Plagued Consoomers / Consoomer Culture - Because if it has a recogniseable brand on it, I’d buy it!

[Nicest Person on a Honda]

Barely any niche hobby is affordabe anymore because everyone's chasing the "online value" dragon.

The internet has absolutely ruined collecting anything or trying to find shit at yard sales. There was a time when retro gaming was considered one of the most affordable hobbies. Record collecting was considered a poor man's hobby.

 

[Dieter Laser]

With the exception of pokemon cards, aren't most cards actually declining in value? I remember reading a few years ago that baseball cards have lost like half their value

It depends. Some of the all time high cards have come down a bit, but there’s a huge new influx of money coming in from these new “limited run” packs.

They are anywhere from 50-100$ a pack and guarantee X number of autographs or 1:1 cards per box. The “rarest” trade for 5-10k right out is the gate, and then you get into the grading nonsense.

The tl;dr is that older cards took a hit but the hot money is currently going into graded boutique cards, lower cost of entry.

And it’s not just cards, they are vaulting shoes, video games, etc. Anything they can convince you to send to them and pay for storage.

 

[Nicest Person on a Honda]

It depends. Some of the all time high cards have come down a bit, but there’s a huge new influx of money coming in from these new “limited run” packs.

They are anywhere from 50-100$ a pack and guarantee X number of autographs or 1:1 cards per box. The “rarest” trade for 5-10k right out is the gate, and then you get into the grading nonsense.

The tl;dr is that older cards took a hit but the hot money is currently going into graded boutique cards, lower cost of entry.

And it’s not just cards, they are vaulting shoes, video games, etc. Anything they can convince you to send to them and pay for storage.

I am shocked people are going all in on cards, I just looked on eBay vault and you weren't kidding, people are asking $100 for unopened packs of golf cards from the 90s. Who the fuck collects golf cards? I understand some hipster kid collecting Supreme jackets (or whatever they sell, I have never been able to figure it out) or collecting Jordan shoes, but I don't understand people thinking that their shit is worth this much, especially in a recession, and on top of that you have to pay ebay to store your stuff while you wait for it to sell?

The rarest items get listed for $10,000 but it will never fucking sell. The average collector does not have $10,000 to throw around. This is likely not only a tax scam, but a scam to get people to think that their shit is worth paying to store. eBay seems to be going all in with graders, authenticators, etc.

Anything worth vaulting will have an evaluation of thousands of dollars, and there really are not that many cards worth that much. A lot of people think that collectors just knock down the door for a Mickey Mantle baseball card, but the fact of the matter is that most of us have wives/girlfriends, kids, a mortgage/rent, and other responsibilities. Once the value of any collectable goes about ~$1,000 the number of people who are willing to buy it (especially during a recession) drastically decreases. The smaller the community the longer it takes to sell an item. This just seems like another way to charge idiots who will never sell this shit to pay them a monthly storage fee.

 

[Dieter Laser]

Oh it’s worse than you think.

You’ve got some cards that start at 250+ a pack new (and that’s at MSRP) and the people “investing” can’t even afford to buy the packs. They form groups on FB and pool their money to buy packs and split them based on teams pulled.

Their whole goal is to pull a rare card and sell it to one of the shady investment firms after grading.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

With the exception of pokemon cards, aren't most cards actually declining in value? I remember reading a few years ago that baseball cards have lost like half their value

Some cards like baseball cards are a boomer hobby, and boomers are dying out/living off social security so they can't afford that sort of shit. Shit like Magic, Pokemon, and Yugioh appeal to nostalgiafags around 30 years old i.e. people who are finally getting the disposable income they always wanted and worse, today's 30 year olds are less likely to be married or own a house so they are even more likely to throw away money on children's card games (or retro vidya).

 

[Nicest Person on a Honda]

Oh it’s worse than you think.

You’ve got some cards that start at 250+ a pack new (and that’s at MSRP) and the people “investing” can’t even afford to buy the packs. They form groups on FB and pool their money to buy packs and split them based on teams pulled.

Their whole goal is to pull a rare card and sell it to one of the shady investment firms after grading.

