Just came up with this term but it best describes a cycle of thoughts I’ve been having on how collecting has become for me.
With all the high end collectors, and youtube videos, sometimes I cant help but find myself being dragged along with looking for print lines, edge wear, monetary value and judging a grade instead of enjoying the cards. I mean most click bait videos are solely about skipping all the cards, going to the holo, check it, sleeve it then smacking a PSA price on the screen.
As a entry-mid level collector, First of all I was enjoying the nostalgia and relating to childhood memories. I got lucky with a binder including some mint cards. Just because a local guys dad collected for his son and went from packs to binder. I bought this binder on a whim as felt like having some flash backs of flipping through pages. It was £140 for Base set, Jungle, Fossil, Teamrocket and some base set 2. I had it for 2-3 years before I even heard about card conditions, I hadn’t taken any cards out of the ultrapro 9 card pages till this point and was greatly surprised to find the Team rocket set to be mint. I did my research and did a PSA submission with all the hype.
As the years have gone on I find myself bothered by bad condition cards in my binders, but buying NM-Mint I find myself needing to grade them.
I basically end up with incomplete binders, and also incomplete graded sets as sometimes the big hitters make it difficult to complete.
I think its a stigma I’ve gained from hunting for mint cards but when going to my binders I no longer see the pokemon, I see the monetary value.
I believe if the condition hunt never entered my mind, I would be simply filling up binders and completing sets having fun. I remember having a completely different vision when looking at cards, Looking at the holo, reading the moves, seeing the hp. I mean if someone handed me a completely scratched scuffed charizard or blastoise, I can honestly say I dont think I would have noticed unless it was folded in 2.
Can anyone else relate to this?