Best hobby advice you've received.

[FrankWakefield]

When you're the winning high bidder at an auction, you can be certain that you were paying more than every other person interested in the item.

Acquire two of everything, then you'll have one to trade.

Know what you're buying, know the cards; do not trust the grading companies.

Collect the cards, not the slabs.

When buying 1952 Topps as a kid, I'd have made more money if I'd thrown the cards away and safely kept the wrappers and sold those now, rather than have kept the cards and discarded the wrappers. (I paraphrase what and older collector told me about buying 52 Topps, wasn't around then.)

When working on a set, if you buy a filler card that you're not happy with, you'll end up buying that card twice. (I can remember this, but I've disregarded it a few times, so that I experienced negative reinforcement when I ended up buying a better version of the card.)

It's a hobby, it's just cardboard; it's not an investment.

[Popcorn]

collectibles only sell if someone thinks it’s a good deal

[bnorth]

Never send a card in a PWE with a thick piece(s) of cardboard. The cardboard greatly increases the chance of the card getting damaged and the buyer getting their card with postage due.

[jchcollins]

Random, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot - but here is what comes to the top of my head:

1. Don't have regrets. Most of us have sold some cards that we have at least some level of passive regret over at some point in time later. But at least in my case, the funds from those sales allowed me to buy other cards I had wanted that I didn't have before. It's all about the fun and the experience - and remember our one ride on this merry go-round is kind of short when you look at the big picture. Enjoy your cards and don't focus on mistakes with your collection. As the late Dr. Richard Carlson once said, "Remember, every hundred years? All new people!" Don't spend more time than you have to in that window regretting things you can no longer change.

2. If you are more of a collector than an investor or speculator in cards, know that third party grading services have extremely limited utility. Basically, they are useful if you are buying a card online, sight-unseen, and want peace of mind that the "EX" card you just bought doesn't have a glaring, hidden crease. But if you are mainly doing PC and don't sell a lot of cards, once that slab arrives in your mailbox, the look of the card isn't going to change no matter the grade on the flip. So, (unlike me in the past...) don't get caught up with why this card only got a 6 when you thought it was a strong 7, or why that card you were sure was a 5 only got a 3.5 from PSA. That is the head game that ALL TPG's want collectors to buy into to keep them submitting and re-submitting cards ad nauseum until the end of time. Are you pleased with how the card LOOKS, and how it fits in your collection? If not, then upgrade. If you are, then realize that for whims, days of the week, the weather, what grader you did or did not get - that you could likely resubmit the same card over and over again and rarely get the exact same grade every time. Grading that is at all related to eye appeal is subjective, and always will be. No matter how many computers or HGA grading companies enter the picture.

3. Don't get caught up in trying to "Keep up with the Joneses" in terms of your collection and how bad@ss you think it is or is not and how that in turn makes you come off in groups like this one as a collector. With extremely scarce exceptions, somebody somewhere has a better collection than you do. All of you. And in turn, your collection also blows somebody's (and likely a lot of somebody's...) away too. Collect what makes you happy, and don't make it a competition with everything you see on message boards, on YouTube, or anywhere else you discuss the hobby with other people.

[Casey2296]

3. Don't get caught up in trying to "Keep up with the Joneses" in terms of your collection and how bad@ss you think it is or is not and how that in turn makes you come off in groups like this one as a collector. With extremely scarce exceptions, somebody somewhere has a better collection than you do. All of you. And in turn, your collection also blows somebody's (and likely a lot of somebody's...) away too. Collect what makes you happy, and don't make it a competition with everything you see on message boards, on YouTube, or anywhere else you discuss the hobby with other people

+100. Can't stress how important this is. I owned a Blues club for 25 years and one quote I'll always remember was from George "Harmonica" Smith when he would invite the young guys up on stage to play. He'd say "Man, do your thing, just do your thing". Same thing with collecting, "Man, just do your thing".

[Exhibitman]

[egri]

When I sent this card to Porter, he wrote back that he felt so bad about how beat up it was that was enclosing a custom card so I'd have one in better condition. When I put it on top of a less beat up card, the damage becomes more apparent; the picture doesn't show it well, but this one is more oval than rectangular.