I admit it. I take the wealth of knowledge on this site for granted some times. There are some really wise collectors here with huge libraries of material to help photomatch or at least help style match via tagging and known exemplars. Guys like Dave Miedema for baseball jerseys, Larry P for football, Robert for helmets and seemingly an expert for every team. Add Kyle Hess for his photos, Les for her feminine sense and Barry Meisel for his hockey input and this place has certainly become chock full of knowledge.
So why does it feel our hobby's growth is heading down the path of complete laziness? New collectors take companies at face value (JO was indisputable before the indictment for example) and the rise of NEEDING an LOA to validate an item seems worse than in the early 90's. Am I alone in thinking new collectors aren't doing their homework because they'd rather just have a paper say it's real than understand WHY. MLB jerseys come with holograms and MeiGray has certainly catered to this new hobby need by eliminating all doubt with their transparent and easily accessible tagging system (which frankly should be mandatory on all new material in my completely unhumble opinion) So if this has become the new expectation for our hobby and newbies as a rule seem to want the homework done for them, doesn't this spell disaster for the true gems of our hobby? (Anything older than 1995 when photomatching seems to become more difficult)
I just feel like the art of learning about the reasons why a jersey is real or not are being ignored. I fear that knowledge dying combined with the overt laziness of needing to see a photomatch on a jersey or bat along with a worthless piece of paper, will cripple this hobby and eliminate value on the items that should be most treasured.
Am I wrong?
So why does it feel our hobby's growth is heading down the path of complete laziness? New collectors take companies at face value (JO was indisputable before the indictment for example) and the rise of NEEDING an LOA to validate an item seems worse than in the early 90's. Am I alone in thinking new collectors aren't doing their homework because they'd rather just have a paper say it's real than understand WHY. MLB jerseys come with holograms and MeiGray has certainly catered to this new hobby need by eliminating all doubt with their transparent and easily accessible tagging system (which frankly should be mandatory on all new material in my completely unhumble opinion) So if this has become the new expectation for our hobby and newbies as a rule seem to want the homework done for them, doesn't this spell disaster for the true gems of our hobby? (Anything older than 1995 when photomatching seems to become more difficult)
I just feel like the art of learning about the reasons why a jersey is real or not are being ignored. I fear that knowledge dying combined with the overt laziness of needing to see a photomatch on a jersey or bat along with a worthless piece of paper, will cripple this hobby and eliminate value on the items that should be most treasured.
Am I wrong?
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