The newest trend in the hobby are tweets, videos, and articles with rants complaining about reasons for being in the hobby. I read these posts etc and think “what is the right reason to be in the hobby”. I’ve thought about this for a few weeks and I have to say I disagree with a lot of these ideas. Here’s a few and why I disagree.
“New collectors and Kids are only in it for the money”
This is probably the worse argument of the bunch. While yes there are kids making 5 figures while in middle school flipping and trading up, that is a very small minority, same with adults. The majority of collectors that come in the shop are looking for their favorite teams and players. They rummage through value boxes, only buy flagship products, and generally stay $100 or less in the cards in the cases. This changes with topps buyback cards but they use those trade ins for something they generally would not purchase. I see this same demo at shows as well. I will also add if people are in the hobby to make money, is there anything wrong with that? They just like the collectors are contributing to the ecosystem of the hobby. And they believe it or not generally have a PC. Is there anything wrong with flipping to get an item you want?
“Breakers”
A lot of posts thinking breakers are overall bad for the hobby. I will preface my next statements with yes there are some breakers that are in this for the wrong reasons, but it’s the minority. The majority of breakers love the hobby, especially the ones like myself that started back in 2010-13. In fact the breakers kept the hobby afloat in the early 2010s. People weren’t buying boxes at hobby shops and preferred to buy their favorite teams and split boxes because even at $50 a box many considered them too expensive. ( I remember as a breaker saying NT football at $350 was ridiculous). The distribution companies could not rely on hobby shops to buy the cases and boxes anymore and relied on breakers. Back then shops would consider breakers bad because they refused to adapt. Breakers made collecting teams and players affordable and still do to this day. They have a roll in the collecting community and often provide more value than some hobby shops ( this has definitely changed in last 5 years). Often breakers build intermingled communities where people who have never met in real life become great friends, and often meet in real life. Yes there are bad breakers, but there are also bad collectors.
Those are the 2 groups I’ve seen the most rants about. In the end who is to judge the right reasons for being in the hobby. It’s should be welcoming to all who want to participate with exceptions to scammers and thieves. If a kid wants to trade his way up to a $5000 to flip, who cares? If someone wants to rip a $10000 box, who cares? If people want to chase, collect teams or players in a break, who cares? If they are not hurting themselves or anyone else, their reason for being in the hobby is just fine.
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