The Culture of Collecting Baseball Cards
Baseball is probably the most popular sport in the US. It is not called without a reason the national pastime. It trumps all other major sports like football and basketball in terms of viewership and popularity.
With the instant rise in the popularity of baseball, many companies saw an opportunity to market various products. One such example is the American Tobacco Company using this opportunity to sell baseball cards and advertise their products.
But no one could have predicted the craze card collecting would make! One more interesting pastime that people have gone crazy about is betting on their favorite sports with the help of Bet365 new customer offer, and betting on baseball is surely going to catch on soon.
So we ask ourselves – Is collecting baseball cards a hobby or a religion?
A Pastime Activity
Let’s say a person who is a baseball fan receives some baseball as a present. Most baseball fans do. This could lead to this person buying a set of baseball cards on occasion, but without any avid purchases. Gathering baseball cards as a pastime activity may or may not lead to amassing an enormous collection. But the most important aspect is that it does not stress your wallet and leads you to make bigger purchases.
This would be your average collector. In fact, we can’t really put them in the category of being collectors. They simply own a few cards but are not oblivious to getting them all.
Active Collecting
Active baseball card collectors are those people who go out of their way to get the cards they want. This usually leads to gathering a specific collection of cards. They will invest their time, money, energy and effort to get just the right card they need. More often than none, they will check various sites and be on the lookout for the card they need. It is also important to get a proper card. Meaning that only originals and no fakes.
This type of collector will also spend a lot of money doing this. Finding the right cards, usually some that are really rare will mean you having to consume a lot of resources to get one.
Collecting as an Addiction
This is where baseball collectors start to take things too far. Casually and even actively collecting is okay. But when one starts to invest too much money or all of it, it becomes a problem. These type of collectors would invest their savings into a foolish purchase just to get the card they need. They may not even check if it is an original or a fake. Overpaying for a card is also possible. All in all, a set of bad decisions can be made due to emotional outbreaks of trying to get a card.
These types of people will most likely run into a bad financial situation. Not thinking things through and acting out can be really damaging for these types of collectors.
To Conclude
Generally speaking, it all depends on the type of person you are. Collecting can be an addiction! If you start viewing it as a religion where you constantly have to give something in order to get a bit of satisfaction out of it, problems will start to appear.
We are not saying that collecting baseball cards is a bad thing. It is a legitimate hobby and you are welcome to pursue it. But you have to know when to stop and how to assess the situation correctly.