What percent of people in this space collect long term

[benxcrunner1]

Just curious if anyone has thoughts on this topic. I wonder how many people that got back into the hobby are going to stick around and what the average duration a card stays in someone's PC. I see so much action and so much sales volume on cardladder and I'm not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing. Seems like consolidation is the hot thing right now - sell off a ton to get 1 really high dollar card. As with stocks, typically the more you transact, the worst your return is, especially compared to the buy and hold strategy - will people realize they keep losing money (which I've heard people say owning the card for even a short period of time provided them with some utility) the more they change their collection and eventually exit?

[siuwongkee]

I define there are a few layers of collectors. I guess I am at level 2, taking sports cards as an ALT investment.

People like me, usually does not sell alot but they will keep buying. They love to brag how good their insight is as well as being very bitter regarding those not doing well. Pretty much like if I collect Rolex, the market is ADJUSTING, but we do not see the problem like Penarai. And I will be very bitter regarding my Penerai collection and tell you how it used to be the rising stars and how the stupid company cost my gain.

So to sum up, I will keep cards long term and I am still buying.

[FrankAZHP]

I feel like a lot of the oldheads do buy/sell/trade and have a solid collector's PC. But most of the younger and newer people in the hobby are all about the Gary Vee fliplife and making money and the fake manufactured glorification of the fliplife lifestyle. Their blogs and IG stories flashing around cash and making $1000 trades and links to their ebay store show that. Plus so many of them idolize these fake ass counterfeit douchebags like Geoff Wilson. Rarely do I find any long term collectors anymore in the newer generation.

I mean, to each their own, but it's just a little demoralizing to see.

Most of the flip life culture seems like a big waste of time to me. Maybe 5% of them will actually continue and make some type of long term profit doing it on the side, but I find after eBay fees, packing materials, buying printer/ink or thermal printer/labels, having to sell some stuff at a loss to keep money moving, taking the occasional lost in shipping hit, having to pay extra taxes etc, plus all the time spent on cataloguing in spreadsheets, taking photos, listing online, packing, printing labels, etc, they could have just worked a few extra hours at their job and made the same amount of money if not more. Not to mention it's also taking something that was likely originally intended for fun and/or a hobby and made it "work" which may be fine in the short term but causes burnout in the long run.

/end old man rant

[mindcycle]

Love the old man rant..

I look at it pretty much the same way though. From a good deal of the National posts I saw the flip/hustle “lifestyle” is big among the younger generation right now. Fanatics is looking to capitalize on all that so it won’t be slowing down anytime soon imo.

Best hope is some of the people only flipping right now will eventually settle into a PC of some sort. There’s still a large number of collectors with substantial PCs for them to look up to and they might eventually think that is cool/interesting. Fingers crossed.

[siuwongkee]

I feel like a lot of the oldheads do buy/sell/trade and have a solid collector's PC. But most of the younger and newer people in the hobby are all about the Gary Vee fliplife and making money and the fake manufactured glorification of the fliplife lifestyle. Their blogs and IG stories flashing around cash and making $1000 trades and links to their ebay store show that. Plus so many of them idolize these fake ass counterfeit douchebags like Geoff Wilson. Rarely do I find any long term collectors anymore in the newer generation.

I mean, to each their own, but it's just a little demoralizing to see.

Most of the flip life culture seems like a big waste of time to me. Maybe 5% of them will actually continue and make some type of long term profit doing it on the side, but I find after eBay fees, packing materials, buying printer/ink or thermal printer/labels, having to sell some stuff at a loss to keep money moving, taking the occasional lost in shipping hit, having to pay extra taxes etc, plus all the time spent on cataloguing in spreadsheets, taking photos, listing online, packing, printing labels, etc, they could have just worked a few extra hours at their job and made the same amount of money if not more. Not to mention it's also taking something that was likely originally intended for fun and/or a hobby and made it "work" which may be fine in the short term but causes burnout in the long run.

