiles and maintains checklists of official and unofficial errors and variations across baseball card sets.

777. Bilottoral
The duality of being a true collector who’s in it for the enjoyment, but also someone who is always striving to make sure his collection continually grows more and more valuable.

778. Historyonics
The melodrama of someone insisting his views on what a long dead ballplayer was like are indisputably accurate, although he has no first hand knowledge of the subject and all of his opinions are based upon 2nd, 3rd or 4th party accounts bent and twisted over a huge length of time.

779. Grime Reaper
When a card is so hard to find that its awful condition doesn’t even come into play, and you just grab it the moment an opportunity arises.

780. Drearview Mirror
The misery of only finding out after the fact that a card you’re always hunting for came up for sale recently and was landed by someone else.

781. Fringe Vanilla
The players whose career numbers are somewhat in the neighborhood of Cooperstown-worthy respectability, but don’t enjoy much, if any, serious support from baseball fans for enshrinement.

See also: Free-for-Hall - any thread that was ostensibly started to ‘discuss’ the merits of various enshrined Hall of Famers, but devolves into a rancorous, opinionated airing of grievances.

See also: cooperstown Hall of Participation (cHOP) (under construction) - a place to eat breakfast while putting a bunch of theoretical, non-standardized sabermetric baseball statistics through a blender to make them fit your opinion of whether or not a borderline player deserves enshrinement in The Hall of Fame.

782. “Why don’t you two get a (private chat) room!”
The frustrated cry of everyone reading a thread that has degenerated into nothing but an endless back and forth between a pair of headstrong members.

See also: Greeting a Dead Horse - other members being forced to open the thread every time one of these combatants issues a new post, simply to mark it as ‘read.’



Finally, the end of this trilogy!!!

But since you've been such good boys all year, a half-Krampus, half-Santa hybrid will show up at Christmas time to leave even more funny stuff coal in your net54 stockings...

[JollyElm]

Q: If Santa Claus fills in as the Buffalo Bills' defensive coordinator for tomorrow's Christmas Eve game, what is his main strategy going to be??

A: Blitzen!! Duh!!!


I present to you Collectorisms Part XII (Days of Christmas)


"Do you expect me to talk?"

"No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to roll your eyes."



***ALERT!!!!!!*** There is a lot to unwrap here (get it?), so take your time!!! Ho-ho-hopefully, laughs will abound!!!!
Before you do anything, scroll down to #829 and read it, so you will understand what's going on here.


No plastic straws were used in creating this horsereindeershit, and no Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifles were used to shoot any kids' eyes out.


The only way to survive this stupidity is to start chugging mass quantities of rum-rich eggnog!!!!!!!!!!!




783. Infelleribility
The oft-heard quip that whenever you run across anything Bob Feller related, it is virtually guaranteed that the piece will have his autograph on it.

784. Flipmiffed
Although you know once you sell a card, the new owner is free to do with it whatever he wants, you still feel peeved when you see him quickly turn around and resell his new acquisition for a nice profit...a nice profit that ‘rightfully’ should’ve been yours.

785. Counter-refitter
A swindler who is able to seamlessly insert a phony replica or reprint card into an authentic slab to replace the valuable original he has removed.

786. Creeptocurrency
The attempt by someone you don’t know to buy something off of you via a strange new payment method you’ve heard of, but know nothing about and have no faith in.

787. Ballpark Testament
The stories, photographs and memories reflecting a wonderfully personal and enduring love for your team’s long-gone stadium, which had been their home in your earliest days of being a baseball fan.

788. Bequeazy
The troubled feeling of knowing that the people you leave your collection to after you pass away aren’t going to care one iota about how much you cherished and slaved over it for years and years, they’re just going to quickly sell everything off and grab the dough.

See also: “Death, Where is Thy Ka-ching?” - an expression noting how some inheritors don’t have a clue how to profitably liquidate their loved one’s collection.

789. Numeralpha Male
Any player who is immediately identifiable by nothing more than the mere mention of a uniform number - like 3, 9, 21, 24, 32, 99, etc.

See also: Co-Meekual - when the same number was worn by two different all-time greats, but one of them takes a back seat when it comes to instantly coming to the mind of most fans.

See also: Surnameous - any player who is immediately identifiable by the mere mention of his first name.

