what's going on everybody welcome back to another episode of stacking slabs your hobby content alternative i am brett sometimes you put out an episode that gets a response you get engaged in dialogue with other collectors you start to think about the conversation that happens after the episode you reflect you consider and you start thinking about is this it do we just put an episode out and let it sit and then move on to the next topic happens all the time as a creator in this space i am actively trying to build systems within the stacking slabs network to make sure conversations that have a real impact don't just get stuck collecting dust on a digital shelf somewhere when you put out a new episode each day it's not always going to be for everybody but sometimes you put out an episode and you start to see a lot of different things happening from a response perspective a lot of different types of collectors respond individuals engaged they wanna share and that's what happened last week when i put out the flagship episode on your collection being a reflection it was fun motivating getting responses as a creator is what it's all about it is the fuel to the fire it is what keeps me motivated and so i sat back and considered okay when something gets a response like this what can we do to advance the conversation and that is what i wanna do today and i wanna talk about how collecting motivations evolve as we mature as collectors it is something that i pull from from my own experience jumping back into the hobby a long time ago as i think about this now and i still think about it today i am still evolving i don't think there is ever a final destination or an end state as a collector it just keeps going and we keep adapting and we keep evolving as our tastes change but i talk about this a lot in content when individuals jump right back into the hobby there is a lot to consider and most of the time what you do and how you do it during the return looks a whole hell of a lot different than it does years later at least it did for me and i think that is the case for many of you based on not only feedback i got after last week but feedback that i have received from you the listener over a long period of time so we're gonna talk about it today before we do that i wanna say thank you we're putting out a ton of content here on the stacking slabs network thank you for supporting the shows thank you for supporting the network the best way you can do that right now is to hit the follow button wherever you're listening if you think i'm doing a good job hit the five star leave the review do all that tell a damn friend tell another card buddy in the hobby about stacking slabs i do appreciate that we have a patreon group link is in the show notes for new and exclusive content so last week when i talked about that idea your collection is a reflection and the more i sat after that episode the more i realized that there was a second question hiding underneath it not just what your collection reflects but how that reflection changes over time because if a collection is a reflection of the collector then it follows that as the collector matures the collection changes too and when the collection changes it usually is because the motives change first so the question i want to take on today is how do we how do different collecting motivations evolve over time as collectors mature and i think the hard truth is that most of us do not enter sports cards collectors in the deepest sense of the word we enter as responders we respond to hype we respond to momentum we respond to scarcity we respond to the possibility of making money we respond to other people's excitement we respond to feeling late and wanting in we respond to the fantasy that there is a fast lane into this hobby and that if we can just buy the right box pick the right break or land on the right rookie we can skip all the years it normally takes to develop taste that is how a lot of people begin and honestly it makes perfect sense the culture of the hobby has made that kind of entry extremely easy this is real research behind this on the broad collecting side one review that i dug into found that six reoccurring motives that drive collectible behavior are achievement group belonging competition and cooperation memory legacy and financial value on the sports card site specifically researchers studying collector discussions found seven motives education identifying with athletes investment addiction social connection entertainment and escape and if you just sit with that for a second you realize something important the hobby is not driven by one thing even though so many individuals in this space show up and say it is it never was the same person can be buying for identity on monday dopamine on tuesday community on wednesday nostalgia on thursday and money on friday the motive mix is always moving and that matters because the early stage of collecting is often dominated by motives that are loud fast and borrowed i don't think they're necessarily fake they are just usually unexamined a new collector often buys what the market is already pointing at a new collector often lets the room tell them what matters a new collector often confuses visibility and value and priced with meaning that's not because new collectors are dumb it's because novices process categories differently than experts do any research on consumer behavior always ties back to the fact that experts organize information more deeply and flexibly while novices rely on surface level cues in the hobby that means that the beginner sees a hot name a rising comp a scarce parallel a case hit a loud room and a stream of other people celebrating the same card the expert sees era checklist context print structure design significance player narrative collector demand and whether any of it actually fits their own thesis in sports cards pour gasoline on that novice mindset because the hobby has so many mechanics built in place that trigger urgency packs are random breaks are random checklists invite completion serial numbers create hierarchy grades