I’ve been seeing the term “true collector” more than ever recently, but it confuses me. I’m not really sure what a “true collector” is, or what people are trying to imply by using the term.
In your opinion, what is a “true collector”? Does the term have value in the Pokemon world, or is it a byproduct of collecting elitism?
Looking forward to hearing what you have to say.
Someone who just enjoys Pokemon.
There is a reason the top people in the hobby don’t gatekeep who is “tRu” and who is in it for “the wrong reasons”. Once you have been around long enough you experience enough patterns and realize there is only one simple answer, “someone who enjoys pokemon”.
Just seems like gatekeeping to me.
True collector: Me
Fake collector: Anyone who enjoys Pokemon differently than I do
Like @smpratte said, “someone who enjoys Pokemon” is exactly what I’d put. If I had to qualify a non-true collector, I suppose it would be someone who makes false claims about their level of enjoyment or appreciation for some sort of personal gain, but that’s hard to discern.
Binder or bust
When someone uses the term “true collector” in a derogatory way, are they referring to someone who only engages with the hobby for financial gain?
I think at this point (on E4 at least) it’s become more of a meme than a term people use seriously
those who have only bought and never sold are “true collectors”for me 
How can you buy though if no one sells? 
Change your legal name to “True Collector” and then nobody can say otherwise.
Everyone starts off as a true collector until they use the term “PC” (ie. personal collection), after which their true collector card is revoked
To be a true collector takes the resolve that bar any unreasonable turn of events they have a part of their collection that is not for sale. So if they pass away, their family suffers an emergency, ect ect, theres even a case for the cards being too valuable so they must be sold. When someone is collecting with that as their mindset, I feel they are a “true collector” for myself it would be my Tyranitar collection, for PFM his rabbits, dizzle his dedennes or johto plushies or whatever S tier thing he collects these days. Now with my definition of “true collector” is that the opposite, an “untrue collector” would be someone who is buying with zero intention of keeping things if given an opportunity to benefit from that same buying. Now this is just my perception of a collector, someone who buys to have, not buys to sell. As I say though, there are no hard and fast rules about a true collectors selling, if they change collection goals and decide to sell what they have, that isn’t wrong, if they decide to sell in order to do something outside of collectables I don’t think that’s wrong either. I told myself I wouldn’t be one of the long winded dudes but here I am writing a doctorate thesis on true collectors… I guess to reword it, a true collector is more a state of mind prior to or while buying a collectable. They think “this is mine and I love it” not “this is going to pay for my premium onlyfans subscription to ____”. Now with all this being said, they are not mutually exclusive. You can be both at the same time. I buy lots of items with the intention of selling them if the correct opportunity arises, so I can buy more Tyranitars with the profit, or sometimes buy something else outside of collectables.
People who rip packs in order to get the chase card
By true collector I mean an individual who would never put his cards up for sale for any value because they are priceless to him. Such a person obviously hard to exist, if someone offered 1 trillion for his collection, I think 99.99999% of collectors would accept
That is a lot of zeroes. I’d be happy with 5 zeroes after a number, ha!
Trve collectors are just a hurban legend
There is no real way to quantify something like love, enjoyment, passion, etc so the term true collector is essentially meaningless.
