Lizard's Rant

Way back in 2004 when I started SportsLizard I couldn’t find too many other sites where collectors spoke their minds. In the past four years my role in the industry has changed. I went from collector, to collector who owned a collectibles business and wrote about it, to business owner who rarely collects and spends more time on his core business but still finds the industry fascinating. You know, the way you find a troubled ex-girlfriend fascinating - you used to really care, you gave up truly caring a while ago, but nonetheless you still have some vested interest in what’s happening…even if it’s just to see her crash and burn in style.

There was a time where I would do anything I could to get under the skin of anyone big in the hobby. Case in point, this article ripping James Spence, which prompted a nasty letter from him that made him come across as having the maturity of a three year old (and to be honest, most three year olds have a more controlled temper). SportsLizard was also featured in Jeff Clow’s column that same months issue of Tuff Stuff, but I didn’t care.

Now a days I know that this blog has a solid readership and I am content to voice my opinions here and let them go where they may. If I write a good post, it generally gets commented up and passed around in the hobby. If not, it doesn’t. I don’t go to any effort to email Beckett and Tuff Stuff to notify them how I just tore them a new one like I used to. It’s not that it isn’t fun, I just prefer to spend my time on other things. In short, I gave up on trying to organize a mass change in the hobby.

HOWEVER, there are a lot of other active collectors who feel the same way I do on a lot of topics, sometimes even stronger. They will be the ones to change the hobby. As I’ve been saying since 2004, the web neutrilizes everything. My article questioning autograph authentication ranks at the top of Google searches when someone types in “autograph authentication”. You think that pisses of PSA at all? I wonder how much money my one article cost them…

That’s just one example. But I’ve noticed a really, really promising trend lately: collectors who are fed up and have decided to blog. Unlike just posting on a moderated forum, blogs allow anyone to say what they truly think without repercussions. Not always a good thing, but in this case it is. If you get enough quality content floating around the web it will have a huge influence on collectors. More of them will start reading their news from “unbiased” sources like Sports Collectors Daily. Even more of them will look for “real” opinions from blogs like Sports Cards Uncensored, The Football Card Blog, and Awesomely Bad Wax Packs.

Eventually - be it next week or five years from now - these opinions will overwhelm whatever Beckett, Tuff Stuff, and the card companies can put out. The consumers will take over in this industry like they have in just about every other one. When that happens, card companies will have some difficult questions to ask themselves. As long as sports thrive there will always be a card collecting hobby. Now, if they keep screwing their consumers it will become a smaller and smaller niche. In business, when your industry is exploding, it’s really really hard to not grow. Somehow the card industry defies all reasoning and continues to dig it’s own grave.