create hierarchy social media gives you a public scoreboard there is always another release another chase card another buy it before it gets gone moment i've always thought i'm a collector because i like control and i think collecting is connected to a desire for control because collections create structure they have also show as collectors that incomplete collections create tension and that marketers can use the incompleteness effect to drive more buying i know this because i am a marketer and i understand how the operation works from a marketing perspective now i can't dig into the financials and i can't dig into the technical infrastructure and i have no subject matter expertise in that but i built my career on the back of understanding consumer behavior and the more and more i dig into it from a hobby perspective the more things become clear to me based on my discipline so when you feel an itch to finish a run chase a rainbow or open one more box because you're close that is not imaginary that is a real psychological lever now now add chance to the structure add the possibility of a rare hit add the social high of a live room add the emotional swing between dead packs and monster cards adjacent card pack research now shows that spending on physical card packs is positively correlated with the problem gambling even if that link is weaker than researchers find for digital loot boxes i wanna be careful here because i don't think the right takeaway is cards are gambling full stop you hear that a lot in this space people tout it and i think it's too sloppy but i do think the right takeaway is that any hobby that mixes random rewards financial upside social reinforcement and completion drive can quietly hijack motive and once motive gets hijacked people start telling themselves stories about collecting when what they are really doing is chasing stimulation that is why the first real turning point in the hobby is usually not a big win it usually starts with friction friction is when the external motive stops carrying the weight maybe you lose money maybe the player you invested in flames out maybe rip a ton and realize that you don't even like what's left on your desk maybe you look at the shelf and feel nothing maybe you realize now there is some understanding behind prices and it's not just about the players maybe you realize you have just been buying a lot and building nothing that moment is rough it's brutal but it also is the first moment of truth because friction forces collector to ask a question that hype never asks what am i really doing here there was an interesting thread and i wish i could remember where where i heard it but we're talking about infrastructure and the hobby and talking about tops and obviously breakers are the number one distribution channel for tops you can see it through all these releases and i've been talking a lot about breaking on the stacking slabs network recently probably because i started to participate in some breaks around wwe chrome to understand how these work in the different platforms and i i i had a very interesting experience now i don't have a ton of time so i can't just sit around and watch but i peek in and look and see what happens and you could say this is research for stacking slabs as i'm trying to understand how a whole different segment of this hobby operates but the one interesting thing that i picked up on from my experience there and what i'm hearing from fallout of the industry summit is just this desire and need for education and i've been preaching education as a means to retain existing collectors in this hobby since i started stacking slabs but i can assure you this you cannot rely on a distribution channel where people are playing a game of risk and people are trying to chase that dopamine as the central point for education in this space if you do that things get twisted and fall over so the question i'm thinking about is where real maturation begins because the people who leave the hobby at this point were usually never attached to cards themselves they were attached to what the cards promised fast money fast status fast belonging fast stimulation but the people who stay the people who stay usually start moving towards a different center of gravity they start caring about something specific it can be a player a team a set an era a design a rookie run hometown story specific brand of cardboard that reminds them of a certain time in their life the motive gets narrower on the surface but deeper underneath it stops being what should i buy and starts becoming what am i trying to say that is the move from borrowed motive to chosen motive and i think the fascinating thing is that once collectors cross that line the hobby often becomes more satisfying even when it becomes less exciting to outsiders you can ask anybody why they collect sports cards and you'll hear a lot of different responses some people like cards because they identify with athletes they like the community they love the escape they like investments or alternative investments but not all motives are equally durable it seems like any conversation i have with a longtime collector either publicly here on stacking slabs or privately the separation point is always the individual is involved for intrinsic goals rather than extrinsic goals in other words buying something because it helps you understand yourself connect to other people or grow in competence tends to hold up better than buying something because it signals status or promises financial success this tracks perfectly with what many mature collectors discover the hard way the hobby feels better when you learn something it feels better when you care about the story it feels better when the card teaches you the history of an era the rise and fall of a player the visual identity of a set the difference between a base card and a meaningful variation the reasons parallels matter the reason it doesn't the reason condition matters the reason sometimes it doesn't competence changes the emotional texture of collecting once you know what you're looking at the hobby