Are You A Card Addict?

In the news this last week, a federal investigator lost his job after his baseball card addiction led him to use his government car to moonlight for Amazon and Uber. His marriage nearly fell apart because he bought so many baseball cards.

That is an extreme, certainly, but in the last three years I have seen card buyers in a feeding frenzy like no other. One of my friends overheard a collector in line for a card show remark that he had to sell cards to make rent. Some people even go into credit card debt to get boxes to break. Not use the card as a convenience and pay it off every month, but actually take on debt.

Stupid.

Borrowing to invest in most things is a fool's errand for average people. Going into debt for modern baseball cards? Your picture should be in the dictionary under the word “moron.” Newsflash: that box break is not going to beat the credit cost. If you have to borrow to speculate on getting a big hit in a box break, you are betting on a shitty set of odds, and you are a fool to go into debt for it. Just buy some scratchers, or better yet, throw your money into the toilet; at least you won’t pay interest.

Please don’t get the idea that I am condescending to those people. I am one of them. I bought an entire case of 2020 Topps Heritage. My first really heavy collecting as a kid was 1971 Topps, so I had a definite affinity for the set design and looked forward to the Heritage issue. The case cost me a thousand bucks. I was sure I’d hit one of the big inserts. I didn’t. The value I got from the case was maybe 25% of the cost. That same thousand bucks towards a nice T206 HOFer at the time…ugh, don’t remind me.

So, I think breakers are gamblers bucking the odds, and truly dumb if they go into hock for it. But is it crazy to use debt to buy cards? It all depends on the deal. If I had a chance to buy a T206 Wagner at 10% of the going price, I would happily tap my credit and home equity lines to make the deal. You’d have to be stupid not to make that deal every day, regardless of the debt involved.

That said, I would only go into debt to make money. I would only go into debt for cards if I had a known, well-considered opportunity to make money and pay off the debt before the interest kills me. Over the long haul I know I simply cannot outperform the cost of consumer credit.

This is not a new perspective; it is new one for anyone born after WWII. My wife's grandfather was a factory worker, not a sophisticated guy at all, but knew from the Depression that debt was the key to living life. Specifically, not having any debt. Own your stuff and owe no one. That's how you weather downturns and turmoil. He paid off his house and saved to pay for new things instead of financing them. Not very fashionable, but he paid for both his granddaughters' college after their deadbeat dad walked out and left enough money to secure his retirement and that of his grocery clerk daughter, too.

That's what I aim for: to own my stuff and not to owe jack-squat to anyone, leave a legacy for my kid. Of course, it will probably be Ruth cards...and she will be damn lucky to get them.