@pokeforever, I just took a month off from actively collecting and am just getting back now. At the end of the day, it’s a hobby for me. For those who are looking to flip, actively following auctions, refreshing ebay every little bit, and looking for deals online is something you’re doing constantly. But if not, then don’t put that pressure on yourself. Flippers have to since they’re looking to move product quickly and score deals wherever they can. If you’re a hobbyist, take your time and don’t feel like you NEED to get the current deal.
Back before covid, I was hunting for a mint unlimited base Charizard. I must’ve missed countless posts on ebay/mercari because they went so quickly until I finally got one. Missing out on deals definitely can eat at you, but it’s on you to exercise patience and just take the process as it comes. For your average card, it definitely won’t be the last time you see it so don’t get too caught up in missed deals. Play the long game - the flipper is here until they move on to the next thing. That’s okay, everyone has different purposes in this hobby. If you’re here for the long haul, eventually you’ll score that deal again.
I do suggest using a sniping service on ebay as it helps a lot with not needing to be at your computer as well as preventing overspending. This pertains to shill bidding as well. I set it and forget it because if I do, I’ve either spent my maximum or below it to get the card. If I missed it, then someone else was willing to spend more and that’s okay. It’s the name of the game. By and large, I think it’s about a 50/50 proposition - sometimes someone with deeper pockets is competing with you and you lose. Some other days you’re the one with the deeper pockets.
People with Asperger’s get extraordinarily interested in niche subjects. I was diagnosed with it (though it’s no longer called Asperger’s) freshman year of college, and while I think it was not a correct diagnosis for a variety of reasons, it does describe how unbelievably myopic my interests are. When I get interested in something, I get incredibly involved and spend the majority of my time on that thing. And these aren’t passing obsessions; they are long, typically permanent, preoccupations. If I had to guess, a sizable portion of hardcore Pokemon collectors are on the spectrum. Pokemon is itself a super common preoccupation for people with ASD, and so is collecting things – so I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that there is a higher proportion of people with ASD in the Pokemon collecting community than in the general population.
Personally, I was super into Pokemon up until high school, which is when my interests shifted more to academics and MTG. But I got back into Pokemon collecting late last year, and now I have a solidly six-figure collection and am 75% of the way through completing NM master sets of every WotC/EX series set. That’s the degree of preoccupation people with Asperger’s experience. So basically churlocker was just saying that all you gotta do is get Asperger’s Syndrome and you’ll never lose your passion for collecting .
Personally, I just don’t get burned out on things. When I get interested in something, I remain interested in it. And that’s the core of the answer to your question: you just have to genuinely enjoy what you’re doing. So if you don’t enjoy collecting, don’t force yourself to collect. Just do what you enjoy!
Thanks so much for the input and advice from you and everyone else who has commented , honestly I just wanted to vent out a little, I know I should do is to just move on from deals as it ultimately accomplishes nothing in dwelling in it, it just gets to be annoying when it happens so much and talking about it makes it feel like I’m not alone in getting annoyed by missing a deal. Also yea I have been looking at other cards, I always was somewhat into the happenings of the pokemon tcg so I know all the different weird and unique cards of the different sets. Right now I’m collecting also the BW secret rares as I believe those are pretty undervalued, but even then the competition for those cards a climbing pretty fast. Overall I’ll to just keep on trucking along and keep positive
It took a while for me to come up with an answer to your question, because my first instinct was to give you another feel-good answer. But an honest answer might be more useful to you, even if it hurts a bit at first.
In my opinion, collecting something should give you a sense of enjoyment and fulfillment. You’re most likely not collecting cards for a living and instead do it in your free time. And your time is the most valuable thing you possess. So you would do well to invest your time in doing things you enjoy. However, if your engagement in collecting cards leads you to feel bad or sad more than it leads you to feel good (be it because of the harsh market or because of your high collection goals that you are not willing to adjust or because you are emotionally too affected by missed deals), I suggest you stop collecting at least temporarily.
There’s no point in collecting if it makes you feel miserable, and that has absolutely nothing to do with a lack of passion or genuine interest. Some people don’t get affected by missed opportunities as much, and some do, and both individuals could be hardcore Pokemon fans at heart.
It’s easy for some people in here to just tell you that you just have to deal with getting burned from time to time and that everything will be fine as long as you have genuine interest. But at the end of the day, those people are not you. They might have a completely different mindset and are only speaking from their experience.
It’s your life, and it’s your time. And in my opinion, your best bet is to fully understand your own mindset at first, because that will enable you to determine if you want to be a collector for real. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of optimism and telling yourself to think more positive and keep on collecting (in fact you should try that), but if (and only if) your mind ends up in a dark place over and over again, it might be best to not waste your time with this hobby any further. I know this sounds very harsh, but I mean it in the most positive way possible - whatever you do, don’t spend your time on something as demanding and cost-intensive as this hobby if you can’t enjoy in the long run. Your mind and time is too precious for that.
Ive had this a lot and it led me to taking a multiple year hiatus from collecting. it wasn’t making me unhappy but I was effectively wasting HUGE amounts of time looking for things and coming up empty handed. There were a few times where higher quality stuff was almost within reach and I made contact with the sellers saying that if they ever dropped their price to let me know and would be happy to deal outside ebay to get them more money.
Many of them later on sold well below what they would have got from me so we both missed out. This is very annoying obviously but the main issue was time wasting. I was Ironman training at the time with full time work so my free time was very limited as it was and being international just made accumulation too slow and expensive to continue bothering. Bit of a shame as there’s plenty of stuff I will never buy now but that was the situation I was in.
