Presented By All Touch Case Lately, I’ve needed to remind myself that not every card in my personal collection needs to be graded, and not every grading decision needs to be tied to profit. The hobby often encourages us to view every card through the lens of monetary value, population reports, and potential returns. It’s easy to become consumed by questions like: “What’s this worth?” “Should I grade it?” “How much can I make if
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 How many times did I tell myself I was done buying sports cards? More importantly, why did I keep going back even after promising myself I would stop? The deeper I fell into compulsive collecting, the easier it became to justify every purchase. It didn’t matter if I had money to spend or not. It didn’t matter if I had already told myself “this is the last one”. My brain
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 Pain, disappointment, uncertainty, frustration, loss, urges, regret – none of these things are avoidable parts of life. As much as we try to outrun them, numb them, distract ourselves from them, or control them, difficult emotions eventually catch up to all of us. A lot of suffering comes not just from the pain itself, but from exhausting ourselves fighting reality and refusing to accept what already exists. That’s where radical
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
Presented By All Touch Case A lot of people still hear the name “Collectors MD” and assume this work only applies to sports cards or collectibles. On the surface, that makes sense. That’s where the conversation started and the world many of us came from. But the deeper we’ve gotten into this work, the clearer it’s become that this was never just about cards. At its core, it’s about patterns. More specifically, it’s about environments
Presented By All Touch Case The first Gamblers Anonymous meeting I ever attended was in November of 2022. I walked in, sat down with a group of complete strangers, and for the first time in my life, I told the truth about what was really going on. It was intimidating, but also strangely therapeutic. I’ve always been a strong communicator, so I leaned into that. I told my story with conviction, with emotion, with detail.
Collectors MD Collectors MD is proud to announce a new strategic partnership with HobbyScan, an AI-powered platform designed to help collectors instantly scan, identify, value, organize, and manage their cards from a single streamlined workflow. This partnership represents a meaningful step forward as we continue to align with tools and platforms that support intentional collecting, clarity, and better decision-making within today’s fast-moving hobby. HobbyScan is now included as a featured platform within the Intentional Collector’s
