Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Assorted Hobby Thoughts

I've been grasping at straws the last few months trying to find my hobby zen.  My card interest has been up and down lately, quite literally changing from day to day.  Blame it on the crappy winter, some crappy luck lately, or some crappy releases.  But I've been looking for something to spark my excitement.

For better or worse, I recently wandered back into the land of card forums.  I still haven't really found the excitement to twitter, whether for hobby interests or just in general.  But I pretty quickly remembered why I have no business being on cardboard forums.  My excitement over a Jermaine Allensworth 1998 Topps card just doesn't really gel with threads of "look at my $800 bat knob triple autograph booklet" and the glut of "I only sold my Mike Trout auto for a $300 profit - I hate this hobby!" threads.  But I have been really interested to come across some of the COMC related threads, many of which are being discussed from the perspective of dealers who have large chunks of change and cards invested in the site.

COMC has always been an interesting subject to me.  I joined the site in 2010.  I had started grad school, had a little extra cash, and had gotten sick of having to pay shipping time and time again on ebay for low end cards.  I had suddenly discovered a place that seemed like the perfect fit for me as a collector - a great place to find low end cards on the cheap, without getting killed on shipping costs.  It was like a card show available at my fingertips day or night, every day.

But there had always been some lingering questions on my mind about the site, its longterm growth, and the nuts and bolts of having millions of cards in one central hub.  It's just something that seemed really fascinating both in concept and application.

Let me make clear that COMC has continued to be and is today one of my favorite avenues for buying cards, and still the primary online means that I use to add cards to my collection.  But there has definitely been some food for thought in recent months, some of which really has me scratching my head.

In quick summary -

- Radio silence.  Early on COMC seemed really big on self promotion.  Makes sense for a young company.  Blog posts a plenty, announcements, specials.  It just seemed like a really exciting company that really brought something fresh to the table.  But in recent months, COMC's communication almost came to a halt.  The site surpassed 10 million items, and days went by before even an announcement was made.  A post was later put up saying the owner was away for a while, and there was nothing more to it.  But you'd think in a company with a decent number of employees someone else could and would be delegated to handle some of these basic communication and promotional elements.

- A tale of two tiers.  Something that really appealed to me as a buyer was the fact that the cards were all processed in a uniform way.  Anybody who bought on ebay can tell you that you can see a card from ten different sellers, and depending on the light, time of day, scanner, corner of the room, and zodiac sign the scans can come out drastically different.  With comc, I could easily look at a dozen vintage cards or copies of an autographed card and pick the one I liked the best.  Well, last Friday COMC added about 500,000 cards from big time vintage dealer DeansCards.  The cards aren't in COMC's warehouse, and instead will be cross listed with Dean's site.  The scans used were also those provided by DeansCards, rather than COMC's own.  For the first time I know of, this basically gives one seller special privileges that aren't available to the rest of the COMC universe.  And a lot about that just rubs me the wrong way.  And my old adage has always been that no good news will ever be announced at 5:30 on a Friday...

-Magic men.  I read a very interesting thread where a buyer said he purchased a card and relisted it at a higher price.  Apparently the seller noticed, and realized he could have cashed in higher.  He contacted COMC, which removed the card from the buyer's account and refunded him the purchase price.  It brings up some really interesting questions over who truly owns the cards - the person who has the card in their account, or can COMC play this hand of god role.  For its part, COMC's official stance is they will only reverse a transaction if both buyer and seller agree.  Which didn't happen in this case.  Their response to that has been "we made a mistake, sorry."

Overall, I guess I just don't get the warm and fuzzies from the site I did when I first joined.  Obviously the goal for the site has always been to be profitable.  It's a business.  But so many of the decisions in recent months make me feel like things are being done as immediate cash grabs (processing discounts, but all processing fees must be paid in advance by a certain date) or just generally decisions that rapidly move away from the core business I've enjoyed for years (auctions, allowing a large seller to play by different rules).   It's not meant solely to rip on COMC.  Instead I wonder where the relationship between the hobby and technology continues to move.

Ebay revolutionized the way collectors collected.  It could be argued that it crumbled a decades old hobby model in pricing and access.  But today ebay is really only viable for higher value cards, and I read that they are pushing fixed price listings over auctions.  Smaller sites like justcommons or sportlots continue to exist, but in more of a niche market.  Beckett's marketplace, like the entire company, has been shit for years.  COMC seemed like the next evolution in the hobby - a centralized physical hub merged with what amounted to a digital card show.  I still love the idea.  But some of the things bubbling beneath the surface make me have gigantic reservations about the longterm sustainability and viability of the site, and in turn whether I want to pull out the cards I have in there sooner rather than later.

Digital shopping brings with it a ton of advantages.  But this hobby's move to digital has crushed such a huge portion of the physical card market.  Not just the brick and mortar stores, but the weekend card dealers who used to set up once or twice a month.  And if some type of digital card collapse did happen, I don't know what options would be there until another wave of sites and ideas rose from the ashes.

I'm a little bit post-apocalyptic here on the card market.  And I certainly don't mean to be chicken little, though I'm sure it sounds a bit that way.  I'm curious to see how others feel about the online card market these days.  What are your primary buying sources?  Do you see yourself still buying in those same ways 5 or 10 years from now?

15 comments:

  1. When I saw the announcement of Dean's being associated with COMC, my initial thought (and still is) was big mistake. I hate Deam's. Always thought he was WAY over priced. I see his stuff showing up in some of my Ebay interests. I can tell even before I click the listing if it's Dean's because of the price.