/end old man rant

I love the rant. I feel the same. I mean, everybody whom buy/sell/trade cards want something from the hobby. But I suppose, at least to a small percentage of my friends, they do not reall CARE the price jumps alot. Like YuGiOh is declining, but every set, they buy the highest rarity cards knowing 50% of the time, Konami will print a higher rare of the same card some day. But they just love the card. Most of the kids, they just want a FREE RIDE, like "I tell everybody I play Yugioh, I do not spent a cents on it but making profit from that." In these few years, 75% of them abandon yugioh and go to play pokemon for the obvious reasons.

[SacKingsCards]

For me, I agree that the percentage of long term collectors is decreasing steadily. But a lot of that could be long term collectors not really having a social media presence in the hobby. It's a positive feedback loop that could make one feel like the majority are about flipping, investing, and branding and not really building a pc out of the live of cards, players, and/ or teams.

[workingclasscards]

idk if I'm a long term collector, I look at it like I try to collect things that have value or can appreciate at reasonable prices.
If I ever get tired of something, I can sell if I want to.
I'm definitely not a flipper buying something with the intention of selling it in a couple of weeks.

[AbraCalabro]

Just curious if anyone has thoughts on this topic. I wonder how many people that got back into the hobby are going to stick around and what the average duration a card stays in someone's PC. I see so much action and so much sales volume on cardladder and I'm not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing. Seems like consolidation is the hot thing right now - sell off a ton to get 1 really high dollar card. As with stocks, typically the more you transact, the worst your return is, especially compared to the buy and hold strategy - will people realize they keep losing money (which I've heard people say owning the card for even a short period of time provided them with some utility) the more they change their collection and eventually exit?

Interesting post. I don't see myself being too active in the long term. There are some cards I will hold on to for the time being, but will probably end up moving the bulk of what I have remaining. I got back into the hobby over a decade ago, so I'm not part of the blood sucking profiteer crowd. Never been an investor either, but I have made bank off what I've sold so far, even if a couple of the sales were disappointing. I don't care about the losing money part as that doesn't really apply to me, however, I'm losing interest every single day and the direction I'm moving leads to a place of little to no interest. Some of the stuff I hold on to, I will time the sales, IF there is any interest from big spenders, the archetype which helped to decay the hobby inadvertently, or otherwise.

Genuine enthusiasts are already an extreme and I want to emphasize, extreme, minority already. The direction that the card industry is headed in, however, is for gamblers and blood suckers, the whole thing has been turned into fast food, with cards that feature designs that have clearly been rushed, or poorly thought out for the most part.

Set collecting is dead. Set collectors are hardly around anymore. Super collecting is dead, super collectors are hardly around. People aren't helping one another out anymore, they're really more about helping themselves. You mention anything about building a set that is even remotely limited, the prices shoot up and so on. If prices ever normalize, how many people are going to care at that point?

That's my rant, but definitely see no reason to stick around long term.

[mindcycle]

Interesting post. I don't see myself being too active in the long term. There are some cards I will hold on to for the time being, but will probably end up moving the bulk of what I have remaining. I got back into the hobby over a decade ago, so I'm not part of the blood sucking profiteer crowd. Never been an investor either, but I have made bank off what I've sold so far, even if a couple of the sales were disappointing. I don't care about the losing money part as that doesn't really apply to me, however, I'm losing interest every single day and the direction I'm moving leads to a place of little to no interest. Some of the stuff I hold on to, I will time the sales, IF there is any interest from big spenders, the archetype which helped to decay the hobby inadvertently, or otherwise.

Genuine enthusiasts are already an extreme and I want to emphasize, extreme, minority already. The direction that the card industry is headed in, however, is for gamblers and blood suckers, the whole thing has been turned into fast food, with cards that feature designs that have clearly been rushed, or poorly thought out for the most part.

