State Of The Hobby

[chakhae1]

Hello all,

I have stayed quiet on my opinion on the state of the hobby for awhile, but I thought I would voice my opinion here. For starters for me group breaks have become extremely dull and boring and I only watch those that are run by those I consider friends. This is due to the numerous amount of product that is pushed out on a weekly basis for the most part. The number of breakers on the site that I goto has greatly diminished and running raffles has been taken away from that site as well which I think is a very good thing. They do however continue to be run on other sites and I think that that is just wrong. Why?

I am a man of morals and there is just so much that goes on in raffles that is immorally incorrect and makes no sense at all. Firstly, why does anyone have to send anyone else their cards to have them sell them? That's how a raffle works. Let me explain for those that don't understand. Someone runs a raffle room and those that have cards to run send him or her images of the cards they have to raffle and then whoever wins the card the guy with the card has to mail the guy/girl that runs the room who in turn mails the card to the winner. Makes sense doesn't it? My thoughts are if you have a card you want to sell then do what everyone else does and post it on ebay or do it on your own time.

Involving another person in anything leads to drama and there is daily bickering and scam artists that wandered around these razz rooms. It got so bad and that's why they were eliminated from the site I use. At least that's what I am thinking. Another thing about raffles is that the person running the room almost always takes a free spot. Now think about this. This person does nothing but sit there and you're letting them have a chance at a big card for free? Makes no sense now doesn't it? All they have to do is ship the card to the winner and that for arguments sake averages around $5 or so??

I am assuming that in a day or so these guys that run raffle rooms make a couple of hundred of dollars just by sitting there and essentially scamming everyone that runs a card and is in that room. Just from winning cards from free spots and that really bothers me but those joining raffles are so ignorant that they don't even know. Another thing about these raffles is that most of them are incredibly over priced. We're not talking about a few dollars, we are talking about at least 20 dollars per card. Again there is no common sense here. People joining raffles see the lower spot price and getting a big time card for less than 20 bucks or whatever it might is what entices them. Hello, if the card only sells for a 100 and you idiots are paying 200, who is the loser here? That's all I have to say about raffles, but I truely hope they are eliminated from the hobby altogether.

Now to get back to all the product that is released. My thinking is that UD and Panini should only run out product that the average collector will enjoy to bust and not all this random junk that is released. What I mean by this is a product such a Panini World Cup Soccer that everyone wants to give a try b/c it is rare and soccer cards are rarely released. The same goes for SPA Golf and other UD golf products. Keep the products limited and unique and don't push out junk with the same players, same photos, same boring game used cards and the list goes on and on and on.

Basketball is the most guility or running out product that is just duplicates of prior products and a good example of this is the newly released Crusade product. Why do people bust this? I have seen several breaks of products such as this and they get boring after 5 minutes. Same no name players and sure the case hits are really nice, but are you really going to spend 1000s of dollars to hit a Bismack Biyombo patch auto? I don't think so.

I wil always love this hobby and I will stick to busting product that is fresh and new since nothing I or anyone else have to say will change any of my concerns. Until then, keep collecting!

[pwaldo]

You are never going to get rid of raffles completely. For whatever reason people will seek them out and there is always somebody who is more than willing to run them. At the end of the day all you can do really is to warn people and if they want to ignore that advice and risk it then so be it. They will just learn the lesson the hard way.

[chakhae1]

That is just the thing. Everyone that runs and joins raffles knows what goes on. Who do I blame? No one really. It is just one of those things of the hobby that happens that I and many other people don't like. Greed controls the hobby and if these people believe they have a good shot at landing a big card for a fraction of the price, they will enter raffles until the sky turns purple.

[chakhae1]

Well, a little update to my post. As most of you might know raffles have been absolutely banned from the biggest group breaking site and even viewing raffles on your computer while being live will get you a temporary suspension. I believe this to be an excellent idea since every single person that runs a raffle is a damn crook and there's no other way to put it.

Unfortunately these people have moved to another site and it's just a matter of time before they get shut down again. Are they really that desperate to make money? Don't they have jobs? Do they really need this money? Of course they don't but it's just so easy to take advantage of some people in the hobby so if it's that easy why not? Money is the root of all evil as they say but I won't go as far as to say that everyone that runs a raffle is evil, but I have been in rooms were raffles were run properly, with no free spots to the raffler and everyone gets a fair shot on running a card and these people are known as the kindest people in the hobby.

Again, I believe that raffles or any kind of obvious gambling has no part in the hobby and it needs to be banished once and for all. At first I was skeptical of group breaking and all the shady stuff that was going on with that but I have grown to realize that it is part of the hobby. Will I think the same thing about raffles? I highly doubt it.

[chakhae1]

Let's talk about the hobby!!!

For me it has become boring??? All of the breaks that take place online have become repetitive and I only frequent the shows of those people I consider friends. Well not friends, but I have limited extremely the amount of breaks I watch.