Heh. Thanks. I don't get on here very often anymore. But I tend to ramble when I do. Just like in the old days when I was the dude always fighting to keep the hobby "fun" and prices such that you didn't have to be a whale or celebrity to collect. Seems like the need for such arguments haven't changed that much, though when I was arguing it was over 1-16 sticker starting to hit 10 bucks each and 100 for the Mag-7 variations. I would have never thought in a million years back then that 16th series PSA-10s would be listed for hundreds or thousands, and brand new ANS chase sets would fetch more than a genuine 1960s 'Ratz' or 'Cracked' card!!! You were lucky to get 50 bucks for a really nice Choke Wagon at the time, and common NM/MT diecuts were constantly selling for 5 bucks each or less. We thought Mark Macaluso was greedy charging 10 or 15 bucks at his booth. heh. Who would have thought that buying out our old pal Mark would have actually turned a massive profit someday. Crazy stuff. But everything is a double-edged sword, really. I think eBay, PSA, and ToppsVault all had very negative effect on the average collector along the way, but they all provided value as well. ANS, same thing. Cool to see it resurrected, but also flooded the hobby with far too many titles and variations to ever possibly collect. Even though I had some really rare Wacky stuff pass through my collection in the 97-03 hayday, the coolest moment for me back then was finally completing the 1-16 run of stickers that I'd started as a kid and finished as an adult. That was like the 'rite of passage' for all old school collectors (which takes a bit longer for some--shout out to Tom T.), and a really cool 'time-warp' kind of connection to that little punk that was so crazy about these things he'd spend every coin he could find on them when that icecream man would come around. That's still the fun part for me anyway.
See... there I go rambling again.
