Ive really noticed this too! It adds a bit more space between wanting and acquiring. They feel more special!
This is also something ive thought about. Attaching more of an experience to collecting can make it feel more fleshed out. Kinda tying in the above quote too, just taking extra steps to hunt and include more experiences with collecting can make things feel so much more magical. Like going to Toronto regionals and meeting a bunch of people, getting a signature— the whole experience was probably the most exciting the hobby has been for me. The social aspect is super important!
I think the whole 2020 boom rly impacted the collecting experience. Going from like hyper mania, to now, its just like, a lot of the excitement created there came from financial aspects. And i think that really twisted some people’s understanding of the hobby, me included. I think subconciously, those two things got intertwined and now many of us are trying to understand how to unlearn that, and create meaningful personal connections with collecting. Theres more than just that transaction, but its been tough to identify and rediscover what that is, and whats kinda missing there (at least for me).
@Tropicard i dont think that makes you ungrateful! You dont have to rationalize your wants and decisions in collecting. Sometimes things just arent what you thought and its better to figure that out, and try to move on, just as you did!
@niece i do try to collect what i like, but i think it becomes difficult when i try to isolate why exactly i like something. Trying to completely disregard monetary value is the route im trying to take going forward, at least until i sort out some of these feelings!
I totally understand what you’re saying here, and I’m with you.
But:
And you said it.
Sometimes I feel like I’m not going anywhere close to my collection goals, but as someone already said on another topic I’m not going to find: just stop for a bit. Open your binder. And look at the cards you already own.
Sometimes I do it and it’s quite calming, just looking at my cards, not a static excel file with a listing of names, details, condition, ecc… just the cards.
It’s kind of a mood thing, sometimes you want to chase, spend money, you have fun doing that, sometimes you just wish you were dead the week before and need a break from everything.
For me, in the second case, I just look at my collection so far and chill. Sometimes at least, it’s not that everytime I look at my card, sometimes you just want to cry.
Not for me. I get my joy from ownership, not from the chase of acquisition. I connect with my collection by taking things out and looking at them, so fractionalization or vaults would never appeal to me.
It really depends. Some of the cards I’ve enjoyed a lot are usually the more expensive or harder ones to track down. All the cheaper stuff that’s NM or so condition wears off quicker I guess, but I still enjoy seeing them in a binder for viewing. A lot of it for me is the nostalgia and memories, so the magic never really wears off entirely from my collection.
I’ve found that it’s more often the mid-high priced cards that wear off for me, but the I just love finding something really unique for under $50. Those are the cards I look back at later and think “dang I’m really lucky/happy i found this one”.
Often binder cards but not always. The older the better, and condition rarely impacts how I feel about inexpensive cards even though I’m primarily a condition collector. Signed cards, errors, oddities, niche promos. Obviously pokemon has a ton of cards that fit these but I’ve been very obsessed with YGO and MTG recently due to the wide variety of little gems you can find. They are just so much less optimized than pokemon right now and I think that leaves room for more magic when collecting.
(While not pokemon) One card I picked up recently that I already know will be stopping me from turning my binder page is this Silent Specter prerelease promo from the Onslaught prerelease in 2002.
Magic prereleases used to be monumental events, taking place regionally rather than in local game stores like MTG and Pokémon prereleases are organized now. They would have local dealers and ever artists in attendance, kind of like the recent Pokémon Regionals events.
This Specter was signed by the artist Daren Bader, likely at the prerelease event or at a Grand Prix/pro tour that year. It gives me a very strong sense of nostalgia calling back to a golden era of that game. Totally worth the $20
Definitely depends on the card / set. I was going for all XY Japanese special sets and love going through my binder for PokeKyun and Shiny Collection but I pretended for a year I cared about my CP2 Mythical Dream cards and finally gave up and sent most to PSA last month and will eventually sell.
On the other end, I started a goal of all Best of XY reverse holos and it’s gotten to be far more expensive than I planned so I am kinda hoping I’ll “fall out of love” with the set but instead every time I open the binder I am inspired to work more.
Generally I’ve found “all PSA 10 set of X” to be more rewarding chasing than owning. I am blessed that adding something unique to the Chansey collection has always been wonderful and doesn’t lose magic.
I find that its usually graded cards that lose me a bit. Sometimes the more expensive, the more i feel meh. I really enjoy just like looking at the artwork. A lot of the time, the cards i enjoy the most are like 1 cent bulk cards. The art can be really captivating. So if i spend like hundreds of dollars on a card, i guess sometimes I expect the amount of joy i feel to scale with the amount of money im spending, which doesnt rly make any sense. Idk, i think i wanna steer away from slabs for a bit and see how that goes. I think I went from 0 to 100 way too fast and need to slow down, and spend more time building out my binders and understanding what cards i love, before i start buying expensive slabs of them. I can get slabs of cards i like in the future.
Personally, I’ve felt this a lot lately. It’s kinda turned me off to buying…
BUT THEN, I look at my binder collections. The ones I’ve been working on for years, and remember the effort it took to curate the collection. I never feel disappointment with my true collection cards. What I mean by that is the collections that have a theme. A goal. Cards I collect that are not part of a themed collection often leave me feeling empty and thinking, “At least I can sell it for something.”
I think that this feeling is what you get when you start to recognize your true desires and what really matters, whether it’s in collecting, professional life, or personal relationships.
Some of my cards lost their magic when I stopped grading them myself and just started buy psa 10s. It felt more rewarding when I found a raw and graded it myself. The issue is it’s becoming a lot harder finding minty rares from wotc etc.
Just recently won auctions for a few cards for 30 - 60% lower than the average BIN listings on eBay. That’s some magic right there, I tell you what! I don’t think those cards will be any less magical once I get them in hand.
Getting a card for much cheaper than you were expecting to pay is it’s own high! Too bad I’ve run into a couple of people not wanting to ship recently (presumably due to not being happy with the auction price?)
I think i’ve managed my collection quite well since i basically never get that feeling which i think is pretty much since i basically never buy anything outside me collection goals (i do instead sometimes add new goals ), and even though sometimes the individual card i’m getting isn’t exactly breathtaking the satisfaction of adding it to a bigger complex of similar cards inside the goal always gives me the magic. Akso, grimer and muk stuff never not gives me the magic so those purchases are easy to make
On the contrary, I do tend to want to double/triple up to get multiples of the same copy …
Though if there is a card I desire but currently do not have in my collection vs. a card I already have (both are of equivalent value), the priority/money generally goes to the one I do not yet have.
Law of diminishing marginal utility in action for my case
