Quote:
Originally Posted by Exhibitman
James, I didn't have the money to spend on cards the way I wanted to as I supported and raised my family so I made a deal with myself: I eat when I kill. The money coming out finances what goes back in. if I don't have it I don't spend it. If I want to go after a card, I figure out what I can sell to do it. And I try to do it profitably. A surge like the one we're in now, ride that sucker like a big wave after a storm. This stuff is cyclical. There are very few cards that are not going to come back up for sale in the medium term. I hold the few that don't. The rest I enjoy until the price is right and then I get out. For now. I've built then sold a 1954 Topps set 3 times. Starting over is more fun than holding static.
Like it or not, we are all flippers and investors in some respect. Sure, you may not sell but your heirs will. Or your kids will when you are salted away in a facility obliviously drooling into your oatmeal. So why not just go with it and admit that the finances play a role? Trust me, you'll feel better not being intellectually dishonest. I can only speak to my experience. Once I got real with myself and learned to hold two ideas in my mind at once (that cards are fun and that cards are investments), I found it very freeing. It is so much easier to consciously aim for both profit and fun than to pretend the money side is irrelevant or nonexistent. I discovered that when I did that, my hesitation at buying a really special piece went away because I understood that I could and would be able to sell it down the line after I finish enjoying it. Cards aren't fleeting like a good meal, they are permanent, like old man stink in a recliner. My friends who don't collect consume their fun; I invest in it. It also opens your mind to fresh angles, like Ryan's pivot to card-adjacent stuff. Me too. Bought my first slabbed ticket recently, and it wasn't baseball.
Ayrton Senna's 1st F1 Victory.
I love old cardboard. It is a happy place for me. I also love turning a profit on old cardboard. That it is a happy place for me. Collectors get the endorphin hits of acquisition and ownership. I get three endorphin hits for my money: when I buy, when I own, when I cash out. |
It is not intellectually dishonest to differentiate between collecting cards and buying cards with the sole intent on flipping them for profit as your income. It is intellectually dishonest to suggest they are the same. Yes, we all understand our cards have market value and that one day they will be sold, hopefully for more than we paid. That is not even remotely the same as someone seeking arbitrage opportunities to make money in an inefficient market. In the former, the card is the object of the hobby. In the latter, the card is irelevant as it is merely a vehicle for profit.