Set collecting is dead. Set collectors are hardly around anymore. Super collecting is dead, super collectors are hardly around. People aren't helping one another out anymore, they're really more about helping themselves. You mention anything about building a set that is even remotely limited, the prices shoot up and so on. If prices ever normalize, how many people are going to care at that point?

That's my rant, but definitely see no reason to stick around long term.

I'm going to go ahead and agree with pretty much everything you said here, lol. During the pandemic I just about quit collecting altogether when I saw the direction the "hobby" was headed. And I use quotes around hobby there because can we really consider it a hobby anymore with the all the big money that has vested interest in the space now? I've attempted to argue this point in the past, but to me a hobby is something you do in your free time for fun. Constantly worrying about card values, trying to flip or pawn cards to the next guy, influencers only in it for the money, etc, etc.. just doesn't seem like it’s a hobby any longer for most.

All that said, I will say that since joining IG, while I have seen an overwhelming amount of people who seem to be in just for the money, i've also met a good number of true collectors. Not too many set collectors anymore but definitely player collectors. Guys on the same level or even more passionate than myself. They are out there and with social media you have a good chance of running across them at some point.

Now.. can I count those collectors using only my fingers and toes.. Pretty much. But they are out there still..

One of the goals with this forum was to create a place where collectors can come and enjoying collecting for collecting again. I really do think we've achieved that after looking at all the awesome cards sharing posts on here. While I would like to have seen double or triplethe user count at this point, I get it.. IG and Twitter came along and kind of went hand in hand with the money/show off culture taking over the hobby space. The message board experience of the old days was based around the cards themselves where the collector mostly remained anonymous, now that sentiment has flipped and the majority has shifted to the hobby being about themselves more so than the cards.

I will continue to improve this site and work on getting it more exposure in the hopes that others will see what we’re doing here and want to join. I’m hoping it’s because they want to share cards as cards again, and focus less on the attention or "clout" cards bring them. I have some plans for new features I want to implement along with some additional advertising/promotion to get the word out there more than I have thus far. It's been a really busy summer for me but I'll hopefully have some more time to devote to it soon.

[SacKingsCards]

[/quote]

Interesting post. I don't see myself being too active in the long term. There are some cards I will hold on to for the time being, but will probably end up moving the bulk of what I have remaining. I got back into the hobby over a decade ago, so I'm not part of the blood sucking profiteer crowd. Never been an investor either, but I have made bank off what I've sold so far, even if a couple of the sales were disappointing. I don't care about the losing money part as that doesn't really apply to me, however, I'm losing interest every single day and the direction I'm moving leads to a place of little to no interest. Some of the stuff I hold on to, I will time the sales, IF there is any interest from big spenders, the archetype which helped to decay the hobby inadvertently, or otherwise.

Genuine enthusiasts are already an extreme and I want to emphasize, extreme, minority already. The direction that the card industry is headed in, however, is for gamblers and blood suckers, the whole thing has been turned into fast food, with cards that feature designs that have clearly been rushed, or poorly thought out for the most part.

You gotta do what's right for you, but I can't say I'm not sad to hear you don't have plans of being active in the hobby in the long term! I agree with most of what you say, but as someone who really enjoys collecting cards and hopes to be active long term, the hobby is a better place with collectors like you in it to offset the investors, flippers, and portfolio builders.

Set collecting is dead. Set collectors are hardly around anymore. Super collecting is dead, super collectors are hardly around. People aren't helping one another out anymore, they're really more about helping themselves. You mention anything about building a set that is even remotely limited, the prices shoot up and so on. If prices ever normalize, how many people are going to care at that point?

That's my rant, but definitely see no reason to stick around long term.

This is the part I don't quite agree with. I don't think collecting is dead. I think the set, player, team, and super collectors are still out there, but as you said it seems like they're the extreme minority. I think that's a natural product of....

