Why Collecting is Alienating

I am having issues with collecting baseball cards since getting back into the hobby. When I was young, there were just a few sets and packs were all reasonably priced. Everyone could afford them. Those days are over! I visited a baseball card shop down the street and they have brand new packs for $20 or more. The focus is apparently on the amazingly valuable and rare insert card. Typically, these packs are loaded with cards you couldn't trade or sell if you had to. Only lottery ticket fans or true collectors need apply here.

Second, there are almost no card shows in my area. I live in central Texas and have found there to be a few a year, but they are all small and many of the dealers fall into one of two camps: they opened a case of set X and need to unload the extras or they have been around for a long time and are still trying to recoup some expenses. In either case, I've seen little interest in dealing, trading, much less being friendly to their "customers". I visited a show recently in Austin, TX and I felt it was quite likely a new collector might walk away from that crowd and give up the hobby altogether. Sad.

Rather than go to card shows, it seems the hobby has really embraced the internet. This is great in some regard, because it levels the playing field price-wise. A card is only worth what someone will pay for it on eBay. In another sense, I worry. Buying and trading cards on the internet has taken the personal interaction out of the hobby -- its become lonely. The aforementioned card show I visited had several vendors who simply were not willing to talk about eBay claiming it was ruining the hobby and the prices cards were selling for were "unrealistic". (I'm still trying to understand all that.) I love that there is a wholesale market for selling cards, but where is the personal touch? What happened to talking about the players of the cards we were trading or buying or selling? Why has this become as impersonal as buying or selling a stock on the stock market? Where are the "trade nights" at the local card shops?

The last thing I find troubling, so far, about getting back into collecting is that the variety has just gone crazy. If I am an Alex Rodriguez fan, I can't even imagine how many cards there are of him which I'd wish to collect. Say I chose a less "expensive" player to be a fan of such as Michael Young. I doubt I could even collect all of his cards. The scarcity and variety of cards even for a player such as him is enticing, but alienating. It's a challenge to think about collecting one of every card of him, but, by the same though, why would I invest so much on a player who isn't likely to be widely remembered in 20 years (thus, likely to allow me some return on my investment). The "average" card is basically worthless and difficult to come across, because they are so poorly valued compared to the inserts and variants.

Defining your goals are a collector are more important today than ever in history. Who or what are you collecting? What are your financial goals? This is no longer a hobby you can casually participate in and have much satisfaction. Either you are in it for value or you aren't. And, what are you willing to commit to? (That may very well be the biggest constraint on your overall goals.)