Part 3 is where the panel expands. Chris McGill from Card Ladder and hobby lawyer Josh Adams jump in with Jason Masherah, and we get into the kind of hobby conversation everyone relates to: the stuff that drives collectors nuts.

We start with the “Top 5 hobby annoyances” trend (with a hat tip to Sports Illustrated) and then Jason adds a couple of his own. His first one is simple and needed: online hobby spaces don’t give enough grace to legitimate newbie questions, and that pushes people away when we’re supposedly trying to grow the hobby.

Josh’s first annoyance is an instant classic: sellers posting “taking offers” instead of putting a price on the card. Same energy as unpriced cards at shows. Save everybody time.

Chris goes two directions:

a funny shot at Rodman’s unreal collecting instincts

a real point that matters: people throw around “best card” like it means something objective, when “best” could mean highest grade, highest sale, rarest, or just someone’s personal taste. If you don’t define “best,” you’re not saying anything.

Then we hit a breaker rant that needed to happen: handle cards properly. Stop touching the face of chrome cards. Hold by the edges. Sleeve them like you actually care. We also talk grading backlogs and why “just hire more graders” is lazy thinking if you also want grading accuracy.

Jason brings it back to collecting, and highlights a reward system a lot of people still don’t know exists: the Upper Deck Bounty program, where completing certain coded sets earns achievement cards. It’s a real way to reward set builders and collectors, not just hype and flipping.

From the chat, we dig into:

the toxicity and flex culture on Instagram and why curating your feed is work

the “calling cards trash” issue and why it’s actually disrespecting the person, not just the cardboard

“low pop” being thrown around like a magic spell

fake slabs, and why eBay authentication exists in the first place

We also take a detour into ugly card designs, nostalgia, and how opinions change over time. Then we land on a point that ties back to your world: predicting what becomes iconic is way harder than people pretend. Some products that didn’t sell at all when they released later become staples, and sometimes a whole category flips from “nobody wants this” to “everyone needs this.”

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