All that said, I will say that since joining IG, while I have seen an overwhelming amount of people who seem to be in just for the money, i've also met a good number of true collectors. Not too many set collectors anymore but definitely player collectors. Guys on the same level or even more passionate than myself. They are out there and with social media you have a good chance of running across them at some point.

Now.. can I count those collectors using only my fingers and toes.. Pretty much. But they are out there still..

One of the goals with this forum was to create a place where collectors can come and enjoying collecting for collecting again. I really do think we've achieved that after looking at all the awesome cards sharing posts on here. While I would like to have seen double or triplethe user count at this point, I get it.. IG and Twitter came along and kind of went hand in hand with the money/show off culture taking over the hobby space. The message board experience of the old days was based around the cards themselves where the collector mostly remained anonymous, now that sentiment has flipped and the majority has shifted to the hobby being about themselves more so than the cards.

I will continue to improve this site and work on getting it more exposure in the hopes that others will see what we’re doing here and want to join. I’m hoping it’s because they want to share cards as cards again, and focus less on the attention or "clout" cards bring them. I have some plans for new features I want to implement along with some additional advertising/promotion to get the word out there more than I have thus far. It's been a really busy summer for me but I'll hopefully have some more time to devote to it soon.

The death of the forum. Mindcycle, I think you did a great job summarizing the downsides of the shift of the majority of collectors to IG. It's like a positive feedback loop: hobby demographic shifts away from cards towards building up their brand/persona-->people flock to IG-->less collectors using forums bc as you said, forums focus on the cards more than the people behind the cards-->more people flocking to IG-->repeat

I hope the Hobby Boards can rejuvenate a lot of the focus on cards. I will say, in the few months on here, even if the activity isn't as high as something like IG or BO, the quality of card discussion is better than anything I've seen on either of those in ages. The posting of cards is great, but the long form discussion of cards is something unique to this forum at this point in my opinion.

Just curious if anyone has thoughts on this topic. I wonder how many people that got back into the hobby are going to stick around and what the average duration a card stays in someone's PC. I see so much action and so much sales volume on cardladder and I'm not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing. Seems like consolidation is the hot thing right now - sell off a ton to get 1 really high dollar card. As with stocks, typically the more you transact, the worst your return is, especially compared to the buy and hold strategy - will people realize they keep losing money (which I've heard people say owning the card for even a short period of time provided them with some utility) the more they change their collection and eventually exit?

I guess after all this I should actually answer the question. I think the percentage of people purchasing cards to keep in their pc for years or months is probably very small. I was at the Burbank show last Sunday and it felt like I didn't see a single person who wasn't just trying to move to their next venture. Dealers, people going up to tables, people at trade night, all talking about their bottom lines and such. Which is fine, people can do what they wish in the hobby, but I didn't see a single person there who was like "I like this team/player/set and I'm looking to add that person's cards to my collection". Granted, I was only there for 4 hours, but I think it really was in line with what you're observing, OP.

Lastly, I've noticed the consolidation as the hot hobby thing right now, and I don't really get it. Like, I get it if you're moving stuff you come across that you feel is a good deal to move into pc stuff, but I never really understood the idea of moving cheaper PC cards for more expensive ones. I don't buy any cards for my PC that I don't like enough to hope to keep permanently.

[darz90scardz]

I don’t think collecting is outright dead, but I also think the perception of the sheer number of participants that mostly collect has been overestimated for some time now. We can partly thank conflating them with investors and gamblers for that perception, but this was the case well before covid. I honestly think we’ve always been a bit delusional in assessing our size. “PAUSE” (Cam’Ron voice) I’ve been guilty of it too.

[Smalltown]

I'd say I'm probably long-term. I've been collecting cards in one way or another since 1983. I've had some breaks along the way and I don't see that as a negative. Rather it's healthy to sometimes step back or scale back from a hobby that isn't fulfilling you the way it once was. Tastes change, priorities change, finances change and your hobbies should change and adjust too.