By Kevin Kaumans, Entertainment Editor
For those of you who don’t know, trading cards are a set of rectangle-shaped cards that depict either a professional athlete or a monster from a fiction world, usually collected by kids.
Of course, this is not true for everyone, as I myself like collecting all types of cards from time-to-time.
There are only two problems with this, however. One: Inflation has skyrocketed the prices. Two: Scalpers.
For those of you who don’t know, scalpers are people who will buy out a new release of cards as soon as stores stock them, and then charge ten times the price online. Needless to say, these people are seen by the trading card community the same way journalists are seen by victims of tragedy.
That is, parasitical rats who contribute nothing to society except for the reason we have laws that say you can’t knock people out unless they swing on you first.
Don’t believe me? Look up videos of scalpers causing fights in the store, Either they are ripping it out of people’s hands or are literally punching people in the face. Keep in mind, these are the people within my community.
I hope you can see why these people get my blood pressure so high.
And you want to know what the worst part is? These scalpers don’t seem to compute the simple rules of supply and demand, and then wonder why they almost never make their money back. See, the trading card community is a small, niche group.
We are not as big as the people who buy fancy cars or watches, so when you are out here trying to sell these cards at three-hundred dollars a box, they are more likely than not just gonna pass on your offer and wait for stores to restock.
Another thing these scalpers don’t seem to grasp is that people in small communities like the trading card people talk.
So when I see videos of people breaking into card stores and stealing thousands of dollars worth of stuff, it never surprises me to see these guys get arrested almost the next day.
When people like us hear about a card store getting broken into, we instantly know what to look out for.
Besides scalpers, another group of people I want to talk to are people who are just now getting into cards, specifically because they have seen those videos online of people pulling cards worth more than their mortgage.
While I understand the dream of changing your entire financial situation, but what you need to understand is that it is not that easy.
Yes, people all over the world draw cards worth a lot of money.
But here’s the thing: Those same people have the money to spend a thousand dollars on a single trading card run.
Most people can’t afford to do that once a year, much less every other week.
So by all means, get into trading cards. Just don’t do it with the mindset of becoming rich.
When you treat a hobby as nothing more than a way to make money, than it stops becoming fun and instead becomes a worthless money pit.
If you reallly need money, than please, get a second job, sell some of your stuff, do literally anything but become a scalper.