![\"\"](\"https:\/\/bigleaguebreaks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/itp-2.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe photo produced a good amount of outrage from people who felt it encapsulates what\u2019s \u201cwrong\u201d with the hobby. While the sight of an angry mob waiting fresh cardboard may be shocking, I saw it and had the total opposite thought \u2014 it looks to me to represent what\u2019s right with the hobby right now. There were a few main themes to come out of the comments on Twitter, and I\u2019m here to debunk them all.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are no kids in the picture\u201d\/\u201cNo one is leaving any product for kids\u201d<\/strong> \u2014 There\u2019s a reason there are no kids in the picture \u2014 kids don\u2019t typically drive themselves to the supermarket in the middle of a weekday to buy baseball cards. Besides the fact that \u201cleaving product for kids\u201d isn\u2019t a rule (I\u2019ve always wondered how fans of this unwritten rule think the product left behind will end up in a kid\u2019s hands and not those of another adult collector or flipper), there is product for kids on the shelves. It\u2019s lower-end, less-appealing product lines, yes, but it\u2019s there. Not to mention most kid collectors are buying into box breaks and ordering product online.<\/p>\n \u201cHigher demand means higher print runs\u201d<\/strong> \u2014 This isn\u2019t necessarily true. Most products haven\u2019t seen a drastic increase in print run over the past few years. One variation of this trope says that if demand is high, the companies will produce more product lines, thereby flooding the market with cards. Ignoring all the practical implications of introducing a new product line (design, graphics, trademarks, packaging, etc.) I don\u2019t think more products necessarily means anything negative in a market as strong as this one.<\/p>\n \u201cIf this continues, they\u2019re going to stop selling cards in retail stores\u201d<\/strong> \u2014 Wh…what? I saw this line of thinking from three different people and I can\u2019t make sense of it. Why would a company stop selling a product so popular they literally can\u2019t keep it on the shelves?<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re flippers\u201d\/\u201cThey aren\u2019t collectors\u201c\/\u201cThey don\u2019t even care about cards or sports\u201c<\/strong> \u2014 So? Are we under the illusion that every person who makes money has a passion for their job? Everyone who owns a candy store loves candy and knows everything about it? Yes, card collecting is a hobby, but for many it\u2019s also a business. The card companies make money, the distributors make money, the stores make money, the breakers make money, the dealers make money, and now, yes, there are flippers who make money.<\/p>\n For some reason, card collectors have long been the only hobbyists who don\u2019t want to see their hobby flourish and grow. I can\u2019t imagine there are many coin or stamp collectors hoping that fewer people collect coins and stamps. The more people who collect in your hobby, the greater the hobby is. Yes, prices may increase, and sure, you may get priced out of things you used to love collecting. If that\u2019s the case then you have a decision to make: cash out and focus on something else, or press pause and wait until prices drop again.<\/p>\n This photo was originally shared with the caption: \u201cYou want to know what\u2019s going to cause the hobby to collapse again? This.\u201c I couldn\u2019t disagree more. The hobby is in a bad place when store shelves are stocked constantly with every product you can imagine, when all there is at a card show are dime and quarter boxes. It may be good for your wallet, but it\u2019s not good for the hobby. Cards are selling for more now than they ever have and yet people still can\u2019t get enough. This photo shows me a thriving hobby, and though there may be a market correction at some point in the near future, this is not what a hobby on the brink of collapse looks like.<\/p>\n Enjoy the thrill while you can.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There\u2019s a photo that\u2019s been making its way around the Twitter sports card community following some high profile retweets. The photo shows a throng of people standing in line at a Meijer store while the sports card vendor restocks the shelves with fresh 2020 product. The photo produced a good amount of outrage from people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"amp_validity":null,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mojobro.com\/bigleaguecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6215"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mojobro.com\/bigleaguecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mojobro.com\/bigleaguecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mojobro.com\/bigleaguecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mojobro.com\/bigleaguecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6215"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mojobro.com\/bigleaguecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6475,"href":"https:\/\/mojobro.com\/bigleaguecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6215\/revisions\/6475"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mojobro.com\/bigleaguecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mojobro.com\/bigleaguecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mojobro.com\/bigleaguecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mojobro.com\/bigleaguecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}