    I only buy on COMC if the shipping is free. And I have to feel the price is right. Lately, COMC has not had right prices.

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    1. I see this being such a huge potential problem, and what basically looks like a quick money grab. COMC gets a cut of the profits without having to do anything besides use up some server space and package the cards when they come in from Deans if they sell.

      Imagine what a nightmare it would be if they made a similar arrangement with someone like Burbank. Then again, there are already plenty of junk autos listed at $10 on COMC.

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  2. As an international buyer i do love their mailboxes !!

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    1. That does seem like an awesome feature for international buyers.

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  3. I seem to have better luck with WVU than Pirates on COMC, but I probably only use it a couple times a year. eBay is still my main source for cards. I just try to utilize sellers who offer nice combined shipping rates and that will let you shop for over a week adding to your order. This allows me to pick up the Pirates I want and find some trade bait without breaking the bank.

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    1. Probably because I'm scooping up all the Pirates :p But seriously, there does seem to be a lack of Pirate cards on COMC compared to other teams. I'm always amazed when I see Topps Blacks for under $2, or inserts /100 for .50. It's to the point where I really have to dig to find any Pirates I don't already have on COMC at a good price.

      The one thing I do prefer about COMC over ebay is the fact that I can narrow my search by team, rather than having to go through a couple dozen ebay searches to hit all the stuff I'm looking for.

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  4. I use COMC all the time, but I don't do forums at all so I had no idea about any of these recent developments. Thanks for the insight!

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    1. My COMC buying has slowed a bit, but that's largely because I picked up something like 300 new cards between Nov and Dec. I had an inkling some things were happening behind the scenes, simply because I wasn't seeing nearly as many new Pirate cards listed. But all this stuff mentioned here took me by surprise.

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  5. I've used COMC quite a bit in the past. I've cooled on it a little bit lately. I use eBay quite a bit. Admittedly I pretty much only buy vintage. I've found myself searching out smaller dealers on line . Sometimes you can create some kind of relationship.
    Most of my major purchase are made in person at a card show. Living in the Boston area I can find one within 45 minutes every weekend. I don't go every weekend but I've developed good relationships with a bunch of the dealers. They know what I collect and email me when they find something I may like.

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    1. I'm in the same boat, with a large chunk of my purchases coming from shows - particularly vintage, where I really like to have the card in hand to take a look at before pulling the trigger. In the Pittsburgh area we went from having a show 2-3 weekends a month 5 or 6 years ago to having I think 4 shows all of last year. It's picked up so far this year, but the volume dealers has taken a nose dive.

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  6. I recently used COMC to close out a bunch of the short-prints I needed for 2014 Heritage. But I don't really use it all that much. I prefer to check Just Commons and eBay. I hate trying to shuffle orders all around to get the best shipping on Sportlots, and COMC just strikes me as a hangout for card flippers. I don't know if that perception of COMC is based on anything concrete or just all the folks on the forums talking about selling their ports so they can get more cards to flip. There are good deals on COMC and sometimes it is cheaper than eBay, but I don't like the vibe I get from the site or the users.

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    1. I think that's a pretty accurate perception for at least a wide sub-section of users on COMC. I still buy there pretty frequently, but most of my purchases are either cards that were recently added to the site and the flippers haven't gobbled up, or something that has been sitting for years and somebody decided to finally drop the price and cut bait.

      It wasn't that way in 2010-11, when I could find deals for my collection without even trying. But I think now you have cards that have now changed hands 4 or 5 times, and every time a different flipper is trying to squeeze another few cents out of it. Cards that routinely sold for something like $.25 are now listed for $1 and just continue to sit.

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  7. COMC's reversal of that transaction is not a good sign. If there's one thing that could ruin this hobby for me... it would be dishonesty and/or card related people/companies lacking character. I'll give most people a chance to learn from their mistakes, but hopefully COMC doesn't take the path to the DARK SIDE.

    Buying sources? Cheap cards = dime boxes & flea market finds. Higher end cards = eBay.

    As for collecting the same way in 5 to 10 years... I definitely can see myself doing it as long as I'm still enjoying it. I've come to the realization that I'm not in it for investment reasons, so the fear of throwing money away isn't there. I accept the fact that my collection won't be worth the same next year or the year after that. However... at the present time I enjoy looking at and writing about my cards. I also enjoy filling up my binders with dime cards and slowly crossing off bigger cards from my wantlists. And for those reasons, I have no problem with setting a few dollars aside each month for this hobby. As soon as it becomes a burden, or stressful, or the negatives outweigh the positives... I'll walk away from the hobby. But guess what... I'm sure I'd eventually come back. It has sort of been the story of my life.

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    1. Couldn't agree more. The second cards start to become anything but a relaxing and enjoyable hobby, I know it's time to take a step back. That happened a few months ago, but then I started making my own customs and quickly find myself finding job in collecting again. Even if, technically, the things I was collecting were also things I created. Guess that means my collection is always complete too?

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  8. Funny I just did a big rant over on my blog about COMC. Mainly the lack of common sense in pricing now that there's no Beckett price to put a ceiling on anything. Of course that bitch was geared more toward the low to mid end cards not the higher end stuff, but even some of those prices are crazy.

    For me COMC is a tool. One of many that include eBay, just commons, sportlots, the LCS, etc. And if that tool breaks I'll find another. COMC came screaming on the market and was an instant hit. I know that a lot of sellers were bitching about the transition from Beckett and there are still issues of cards not being properly cataloged on the site over a year later. I personally have been still doing the challanges for free store credit and will continue to do so till they officially end.

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