slows down and that slowdown is not a bug it is the beginning of taste this is also where the collection starts to become personal in a stronger way the mvp of stacking slabs this week is or excuse me this year seems to be russell belk i continue to pull back from his work on extended self as we have these conversations but if you haven't heard it he's argued that possessions are a part of how we experience identity that idea is incredibly useful in sports cards because a mature card collection is not just a set of items it's a visible record of values it shows what kind of stories move you it shows whether you prefer greatness weirdness rarity aesthetics team allegiance historical significance emotional memory or maybe a combination of several it shows whether you crave completion or you prefer curation it shows whether you want applause or coherence it shows whether you are building a museum a scrapbook a portfolio or a diary and once the collection becomes identity bearing another shift happens the collector stops thinking only in terms of acquisitions and starts thinking in terms of editing and it's a big moment because immature collecting is often additive more boxes more mail days more slabs more names more noise mature collecting becomes selective the question becomes less what can i add and more what deserves to stay this is where curation enters and curation is completely different behavior from accumulation accumulation wants quantity because quantity feels like momentum curation wants alignment because alignment feels like the truth i think this is why the collectors collectors who've been in this space the longest who i appreciate and admire the most become less legible to the market and more legible to themselves and they're not living and breathing over comps they're not dying over a card that they had in their collection for ten years that just sold in the public for five times what they paid it for they still wanna hang on to that card and i'm not here to say selling is wrong i i think selling is great because it helps you refine your taste cards that you thought were cool or maybe bought for a specific reason two years ago sometime go out of style not to the market but to ourselves because we're on a new path from the outside i think it can look like regression why is this person buying obscure inserts why is that person so locked in on one team why does someone care about bent beat up vintage commons or weird regional releases of a specific player but from the inside it often is the opposite of regression it becomes clarity it is a collector finally escaping consensus turning left when everyone else is going right it is the market losing some of its authority it is a collector saying i know what matters to me right now and i no longer need the room to certify it first that's a massive psychological development and if that development continues collecting eventually starts to pick up another layer that a lot of people don't talk about enough because it's not short term it's long term and that's legacy a review on collecting identifies legacy as one of the core motives a really mature collection is not just about present tense in the now and the pleasure that we get from it it starts become future facing the collector begins to imagine what survives him what gets remembered what communicates something to a child a friend a spouse another fellow collector or even just a future version of him or herself that changes behavior too because i think once legacy enters the picture flipping everything starts to feel different random acquisition starts to feel different you begin to ask whether a card is just liquid or whether it is articulate does it say something does it preserve memory does it mark this season of your life does it honor a relationship does it represent a standard does it point to who you were becoming when you first bought it those aren't beginner questions those are questions that emerge when the hobby stops being pure consumption and starts becoming meaning management now i wanna make something very important clear maturation does not mean purity it does not mean you graduate into some enlightened state where you never chase never speculate never get tempted never buy for the wrong reasons again that's silly that's nonsense the cycle never really ends it never ends because your life never stops changing when life feels chaotic your desire for control can spike and suddenly high structured collecting projects become soothing again when the market heats up status and profit can come roaring back into the room when you feel disconnected nostalgia can become more powerful when you feel stagnant novelty can start looking holy and nostalgia is not trivial not just a trivial force i think it helps explain why so many collectors return to the hobby in one season of life leaving another and come back later for totally different reasons they are not always coming back to the same cards sometimes they are coming back to recover a version of themselves this is exactly why i think the best definition of collecting maturity is not restraint it's awareness a mature collector is not the person who never feels the pull of the breaker room the hot release the price spike the pc grail the nostalgia purses purchase or the desire to complete something a mature collector is the person who can feel those pulls and name them in real time accurately he or she knows when they're buying to feel smart they know when they're buying to feel safe they know when they're buying to feel seen they know when they're buying to feel comfortable and they know when they're buying to chase a memory they know when you're buying because the market told them so and they know when you're buying because the car genuinely belongs to the story that awareness it's everything because once you can name the motive you can judge the purchase and i think that is the real answer to the question we started with collecting motivations evolve over time as collectors mature because the collector slowly moves from an unconscious motive to a conscious motive