General Forum

I was on vacation and decided to look up local card shops in the area we were in. I only found one that was located in a professional center, a building with a collection of small businesses in separate rooms within the building. I found the shop in a 20' x 20' room with several shelving units filled with various-sized card boxes and a couple of tables with a mix of slabbed cards and cards in top loaders.

The owner of the shop greeted me asked what I was interested in. I told him I was a set collector and looking to possibly fill out some Topps base sets from 2001 and later. He got an odd look on his face and said, "Man, you're a dinosaur. Kind of an oddball. Not many people are collecting sets anymore. Just about all of the base cards I get, I donate to little league teams, hospitals, or child care businesses. Especially if it's from the 80s and 90s. We don't carry that stuff."

Kinda bummed me out. Especially being called a dinosaur. It gave me the impression that I'm collecting the wrong way or something. I thanked the guy and rolled out.

Are set collectors dinosaurs? What are your thoughts?

The nice thing about that mentality is that you'll find someone either selling cheap or giving away. Ive seen more and more people that consider base cards "junk" because they only value the "hits"

He is probably talking to the wrong people. When declaring that he knows what a certain population is supposedly doing, I imagine he isn't using a large, accurate sample size. Don't take it too much to heart, as he was probably sad that he couldn't sell you the dusty slabs in his shop.

Sad to be insulted like that, he caters to the the deep pocketed in hopes of "deepining"

his pockets and while some say oh it's healthy to move on change gears etc. it was and should still be a hobby first.

It's become more about the mighty dollar$ because more i$ what's needed for everything and not just cards.

As long as there are those willing to pay transcendently upwards of 3k a box that doesn't even yield 6 x $200 cards will the business money dry up and return to a hobby or are we all too far down the rabbit hole with multi-million dollar card complexes like HQ and Burbank always sweating to roll the dice to keep making their exorbitant expenses?

Why do guys keep plunking K'$$ of money at low numbered quarterbacks whom will likely NEVER accomplish Pinnacle glory? Is their some sort of chest pounding by the armchair athletes to imitate their onfield heroes by owning insanely overpriced demi-failures?

Psst if you haven't noticed it's been Brady and Mahomes and little else for the past x amount of years.

We still love the hobby after all these years but the direction of the prices and over-slabby impotence(importance) is out of hand. 

I love Sets. I love to work towards the Master Set. Some are a little easier than others. I am referring to the older ones not todays with SSSP. I do have close to a Master Set of 2020 Topps Holiday, though.

Last I checked dinosaurs were extinct and set collectors are not.

Set collectors may be a rare(r) breed these days, but I don't think they are even endangered let alone extinct.

So, I would say "dinosaur" is definitely a misnomer.

Are  set collectors Dinosaurs?Absolutely not,Its been my experience that this hobby is pretty good at accomidating the hobbyist of all sports collections,sometimes you have to look harder than others for what it is you maybe seeking.Ive got a bro that insists the future of baseball card collecting or collections is in the early 90's et al Score and Fleer,more specific the error cards of the early 90's..." Good Luck to my bro ,if your gonna dream,dream big....Speaking of QB's ,There is a long line of names taking the snaps behind center,got paid big $$ and its as if these QB's were the victims of the "Alien abduction Syndrome" and couldnt live up to the hype.Jameis Winston and Johnny Football of Texas A&M come to mind

Can't forget, without the "Base Sets", there wouldn't be Inserts, Promos, Variants etc.....

I'm a set collector, and ever since I found TCDB and all of you, I've been THRIVING!!!  Going into most card shops anymore and expecting to do anything but buy overpriced boxes and packs is sadly a pipe dream.  Even their supplies are higher priced!  However, I kind of see the point shops like that and the guy you spoke to are making--i.e., if all you're going to do is take up counter/table space for hours looking through old boxes and spending, what, $20 maximum, is it even worth keeping the old boxes around, especially if you have to keep boxes and boxes for set after set after set?  Collectors like us don't pay for the overhead, rent, etc.  It's not us set collectors that are going away, it's the rising costs of new product and of having a shop that forcing owners to run their businesses differently than they used to.  That's what make this site so wonderful for us--no shop overhead, all the cards you want to search for readily available (albeit not for immediate purchase), chances to chat about things.  Maybe not quite as social as in a card shop, but unless you're lucky enough to live near one of the old-time card shops (one with solid contracts with the manufacturers and enough reputation and customer base to not have to gouge to keep the lights on), dang good.

As a set collector myself, I can confirm that we aren’t extinct (yet), but I have observed that we seem to be the exception. 
 

Most card shows and newer card shops that I’ve been to recently it seems that the majority are looking food specific PC players, bit “hit” cards, graded cards, etc. It seems to be the minority who might be looking for base cards other than something player-specific. (Some of this can also be observed in the trade styles expressed in the forums on this site.)

From a card shop’s perspective, I can see the appeal of catering to the non-set collectors: less inventory to hold, and therefore less clutter in shops.

At any rate, I’m a proponent of “to each their own” especially when it comes to collecting style/preference.