Presented By All Touch Case One of the greatest strengths of the collecting community is the trust that exists between collectors. Every day, thousands of transactions take place between people who have never met. Most collectors will complete countless transactions without a problem. But one dishonest interaction can undermine years of trust. As the hobby has grown, so have the opportunities for bad actors to take advantage of collectors – particularly those who are younger,
Presented By All Touch Case Alyx Effron, @alyx_cmd Since launching our Collector Spotlight series, a handful of our community members have asked me the same question: “When are you going to do a Collector Spotlight on your own collection?” I’ve honestly been putting this one off. I’ve never wanted Collectors MD to be about me. But after enough people asked, I figured it was time to share a little more about my own collecting journey
Presented By All Touch Case At first glance, free giveaways seem harmless. A seller goes live, gives away a few cards, and everyone has some fun. It feels generous. Community-oriented. A nice way to reward viewers for hanging out. But it’s worth understanding why giveaways exist in the first place. Most giveaways aren’t primarily about giving things away. They’re about keeping you engaged. Every additional viewer helps the stream appear more active, increasing the likelihood
Presented By All Touch Case In a lot of ways, recovery can be compared to baseball analytics. In baseball, even the greatest players in the world are expected to fail most of the time. In recovery, however, the margins are far less forgiving. A player who gets a hit three out of every ten at-bats is considered exceptional. A .300 batting average can earn you All-Star appearances, MVP votes, and potentially a plaque in Cooperstown.
Presented By All Touch Case Lately, I’ve found myself reflecting on the movie Inception. Not necessarily the plot itself, but the famous concept at the center of the film: a dream within a dream within a dream. Every time the characters believed they had reached base reality, another layer appeared beneath them. Every answer created another question. Every destination revealed another place to go. The more I reflect on this concept, the more I realize
Collectors MD is proud to announce the launch of The CMD Foundation, a new nonprofit initiative dedicated to advancing awareness, education, prevention, support, and recovery for individuals and families impacted by compulsive collecting, overspending, gambling, gambling-adjacent behaviors, and related behavioral health challenges. To support this next chapter, The CMD Foundation has partnered with LOHAS through its fiscal sponsorship program, providing the infrastructure needed to begin accepting charitable contributions and expand the Foundation’s long-term impact. Since
Presented By All Touch Case Earlier this year, an individual signed up for our Weekly Peer Support Meetings. Like everyone else, they received a welcome email, were added to our weekly meeting invitations, and began receiving weekly reminders about upcoming support groups. Months went by. No responses. No meetings. No engagement. Then one evening my phone buzzed with a text message: “STOP”. Most organizations probably would’ve removed the number and moved on. Instead, I responded.
Presented By All Touch Case Wil Portillo, @xwilito_ This month, we’re proud to feature Wil Portillo (@xwilito_) – a lifelong collector whose story serves as a reminder that collecting isn’t always about value, scarcity, or profit. Sometimes it’s simply about preserving the things that make us feel connected to who we are. Like many collectors, Wil’s journey started long before he understood what a penny sleeve was. At just five years old, he was already
Collectors MD is proud to announce that Founder, Alyx Effron will be presenting at the National Conference on Gambling Addiction & Responsible Gambling 2026 Annual Conference hosted by the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG) in Nashville, Tennessee. The session, titled “Not Just a Hobby: How the Culture of Collecting Can Escalate Gambling Disorder”, will take place on July 24, 2026 from 9:45AM-11:00AM as part of the conference’s Foundations & Emerging Insights track. Alyx will
Presented By All Touch Case Earlier this year, we explored how intentional collecting can become a slippery slope when we aren’t fully honest with ourselves about what’s happening underneath the surface. We discussed triggers, dopamine cycles, rationalization, and how quickly boundaries can erode inside an environment specifically designed to weaken self-regulation. But there’s another layer to this discussion that may be even more important: How do people actually know which path is right for them
Presented By All Touch Case One of the strangest things about modern collecting is how normalized upcharges have become. Same service. Same process. Same amount of labor. Completely different price depending on what the item is worth. A grader looks at one card for a few seconds longer because it last sold for significantly more, and suddenly the fee quadruples. A marketplace facilitates the exact same transaction but takes a much larger cut simply because
Collectors MD is proud to officially launch A National Call To Action: Funding Responsible Collecting & Harm Reduction, a new initiative focused on increasing awareness, education, prevention, and support surrounding gambling-adjacent harm within modern collectible and digital consumer environments. This initiative represents an important step forward as Collectors MD continues building bridges between the collectibles industry, public health organizations, recovery communities, councils, coalitions, creators, and community leaders. Over the last several years, the collectibles ecosystem—along
