Is the soul of card collecting dead?
The recent shift in the hobby has disenfranchised many collectors
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It happens every few months. Any time there is a shift in the trading card industry, someone is yelling (or tweeting) about how the hobby is dead or the soul of the hobby is gone.
With social media, it’s not just some old man yelling at clouds anymore, but keyboard warriors typing into the ether. A recent tweet (I won’t link it because I don’t want to bring any criticism to that person) made me think about this.
Is it really gone? Has card collecting lost its way?
These weren’t questions I had to think about long. The soul of the hobby isn't cards or autographs — it's the people and the connections we make because of trading cards. Even though collecting can feel like a singular activity, sharing is a big part of it.
Whether it’s sending a friend a text or an email or showing off cards on a blog, YouTube or social media post, most collectors share their cards. Right now, it might seem difficult to see them because there is a lot of other noise, but the important thing to remember is even though the collection is yours, the joy belongs to everyone.
When you pull a big hit or pick up a long-awaited card for your collection, other collectors know exactly what that feels like. It's a feeling we share together.
Sometimes collectors just need to be reminded of that. On Wednesday, I felt my most recent #CardChat on Twitter did that.
The topic of that night was inserts. The hourlong discussion prompted collectors to share their favorite inserts from over the years, what makes a good insert, and the best insert they have in their collection.
When the dozens of collectors who participated described what makes an insert good or what they loved about their favorite insert, at no point did value or money come into the conversation. So many described a good insert as something that complemented the base set, having a great design and photography to make a card stand out.
The only time rarity was mentioned is when it come to how often an insert should show up, perhaps every one every couple of packs, making them special but attainable.
While many described inserts from throughout the last 30 years, the 1990s dominated the conversation. That decade featured inserts like these:
1992 Donruss Elite
1999 Revolution Foul Pole Net-Fusions
1991 Fleer Pro-Visions
1996-97 Fleer Precious Metal Gems
There may be some who don’t love collecting right now and that’s fair. I’ve always said that collecting has its peaks and valleys. Sometimes I’m more excited about collecting than others. Sometimes, I need a break and to take a step back.
We all get that way. And just because you want to take a step back doesn’t mean the soul is dead.
Maybe you’re unable to rip the latest product, but cards have been around for so long and there are different ways to enjoy the hobby.
Instead, running through old sets and looking through your favorite inserts is a good reminder of what the hobby means to you. Maybe it’s sharing your current collection or looking to plug holes. Maybe it’s learning more about the history of cards or a particular set. Perhaps it’s setting up social media accounts to find others who have similar collections.
Buying new cards isn’t the only thing for hobbyists to do.
The soul of collecting is not dead. Things just change. They shift. Collecting is still here and will be for a long time.
What’s one way you have decided to enjoy the hobby in recent months?
Finding a new Derek Jeter card variation from 1993; Wait. What?!
After collecting Derek Jeter cards for more than 20 years, you’d think I couldn’t be surprised when it comes to his trading cards.
And yet …
Recently I was scrolling through Facebook and there was a picture of a card I had never seen before in a Derek Jeter collector group.
It was a 1993 Topps Derek Jeter rookie card. You know the card with the green background and a young Jeter looking as though he’s warming up his arm before a Spring Training game.
But instead of the card being green, it was blue. Yes, blue.
I tried to find more information on this card right away. Was it a variation I had never seen before? Did this happen at the printer? Some time later?
Amazingly, there are two of them on eBay, so this card does exist in some type of quantity. It could three, five, 10 or 100. That’s something I don’t know.
I reached out to a few big-time Jeter collectors and longtime hobbyists to ask them about the card. One of the Jeter collectors had the blue variation in his collection, but it was a Topps Gold version. Another had never heard of it.
However, there was no known answer as to where the card came from and how this variation came into existence. There are a couple of guesses such as the printer ran out of Cyan ink and didn’t catch it before these cards were slipped into packs.
The way the cards were printed (there are uncut sheets on eBay), it would be odd to see a run of both Topps and Topps Gold missing the same color before it got caught. So, this is likely not the case.
In addition, I found just one person who said they pulled the card from a pack. Otherwise, everyone else who owns one that I spoke to (all five of them) said they bought the blue variation on the secondary market.
The collective groupthink leans more toward the idea that the card actually faded over time. Perhaps it was left in the sun (unlikely) or under fluorescent lighting for too long in a card shop.
It’s so crazy to me though that a card like this is out there because as a completist, does this mean that I need to add a new card to my want list because a card faded over time?
Should I take a Jeter 1993 Topps RC and leave it on the dashboard of my car to expediate the fading process? Or do collectors consider this an error card?
It really is a fine line. If the cards faded due to lighting, does that mean errors or variations could be made over time?
The cause of the blue Jeter cards still isn’t fully clear and even a month after first seeing this card, I’m still in a state of shock.
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Very well said on the soul of the hobby! I have enjoyed this hobby for roughly 34 years now and have taken breaks a few times and changed the way I collect many times to adjust for what keeps me happy. Over the last year or so it's definitely turned into more of a singles and base set pickups which has been fun. From 2013 through 2015 I was just buying boxes like crazy and that was fun in itself. It's all about finding what makes you happy is my theory.
As far as that Jeter RC it's really piqued my interest! I would like to see if there is one that has been graded by either BGS or PSA before putting too much else into it as there is a part of me that is skeptical and believes it could be a recreation/reprint of some sort.