Jesus fucking christ. So now collectables are so out of reach that even investors have to go all in? I remember doing this shit in elementary school with Pokemon cards (a few friends put in a few bucks each and we divide and trade the cards) but fucking adults are doing this. May Allah forgive them.

Shit like Magic, Pokemon, and Yugioh appeal to nostalgiafags around 30 years old i.e. people who are finally getting the disposable income they always wanted and worse, today's 30 year olds are less likely to be married or own a house so they are even more likely to throw away money on children's card games (or retro vidya).

I knew that there were some adults doing this, I always thought it was just weirdos and people trying to buy their kids their old childhoods.

I need to do a deeper dive into this thread.

 

[Pissmaster]

If I bought a video game at any point it's to play it. Sure, piracy and emulation arethings that fucking exist but sometimes you want to just have the actual fucking thing.

I can back that up to a point - maybe $30, tops. It's fun to read the manual and put in the disc with the nice artwork. But then you've got games like Skies of Arcadia going for $135, and even @Vyse Inglebard himself would probably tell you to just burn some CDs, because that is some serious skrilla for a game older than some of the posters here.

 

[Nicest Person on a Honda]

9.2 and want $1000 for it, knowing full well that the disc is loose. So if you actually somehow were the last person on earth with a copy, there’s a damn good chance it’s unplayable.

Retro gauging pricing still continues

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Whoever did this really dislikes Dreamcast owners or is trying to boost eBay ad sponsors. There’s no excuse for this nonsense.

Who the fuck is ever going to buy this?
This is going to just sit on ebay's servers for fucking years.

 

[Vyse Inglebard]

But then you've got games like Skies of Arcadia going for $135, and even @Vyse Inglebard himself would probably tell you to just burn some CDs, because that is some serious skrilla for a game older than some of the posters here.

Yeah, when it gets to the point that an over 20 year old game costs that much, either emulate it or just burn it onto some CDs and play it on your Dreamcast that way.

 

[UnsufficentBoobage]

The internet has absolutely ruined collecting anything or trying to find shit at yard sales

MLP was hit with this first due to bronies.

 

[Vyse Inglebard]

MLP was hit with this first due to bronies.

Nah, it was happening WAY before My Little Pony. Pokémon, just to name one example.

 

[Pina Colada]

Would make a nice new wojak

Say no more, chief!

 

[UnsufficentBoobage]

Nah, it was happening WAY before My Little Pony. Pokémon, just to name one example.

I meant specifically yard sales. As in, once people heard "MLP is popular", crap like "opening ebay right in front of you and charging top price you see of vaguely similar pony" became a thing.
Pokemon card scalping obviously predated that.

 

[Maurice Caine]

Nah, it was happening WAY before My Little Pony. Pokémon, just to name one example.

I think it started with comics in the 90s.

 

[Enig]

Found a new way to stir up the consoom hive, just start questioning why the console flash cart market's effectively been cornered by one guy to the point that to get a SNES cart with full features costs $225. You wouldn't believe the autistic seething doing this produces in a short span of time.

 

[Shig O'nella]

I think it started with comics in the 90s.

You really think it's that modern? Dude, this shit's been going on a long time.

It started in 1636, with the fucking Dutch.

 

[Girl Named Sandoz]

Found a new way to stir up the consoom hive, just start questioning why the console flash cart market's effectively been cornered by one guy to the point that to get a SNES cart with full features costs $225. You wouldn't believe the autistic seething doing this produces in a short span of time.

there's an actual reason for this though. the cheaper carts simply don't have the hardware required to play a lot of games that used extra chips (super fx, sa-1, etc). the sd2snes/fxpak pro uses a FPGA which allows for hardware emulation of those chips.

so yeah, cheap out if you want but you'll be missing out on most of the best snes games.

end autistic seething i guess.

 

[quaawaa]

As if there was any doubt that the eBay vault was part of a money laundering scheme… now vaulted items can be sold and traded between any individuals worldwide as a tax free transaction due to a Delaware tax law. Easy to bump values up if there’s minimal taxes on the deal.

They have to pay capital gains tax.

 

[Dieter Laser]

They have to pay capital gains tax.

I agree, just not having to pay an extra 8-11% depending on your state definitely helps when they are bumping up prices.

 

[tehpope]

Another one of those look what we get at work vids.