Do you buy card for your own collection like myself? Or do you buy cards only caring about if price goes up or not? Money is great and all but I personally collect for my own enjoyment. When prices go up I don’t get mad even if I still need the card in question. That just means what I own is worth more. I know selling is part of the hobby for a lot of people to also help support build their collection. I’m noticing that a lot of people only care about if their card can make them some money to dump it quick. These same people usually get upset when they sold too quick. Or I’m seeing a bunch of people bash cards that go up in price. Is this because they are sour they didn’t buy while they had the chance?Or mad because the card is now out of their price range? We would be better as a community being more positive and simply enjoying what you have. I feel a lot of the negativity comes from jealousy. Post your thoughts no biggie. Just figured I’d throw this out there after all the negative threads or bubble threads lately. (I can’t be the only one that finds the word bubble annoying when it comes to cards) 
I collect cards that I think look good, have a rarity aspect, and have the potential to increase. I’m not spending 5k on a card simply because it look good. I hate to admit it, but “m” matters. I also rarely sell.
Good points and I think it has to do with age and how long people are collecting for. I see my own perspective changing with time throughout the years.
I used to be, and sometimes still am, very focused on the money side as it sometimes is a large financial decision.
Also therefore there is a lot of talk about the money side within this hobby.
As newer and also younger collectors join with less to spend it can be quite daunting to spend large amounts of money on the cards they want but maybe don’t know that much about yet. So getting reassurance from more experienced people can help them.
With the recent price increase I also think a lot of new collectors join the hobby and probably also this forum.
tldr: Yes, maybe too much focus on money but don’t forget that for new and young collectors it can be quite a daunting and expensive hobby to get in to.
@tandstradingcards I completely understand how things can be daunting when first rejoining. I just rejoined the hobby around November myself. Also there’s nothing wrong with some reassurance I can understand that. Maybe I’m reading things wrong but I seem to notice a lot of negativity from some people. Almost so much that it makes it come across as people don’t care about the cards themselves. Which is why I made this thread. Usually the negativity comes right after a price increase and people look to blame it on a bubble. Or find any reason to pretty much bash whatever card it may be that day. Or look to call the card overpriced because maybe it’s out of price range? A card being out of sometimes price range doesn’t imply overpriced. It’s just how life works sometimes. We all can’t have everything. Let’s get some more positivity and excitement back into the community
Personally, I care about both. I only go after cards that excite me from when I was a kid. I use the potential increase in cost as a tie breaker when having trouble.
I buy cards that I like and enjoy the artwork. I do enjoy the Japanese exclusives but I am not bias with my stuff. I do sometimes buy some items to hopefully increase in the short term every now and then so that I can acquire other cards I truly enjoy. For example, I bought two Limited Collection Master Battle sets, one for myself and one to sell, since they doubled instantly after they came out. It is another Japanese exclusive I can add to my list.
If it’s from WotC - EX era and I don’t already own a copy of it, it’s for my collection.
All other cards are purely for *hold your cringe* i n v e s t m e n t p u r p o s e s.
Yup nothing wrong with selling. Whether it’s to pay bills or extra money or to support collection. And nothing wrong with buying some with potential to go up to sell later. It’s only somewhat bad in my eyes when the money is the only thing that matters and not the cards themselves. I look at cards as works of art and historical pieces from the hobby. I love flipping threw different generations to see all the changes Pokemon cards have gone through. I still wish they had old style and first edition but everything does change over time and it would almost be weird if they randomly decided to go back to wotc style after all these years. On another positive note more and more people keep joining the hobby which is always great for the future :-). My nephew even loved Pokemon and he has for along time now and he’s only 9 years old. At one point I bought him X and y packs a few years back and he was so excited to pull a full art Volcanion. One of these days I’m going to build him a little wotc collection too
For me it is both
I strictly buy cards that mean something to me, or I am just a fan of. I don’t buy into the hype.
To give an anecdotal experience; I wanted to purchase a Mysterious Pearl for quite some time now. I had other goals, which I managed to achieve, but kept putting this off because it was freely available and relatively cheap. Now all of a sudden it’s gone up in price, there’s more demand and the few copies that are publicly available are at the higher “market value”.
Am I sad that the card is going to cost me more? No. Why? Because I still like the art, and like you said @mcorey777, it just means it’s going to be worth more when I finally acquire it. I understand people’s frustration especially if they’ve been working towards a goal for a long time but that’s just how the market works. Prices keep going up, supply keeps going down. At the end of the day, having to work harder or save a little longer only adds to the satisfaction of finally getting your hands on the card. My 2 cents 
I wouldn’t buy a card that I don’t personally like, however I would say for me the collection and money are slightly separate.
In regards to my personal collection, I mostly just collect my favorite Pokémon and will keep them indefinitely. I don’t care how much they go up, as I will most likely keep them and pass them on to my future children. However, I do have other valuable cards that I also like which I’m holding to eventually sell for a profit in the future.
Good. I’m glad there’s plenty of collectors that aren’t blinded by just the money Another question is what do you do if your collection goes down 25-50 percent? I’m keeping them how bout you guys? Only time I would consider selling my actual collection is much later in life if I don’t just pass them onto my nephew
I’m still up 300% 
On a more serious note, I’ll probably always enjoy the cards, but if they became worthless (and the money I spent on them didn’t go to better things, like assisting the needy or having invaluable experiences), it would be depressing!
I don’t really invest in pokemon and yugioh. I just collect what I love and I value the many years I get to spend with them that itself has worth to me. The Price appreciation is a bonus when it comes to collectibles. However I think pokemon and yugioh is here to stay for a long time. If my collection goes to 0 I don’t really care because I extracted the value out of them by spending time with them. My Personal limit for spending on collectibles is $100,000 because that buys me all the things I want. I won’t spend more than that and I have most of my money in other traditional assets.
I keep on keeping on.
I just got in 2 months ago and if it drops that much at the minimum I break even. Prices onsome items have gone up two to three times the volume so losing 50% even 100% means you’re still up in some cases.
Most of us would probably just go on a massive buying spree hit prices dropped.
Haha exactly I’d buy double what I normally do if I have the funds available. And yes that’s definitely true. I know pretty much all my cards besides modern tripled to quadrupled and this is only from November till now. Maybe late October around my birthday actually. Hidden fates and rainbow rare modern cards originally drew me in. So I have all of those. But also completed Wotc 1st editions and the majority of ex era