790. See Sawcery
The act of trying to magically establish a proper asking price for a card whose past sales numbers have consistently and wildly fluctuated up and down.

See also: Moving Starget - when this process involves a serious Hall of Famer card.

791. “A long bird in a short sky” (AKA Longbirding) (idiom)
The realization that in order to sell an epic card of yours, you need something other than eBay - like an auction house or the like - to get the right eyes on it and have the best chance of maximizing the sales price.

792. Sellevation
The act of purchasing a higher graded version of a card you own, and then selling off the original to help defray the cost of the upgrade.

793. Flipomatic Immunity
As long as it’s not cracked out of its slab, a card - even a completely overgraded one - will remain at the number the TPG deemed it to be and will forever enjoy the fruits and values associated with that particular grade.

794. Dough Strings Attached
Always knowing that once you accept a card as a gift from someone, even if you didn’t really want it in the first place, you will somehow, some way eventually end up paying for it.

795. Flawer Power
The love and satisfaction of landing a key, rare and valuable error card or variation.

796. Slabflection Hindrance (also Flashing Blights)
The unavoidable fact that you cannot snap a photograph of a graded card without all sorts of distracting reflections and shadows clouding and affecting the image.

See also: “Lights, Camera, Refraction!” - a jaunty expression of this reality.

See also: Diffractured - any picture of a graded card markedly affected by shadows and reflections.

See also: Mirror Scrimmage - playing the game of looking at the distorted backwards images being reflected in the photo of a TPG slab or the glass of a framed photo and trying to figure out what can be found there.

See also: Reflective Detective - a person who enjoys engaging in this activity.

See also: Faceholder - a picture where the reflected mug of the photographer is plainly visible.

See also: Phonedemental - the one constant in each of these photographs is the appearance of the rectangular silhouetted shadow of the picture taker’s cell phone.

797. Rerunaware
When someone again bumps his thread by noting “Still available,” seeming to be alone in not realizing his asking price is unreasonably high for the card.

See also: Skyhighlander - a seller committing this ‘offense.’

798. Behemother Effer!
The frustration involved with trying to complete a very large set.

799. Omission Control
The various checklist cover-up approaches that Topps used to disguise the fact that certain card numbers in certain sets did not actually exist.

800. Slack Jacket
The protective ‘armor’ afforded by the thick, reflective slab which by its very nature makes light creases, wrinkles, gum residue or other surface issues - that were plainly obvious when the card was in hand - ‘disappear’ due to the effort now required to even realize there are defects to be found.

See also: Cloak and Swagger - when a card’s appearance is greatly improved by a slab’s ability to conceal its shortcomings.

See also: Flyinhearted - a card that technically deserves the low grade it received, but has the strong eye appeal of a much higher grade.

See also: Mysterical Blindness - if a card ensconced in a holder has flaws that are no longer detectable by the person viewing it, do those flaws actually even exist or matter anymore?

801. Monkeyshrines
Deceptively using “HOF” when selling a card to raise the player’s status sky high, but he isn’t in Cooperstown or any other major sport’s Hall of Fame, but ‘just’ a minor state, college or team version.

802. Factcertainty
Any beliefs or assumptions that you’ve devised about specific cards or sets that may not have ever been proven to be literally true, but are certainly valid enough to you based on personal experience.

803. Cross-Postmortem
When someone makes a point of stating the card he’s selling is also being posted in other forums, and your first thought is, “So, your attempt to sell it at that ridiculous price is going to die a miserable death on other sites, too??”

See also: Uppermosting - when someone points out that their (already exorbitantly priced) cards are listed for even higher amounts on eBay due to the fees.

804. Pennywise-Ass
A person who, after determining what someone paid for the card he’s trying to trade for or buy off of him, attempts to use the knowledge to gain some sort of leverage.

805. Screwveneer
A crease or wrinkle appearing on the surface of a card, but not going through to the other side.

806. Freejects
The cards from from the junk wax era that were so overproduced, easily found and worthless that you aren't able to even give them away gratis.

807. Strung-Upcharge
The futile irritation of, after following all proper valuation protocols with a card submission, the TPG tells you that based on the grades your cards received, you owe them significantly higher fees.

See also: Embittersweet - feeling furious that you’re being stuck with unwarranted additional grading charges, but finding some solace in the fact that a higher grade ‘turned’ your card into a more valuable one.