Now I have had to change my approach this time around and have decided I will mostly just finish off some binder sets here and there. Life is too short to be trawling ebay for hours and hours every week to end up actually buying very little.
@azulryu, I do plan on making a video on that topic! I can’t say when I will release it, there is always a lot to make videos on and I already have my next 3-5 videos planned. I’ll try and remember this thread when I make the video.
Not saying this applies to you, but it is very annoying as a seller to receive a message from a buyer that they’re willing to deal outside of eBay, but they don’t include any contact info. If I’m the one that responds with that info, that puts me as a seller at risk of paying final value fees for the listing that you’re contacting about or even possibly banned. It also baffles me that if someone wants to do a deal outside of eBay, they don’t just google my eBay name to get my instagram page, where we can hash out the rest of the details.
Amen. This happens so often. And I actually experienced the consequences of it once: got charged $300 in FVF on the sale of my Urza’s Saga booster box that was done off of eBay. The guy messaged me on eBay, I ended up giving him my email address (in a discreet way, obviously) and he paid me directly via PayPal. And like two hours after ending the item, I have a warning message from eBay and I had $300 in FVF added to my next invoice lol. If there’s message correspondence about an item and then the seller ends that item without selling, eBay will investigate. And it was pretty clear-cut what happened, because the PayPal address the money came from was the same attached the eBay account I was corresponding with. I’m not sure that eBay would’ve charged me fees if I hadn’t sent my contact info. That shows them that the seller was an active participant in the transaction. The way to do it as a buyer is just to send the seller a photograph of your email address written on a piece of paper or something like that.
I believe what comes to you is meant for you. I guess you could say I believe in destiny (while paradoxically also believe in free will, but I won’t get into that).
In other words, if I lose an auction or miss out on a deal, no matter how close, I just accept I was never meant to have it and move on.
I think some people have mentioned this, but Pokemon collecting doesn’t necessarily need to be a constant grind. It’s fine to get burned out, to have periods where you purchase less, or to just take a break full stop. I have periods where I buy very often, and periods where I don’t buy anything at all. It’s a hobby, I think especially now in the current market we all have a lot of FOMO where we’re constantly searching for deals, trying to pick up cards before the prices get too high, or seeking out profitable flips to buy more stuff. That can get exhausting.
@pokeforever, this is the first I’ve heard about getting burned out with regards to buying pokemon cards to be honest.
I guess after some self reflection, I’ve never felt this way because the hunt is fun for me and I’ve been able to afford most of my goals. And I don’t sell. I do stick a lot more to buy it nows than auctions, if that helps, or through other websites. Although my collection is small compared to some here, I’ve been quietly buying things for a long time.
Don’t let your goals push you into a corner. Is there a way to cut down on some of your expectations? Maybe japanese instead of english, PSA 8 instead of PSA 10, etc.
It’s a hobby (: Perhaps you are thinking about the money/resale aspect of things? That would give you more pressure too.
Yea it may be also that too. I’m not in the best financial situation (I’m not in debt or anything) but I’m still in school and don’t have the money to throw around like many other people older than me in this hobby do. So I’m trying hard to make sure none of my purchases make me net lose money again with the potential rebound of the cards. So yea I think it’s a mix of the fomo and overdoing it with looking for deals due to the fear that the prices will go down that’s giving me this somewhat burned out feeling so fast. I remember I collecting last year for a few months and I didn’t have this same experience due to way less competition and price spikes, the only reason I quite tbh was my unfavorable views at the pokemon brand at that time, which I have since comes to terms with. Hope things will level out a bit in the next few months. In the meantime I may take a break from ebay and just enjoy what I have
I’m in a similar position, just finished up school and don’t have a ton to spend. One thing I’ve found that works for me, maybe for you too, is to buy modern singles. Darkness Ablaze just came out and I’m having a ton of fun picking up some of my favourite full arts. I’m also not worried about price since it can’t really go down (Grimmsnarl vmax is like $3-4 I think?). It’s a great way to buy cheap and not worry about fomo/prices and also help complete my modern collections.
Hunting for deals/good buys in the vintage or graded game can get absolutely intense since there’s a ton of competition for them. You don’t really have to deal with that when you’re buying modern by and large and that’s something I’ve found really enjoyable to balance out the vintage/graded hunt. Hope it helps you too!
Very well thought out opinions and overall I think I fit a little in both of your mindsets right now. So far I do really have a good enjoyment with the cards that I own and a contentment with looking at them. I do also think that the amount of times I’ve been burned so far in such a short succession has been pretty irritating and I need to think whether all of it is worth it. I think I’ll try taking a break from looking constantly for deals and just try to enjoy the cards I have and see where I can move forward from there. Thanks again so much for the response made me do a lot of reflection
Very true, I really wished I like modern that much tbh. I tried, I opened a few of the hidden fates boxes and I just didn’t feel anything. I was like “why would I buy 5 coolish modern shiny cards when I can get an nostalgia trip back to cards I really love”. But yea the competition is really intense for the older cards. It also doesn’t get away with fomo aspect of me personally because if I collected modern product I’m just gonna be thinking “why don’t I spend this on vintage product that’ll go up likely way more in the future rather than buy modern where the prices will be stagnant for years”. I honestly do wish I liked modern product more but I just can’t do it, I’ll just end up not liking what I have which is probably worse. Really happy for you though your probably able to get much more enjoyment for much less money haha
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