Last night I ended up going to a trade night at the card shop closest to my apartment. It's 401 Games in downtown Toronto. They mostly sell board games and Pokemon cards and other stuff I know nothing about, but they had a sports card counter at the back. Once a month they do a trade night where they do raffles and that sort of thing.
I had never been before and wasn't sure what to expect. I figured it would be at least a chance to just chat with some people locally about cards, if not anything else.
Upper Deck Series 2 hockey came out this week. I've opened a lot of packs and blaster boxes in the past few weeks since starting this blog, but honestly I'm kinda tired of new product already. I started collecting cards in 1990 back when I was a kid, and it's literally the same old hype cycle with every single new product. And there are a lot of new products these days, so the hype is endless.
The other problem with all this hype is there is no institutional memory of previous hype cycles. For those of us who have been collecting this nonsense for awhile, we all remember times when big rookie cards would debut and a few years later those cards would be worthless when the rookie doesn't pan out. But every new star rookie card in every new sport is hyped like the second coming of Babe Ruth.
Opening packs is fun. It has the same kind of vibe as opening Christmas presents or playing scratch-and-win tickets. But's expensive. At this trade night, to enter their raffle you had to buy a pack of Series 2. They were $18 a pack. Holy! Well, I bought one, because I think if you are going to one of these card store events, you should spend some money because the store is putting on this event to drum up business. It doesn't seem fair to the shop owner to show up and not purchase anything.
Anyway, I ended up pulling this card, which has made its rounds on social media.
It's goofy as hell, but I'm goofy as hell, so it all works out. Of course, I think the photographer was clearly inspired by the poster for this movie:
These are the kind of unique cards I like to add to my collection. I enjoy having conversation pieces. That's one of the big aspects of collecting that attracts me. I like to have the type of collection where I can show my cards to someone who doesn't collect, and even they enjoy the cards because there is something unique about all of them. It could be the design, the photography, the player, or the card being iconic.
I think aesthetics matter a lot when it comes to collecting. I have a hard time justifying owning ugly cards even if they are valuable. I don't necessarily want a valuable collection if the cards are unattractive. Aesthetics are important to me, to the point where I want every piece of my collection to fit into an aesthetic theme.
To me, aesthetic value matters more than monetary value. If I have a card that is valuable but ugly, really my hope for that card is for it to increase in price, so I can sell it for more than I paid. After I can buy something I really want.
For vintage, of course condition matters. But there are some card sets I just find gorgeous, even if they don't have anything valuable. I like 89-90 Fleer basketball, for example. It's more or less junk wax, but the design has such vibrant coloured borders. Contrast that with 87-88 Fleer basketball, which is worth significantly more, but is butt ugly.
I'm big on coloured borders, unique photography, high quality card stock. I also like full bleed photos, but only if the photography is incredible. For modern cards, I prefer parallel cards that have a colour scheme that match's the team colours. So, like blue parallels for the Blue Jays. The value doesn't matter so much. I like the idea of having all the cards next to one another to create an aesthetic theme.
How much do aesthetics matter to you?
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