at first the hobby happens to you then eventually if you stay around long enough and think hard enough the hobby becomes something you can shape you start you stop being led around by the loudest incentive in the room and you stop mistaking market participation for self knowledge you stop treating every urge like a conviction and you begin building a collection that's less random less reactive and more honest in sports cards that often looks like a very recognizable arc you come in wanting action then you come in wanting money you get beat up battered and bruised then you go looking for something real you find a player team set or lane that actually means something to you you learn you refine then you cut away the noise then you realize that cards you care about are teaching you something about yourself and then if you stay with it you begin to collect not just what is valuable but what is representative representative of your taste representative of your values representative of your memories representative of your standards representative of what to preserve that is when the collection stops just reflecting who you are and starts reflecting who you have become and maybe the most humbling part about all of this is that the cycle is never over because next year you may be a different person than you are now five years from now you definitely will be your motives will shift again your appetite will shift again your sense of meaning will shift again the collector is alive when which means the collection should be alive too living breathing evolving what matters is not freezing your motive forever what matters is staying close enough to yourself that when the motive changes you notice it before your money notices it for you so if i had to leave this whole conversation in one sentence it would be something like most collectors begin by chasing what the hobby says matters but mature collectors increasingly build around what they know matters to them and that's not just a small distinction that is the distinction between imitation and authorship between buying noise and building signal between owning cards and expressing identity between accumulation and curation between a collection that looks impressive and a collection that tells the truth so the next time you feel pulled toward a purchase i think the question is not just do i want this card the better question is what motive in me wants this card because if you can answer that honestly you are not just becoming a better buyer you're becoming a better collector and if you keep doing it long enough the collection will stop being a pile of objects and start becoming something far more interesting it will become evidence evidence of who you are evidence of what chain what changed what stayed evidence of the stories that kept mattering evidence of the lessons that cost you money but gave you better taste evidence of the players teams moments designs and memories that outlive the hype because in the end that may be real maturation arc of collecting not from cheap cards to expensive cards not to from raw cards to graded cards not from modern to vintage not from one sport to the other but from unconscious desire to conscious meaning and that is the progression worth paying attention to because once you see it you cannot unsee it and once you cannot unsee it you start collecting with a different kind of honesty yeah it's collecting cards but it's so much more it's so much more to those who treat it as a way to express who you are what you're about i didn't realize this was happening to me until i took ten steps back to reflect and once i realized what it did to me this is where i decided to pursue the exploration of this in a more detailed manner that is when i decided i love this so much because what it does to me that i want to leave my successful career and go build something where i can just dedicate myself to exploring and talking about this all the time and that's what i'm doing here with stacking slabs and the broader stacking slabs network and i really appreciate you the listener who is thoughtful and taking the time to give me feedback taking the time to consume these episodes when you're on the way to work when you're dropping your kids off at day care when you're on a run when you're doing chores around the house when you're shopping at the grocery store when you're cutting your lawn all those things we are busy people we have families we have a professional career not a lot of us have the time to sit around and just flip through tiktok or watch youtube all day that's why i try to deliver this in an audio format because i'm a busy person i've got a busy life and i would imagine many of you out there are doing the same thing but at least we are taking a moment to reflect on why we're spending all that money on cards what is it doing for us and what does it represent we look through people's showcases we look through people's collections and you see a bunch of random objects and it's like yeah there's a cool card here and there but what does this really mean we've all been in that space before we've also been on the other side of it where you stop at a showcase or you stop flipping through someone's box in a collection and you see the cohesiveness you see the story being tell you can see the excitement on the collector's face and that is a beautiful place to be to be content to be comfortable with what we have and what we're building maybe we'll never be comfortable or maybe never we'll never be content but at least we can get to a place where we can point to our cards and point to our collection and confidently say this is about me this is about what i like this is about my taste if everyone has the same taste it sucks it's boring it's stale it's about being unique it's about expressing yourself and we have cards to do it it's a wonderful thing i appreciate you being along for the ride supporting stacking slabs hit the follow button tell a damn friend we got more content coming from you each and every day won't stop shout out all of you appreciate it take care we'll be back soon