See also: Slabductee - any card being held hostage by a TPG until the submitter pays the ‘ransom’ of higher service level fees.

808. Uncommonplace
Searching eBay to find information on something unusual you picked up, but not finding a single listing for one, so you’re left not knowing whether the piece is very rare or so run-of-the-mill that it’s not worth the listing fees involved in trying to sell one.

809. Youtuberculosis
A condition causing any rational person, after clicking on a link to watch a video about sportscards or such, to continue clicking on more and more tangential sports (and beyond) links.

810. Edgehog
A card so off-centered that its image is a mere hair away from hitting one or two borders and being labeled as ‘miscut.’

811. Ripdated
After hearing that an all-time great has just passed away, being startled to find his death date - today’s date - has already been edited in to his Wikipedia page bio.

See also: Yesterdais - any old picture or video from a Cooperstown induction ceremony which captures the gathered assembly of elderly all-time greats.

812. Cripple Digits
From a buyer’s perspective, the crushing amount of increase in price a card gains between one number grade and just a single number grade higher.

813. Passersbuying
Grabbing something at a card show that you are unfamiliar with, but it looks cool and just jumps off the dealer’s table at you.

814. Crowd Ofcourseing
Starting a thread to find opinions on something, when you already know full well that every responder is simply going to agree with your thoughts.

815. Flinchworm
Someone who ignores a seller’s claim that his price is firm and tries to talk him into shrinking back and letting it go for cheaper.

816. Momprovisations
The impromptu tactics your younger self was able to develop in order to keep your baseball card collection hidden away and safe from your mother’s desire to chuck it all away.

817. Squanderlust
The impulsive habit of making rash baseball card purchasing decisions, so you’re always forking over way too much money and ultimately turning all of your buys into downright bad moves.

See also: Möbius Trip - the simple fact that no matter how hard you try to avoid it, you will continue going round and round, stumbling through the same types of poor purchasing choices.

818. Indivisualism
The simple fact that different collectors looking at the same card at the same time will only see what they choose to see, and will have widely different assessments of its shape, beauty, desirability, value, etc.

819. Open Mick Night
Any thread started to again have members pile on their reverence and adulation for Mickey Mantle.

820. Sleepstakes
Waking up to find the bid you placed on something the night before came out on top and brought you home a big victory.

821. Let’s Make a Steal
Any eBay ‘Pick Your Card’ auction which has you spinning the game show-like wheel to get to the card you are thinking of buying, and it ends up looking nice with a price that is sweet.

822. Filosophistry
PSA’s practice of first in, last out (FILO), wherein the cards submitted ages ago are endlessly ignored and put on the back burner, while cards newly submitted at substantially higher grading fees are graded and sent out quickly.

See also: WAH Qualifier (in development) - ‘WAH’ would only appear on the slabs of cards that were resubmitted in their holders to PSA in an attempt to to receive a higher grade, but failed to do so. It stands for “Wrong Again, Honey.”

See also: FU - the only ‘qualifier’ virtually every customer would slap on PSA these days.

823. Memoremix
When someone talks about the first pack he ever opened as a kid, and names specific cards it held, although he believes the story to be true, his account is most likely an innocent amalgamation of different baseball card rememberances.

824. Smarmistice (also Waratorium)
Praying to the heavens that any of the self-involved members who constantly assess every freaking thing by using the theoretical stat of WAR, would just for once give it a rest and take a different approach.

825. Magnitrickation
How enlarged or high-def scans of any of your cards will always make them look in ridiculously worse shape than they actually are.

826. Adjectivitis
The condition affecting eBay sellers who greatly overdo the use of descriptive words to sell their superb, awesome, glorious, marvelous, magnificent, exceptional, heavenly treasures.

827. Disgustimate
Asking for opinions on what a card in awful shape will grade at if submitted to a TPG.

See also: Slop Hop - the big boost in monetary value a very low grade star card gets the moment it is graded and put into a slab.

828. Shopscotch
The act of jumping around to different sites in a search for a card you want to purchase.

829. Christmas Reprieve
When your significant other spends the entire year carping about your ‘dumb little hobby,’ but relents long enough to surprise you with a hobby-related gift for the holidays.

See also: Elf-Actualization - when you buy yourself a nice hobby piece for Christmas.


And to all a good night...