Tuesday, December 22, 2020

The New Mentality

*brews his cup of coffee, pours the last little bit of Peppermint Mocha creamer that's in the bottle and decides that's probably it for the Christmas season on that.*
  
The New Mentality in the hobby is spreading and spreading fast.

When I got my father back into the hobby three years ago, he was all about adding cards to his collection and opening packs for the thrill of the chase. 

Then 2020 hit and he caught The New Mentality.

He started to see how others were making big time money off from retail flips and decided to dip his feet in. That's the starting point of The New Mentality. First it was a fat pack. Then a blaster. Then a blaster and a hanger. And then he started to do the thing I hate most, clearing off most of the shelves of products and even attempting to flip the unflippable products like Score. It had gotten so bad where he wouldn't even tell me what products were on the shelves when I texted for him to pick me up something. He preferred to flip it for more than have me be able to open some. 

That was a painful realization.

The New Mentality is an ugly disease in the hobby. It's when greed and money means more than card collecting. It's all about the money and not about the fun. I believe the only cure for people who have caught The New Mentality is to show them how to have fun collecting again.

I am currently working on that with my father. It's a slow, slow cure especially if someone has had that mentality for awhile.

*takes a sip of coffee while game planning the next part of my cure*

Before The New Mentality fully hit him, I was able to land myself one more blaster box from him in trade. It wasn't the hottest product on the shelf but it was better than nothing at the time.

*takes a sip, begins to rip*

In every blaster box of 2020 Panini Optic baseball, there are 27 cards. There are 6 packs of 4 cards of Optic then an extra 3 card pack of Pink parallels. Each blaster is $20 unless you are buying from a flipper.

There wasn't much in terms of names of note for base, so I will skip to the rookies which I was impressed with. There was almost two in every pack which seems odd to me. Feels like the last time I ripped Optic on here there was maybe a couple total. 


Even found a Gavin Lux Rated Rookie. He's no Luis Robert in terms of value, but maybe down the road he will be.

*takes a sip happy at what I have seen already*
 
Now onto the shiny stuff and inserts
Nelson Cruz Silver

Inserts of Illusions with Trevor Story, The Rookies AJ Puk and Stained Glass with Ketel Marte

This Lindor was my favorite designed insert of the group, Mythical.

*takes another sip before another rip*

Now onto the bonus Pink Pack Parallels.
Each of these have three cards. Could be insert parallels, subsets or base. It's all a surprise.

Andres Munoz. Not sure who this is.

Acuna! 

Hiura

Not too bad at all!

*finishes up cup of coffee with the remaining Peppermint Mocha creamer, now back to Hazelnut for the next cup and to finish up this post*

Remember above where I mentioned the spread of The New Mentality is fast, since my father started doing that, others around the area caught it. They have the disease much more than my father does as they follow the vendor store to store to store taking all they can and leaving the scraps. Scraps are known as Hockey cards. This has helped me out some in trying to fix my father's catch of The New Mentality. He isn't getting the opportunities as much to flip anymore and I have been trying to take advantage of that and remind him how great the hobby is just collecting again.

And believe me, collecting is great. So isn't coffee.

Before I close, I wanted to give you some insight on what to look for when you or someone else you know has caught The New Mentality.

Here are the signs to look for to know if you or someone you know has caught it, it's as simple as one, two, three.
  1. Buys a pack, blaster, hanger or mega box of a popular product when its able to be found
  2. Looks up value online to see what it goes for.
  3. Flips it.
It will be pretty obvious when you have or someone you knows does.

How do you know if you are cured or don't have it? Well, that's as simple as one, two, three as well.
  1. Buy a pack, blaster, hanger or mega box of a popular product when its able to be found.
  2. Barely make it to the car before ripping it. It's okay to rip it just outside the Walmart or Target door. We all have been there.
  3. Enjoys the cards that were opened.
I hope this helps. If you or someone you know has caught The New Mentality, remember to remind them why they got into collecting in the first place. It may or may not work but it's worth a try.

12 comments:

  1. Yeah, this flipping business is only good for the short-term industry. It’s going to kill the long-term industry and hobby.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great topic. I actually have a strong opinion on this topic, but after filling up this comment box... I decided to save it for my TWiB post. Stay tuned.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Not caring much for newer releases, I'm a lot less bothered by these people than most. Now if you were talking about "investors" artificially inflating the market for older cards (90's and earlier) in order to make a profit, than I'd have a little more to say.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They have actually tapped into that market as well. If you go onto bbce they are cleaned out of what I consider the good stuff from 95-99 when they have always been loaded. I just got a gift card for Christmas I can't use because nothing is left on there

      Delete
  4. To me you have to have to separate Church(Collecting) and State($). and to each there own for me it's always was and always will be a hobby when I start to chase $ then it becomes a job..... another job which I already have a real job so collecting is a release of stress and down time. Can I get upset with others just chasing the $ sure but then that would add stress into what is my hobby so I'm not going there over the years I've stopped buying boxes and ripping due to the over production of 10,000 sets a year by each company and only really want what I want and not 10,000 different Javier Baez cards from 2020....... just some random thoughts but there you go...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Maybe I should try that, despite being a big fan of ripping

      Delete
  5. It's the same in the toy world. I look for and buy action figures that I want to open and pose and display, but the crowd of people just scooping every new figure and immediately listing it on ebay MIB for twice the retail (or more) is very aggravating. It keeps us who enjoy them for what they are from getting figures we'd like to give a loving home to.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I didnt know it translated to the toy world as well. I collect a few figures myself to display that I used to have from my childhood but havent looked in awhile. I worry to now

      Delete
    2. It's especially aggravating here. I live in a small town and all we have as far as retail is a Wal-Mart. There is an employee who stocks overnight who buys all the new hot figures before the store opens to shoppers and flips them online. He says he make more off flipping the toys than he does working there. It's really discouraging.

      Delete
    3. I completely get it. Some of those employees I have been told have an in with the vendors at least for sport cards.They will hold them out back and flip them that way.

      I live in a small town with a walmart an hour away but before I even have a shot any sport cards they are sold out. I can't sit there every day of the week to watch them come in.

      Delete

Cards and coffee go together like PB&J, so don't you and leaving a comment below. Take a sip and let me know your thoughts!