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Wednesday, January 16, 2008

The REBIRTH of the HOBBY!!!

There are recent posts going around about the current state of the hobby. Badwax.net and White Sox Cards have both posted excellent commentaries about the goings on in their local areas. There are resounding similarities amongst all the stories especially when it comes to the local card shop. There is a pining for the loss of the lovable store owner, and the fellow collectors to share your great pulls, or awful luck, with. Well, my brothers, I bring you tidings of great joy!! We are at the forefront of the Great Rebirth!!!

The world is changing. Communities are changing. With a change of perspective we can see that all is not lost, but born again. We are no longer collectors with no one to collect with. We are no longer shoppers without a store to shop in. WE are the new community! We are the voice of the hobby. No longer are we separated by geography, collecting habits, time zones, team loyalties, we are joined together by the Internet. We have a group to share with. People telling stories, and floating ideas. We have great minds like Stale Gum, Poets like the Baseball Toaster: Cardboard Gods, trailblazers like The Baseball Card Blog. We have the ear of the largest retail shop in the country in Dave & Adams Card World who link customers to our blogs. We are even recognized by the gold standard of the industry, Beckett, who helps to set the market for our precious cardboard. Not only that but we are all the owners of our own card shops through E-Bay where we can be connected with other collectors the world over. Since discovering this community I have sold off excellent cards in order to purchase even more excellent cards in my own mind. I have made a trade of cards of my favorite player's pants for random cards to complete a set. I have found new friends to share ideas and thoughts with. Folks if this isn't the best card shop you have ever been in, then I need the address of your favorite shop.

Sure things have changed, but when did you ever have a way for your ideas to be seen by thousands of people? When did you have access to that card you really wanted that was pulled by the collector 2000 miles away? When did you have the chance to select exactly the product you wanted and have it shipped right to your door? I am not trying to sell you anything here folks, I am just trying to renew your faith in the hobby. The hobby as we knew it is dead, long live the new hobby. Don't despair about the past, rejoice in the future. Want to tell someone about your great pull? Start a blog, or post it on mine, I would love to hear about it. Need to get something off your chest? Ramble like I am doing, or send it to one of us in an e-mail, I bet we would be glad to post it up for you. All I am saying is you are not alone. We all had 10 hobby shops we could ride our bikes to where, hopefully, some of our friends would be around to shoot the sh*t with. Well now your friends are all around, and we are waiting to hear your collecting stories.

Fear Not, I bring you tidings of great joy!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice post Fred, I think it's important though to keep supporting your local hobby shops. When you stop shopping there, everyone else will too. I try to spend at least 20 bucks every time I go into my guy's shop, it might not be much, but he needs regular customers. If I can help out even if it's the little I do, at least I'm helping.

Fleerfan said...

Fred - Thanks for pointing out a number of the positive things that the hobby has got going for it.

I think the disappearance of the card shops (there are no longer any card shops anywhere close to where I live) has led many of us to take a dim view of where things are headed, but as you point out new opportunities have come along to take the place of the card shop.

Since we are moving to a more virtual world, ebay has become everyone's card shop, and blogs like yours are where we get together to discuss our hobby and share our collections.

I think that is the reason I've started following many of the blogs that have sprung up like those that you mentioned (and yours as well!) and decided to get in on the fun with one of my own.

http://fleersticker.blogspot.com/

As time marches on, things change. We can't go back to the way things were, but we can make the most of what we currently have.

Thanks for putting many of the positives into perspective. Here's one more positive to add to the list - I can shop for and talk about cards while I'm at work! (as I type this post at 9:30 in the morning) :)

Bart McClaughry said...

Fred ,Great Job!!
Sometimes I can't believe I am sitting at home on my computer and buying old vintage cards. Anyway great story!
Baseball cardman