From: barth@cbnewsd.cb.att.com (barth.richards)
Subject: Re: Does it BUG you?  If so, why so?
Organization: AT&T
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 18:34:40 GMT


In article <870@smith.CHI.IL.US> dick@smith.UUCP (Dick Smith) writes:

>Problem solved... the new newsgroup rec.collecting.cards has passed, and
>that should help the card collectors separate from the rest of us.

Yea, finally!  And I'm not saying that because I want the card collectors
out of this newsgroup...well, OK, I'm saying that *partly* because I
want the card collectors out of this newsgroup.  I'm also saying it because
I think their area of interest deserves its own newsgroup.

>EZ-as-pi@cup.portal.com (Bruce Robert Gilson) writes:
>
>>       It does, however, _puzzle_ me,
>>because I can't see the sense of
>>collecting something that is just
>>printed to sell to collectors. Now I
>>am a wide-ranging collector of paper
>>items ranging from bus transfers to
>>currency, but everything I collect has
>>the distinction that it has a _primary_
>>use that is not for collecting. So
>>I just can't _understand_ card collect-
>>ors.

I sort of feel the same way.  When I went through a brief phase of sports
card collecting, I often felt like I was being taken for a ride by the
card companies. However, what finally turned me off to cards really was
that I realized that I didn't care that much about sports.  If I did, I
could see how I might still have an interest in cards, despite the obvious
take-the-money-and-run attitude of the card companies, though I think I
still might feel like somewhat of a sucker from time to time.  I guess it
would depend on what cards I was collecting.

>There's no getting around the fact that once the presence of collectors
>is noted by the producers of WHATEVER, they often find it profitable to
>produce some items specifically for collectors.  While I don't know that
>it has happened to bus transfers, yet, there are certainly more designs
>of phone cards, for example, than the phoning public needs.  In part,
>this makes collecting more interesting, but it means that the issuers
>sell more items.  Stamp collectors have known about this for decades,
>and many shun the more obvious examples (eg. CTO).

Exactly, which is why I tend to stick with collecting hobbies where those
types of items are kept to a minimum, or at least are avoidable.  Paper
money is a good example of the former, and coins are a good example of the
latter.  There have been a few currency issues aimed at collectors, but not
many.  Issues of collector/investor-targeted coins runs rampant, but their
are still many, many other areas of coin collecting to hold my interest.

>But I confess that the only use I personally have had for sports cards
>was to attach them to my bicycle with a clothespin, so as to make a
>whirring noise in the spokes.  I've felt for a while that there would be
>a bust in the over-inflated sports card "market", but my sport card
>collecting friends say they don't care, because they truely like the
>stuff.  If they aren't lying to themselves, they'll be fine.

I guess that's all it really comes down to.  If you like to collect what
you are collecting, then it's worth your time and money.

-- 
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88  Barth Richards                  "Language is a virus from outer space."  88
88  att!ihlpf!barth                           - William S. Burroughs         88
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